The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 18 (2007)Clashing Perceptions of‘America’ in Trans-Paciﬁc Relations:
The Case of Anti-Americanism in South Korea

Seong-Ho LIM*

INTRODUCTION: GROWING ANTI-AMERICANSENTIMENT IN THE OLD ALLY
The image of America has experienced a massive turn of tide in theminds of the Korean people. It has in recent years plummeted from a predominantly positive to a somewhat negative or at least ambivalent status—in a speed highly unusual for such a macro-social phenomenon as
the public sentiment toward a foreign nation. This rapid and large-scale
deterioration in the Korean perception of America is an enigma generating scholarly curiosity.
Historically, South Korea has been perceived to be the last country toharbor anti-American feelings. The Republic of Korea (R.O.K) and the
U.S. have maintained close ties since the end of World War II. To Korean
people, the U.S. was the savior, ﬁrst from Japanese colonialism and thenfrom Communist aggression. The Korean War and the resulting U.S.R.O.K. mutual defense treaty, signed in 1953, along with the hugeamounts of U.S. economic aid through the 1950s up to the 1970s ﬁrmly
consolidated the two countries’ partnership and even elevated it into a
Copyright © 2007 Seong-Ho Lim. All rights reserved. This work may be used,with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work
may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without
permission from the author.
*Professor, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea

143

144

SEONG-HO LIM

national brotherhood. According to a public poll in 1965, sixty-eight percent of South Korean people chose the U.S. as their favorite country,
while less than 1 percent of the respondents said they disliked it.1 People
in the southern half of the Korean peninsula imported from the U.S. avast array of institutions and values ranging from their educational system to economic practices to political institutions to socio-cultural lifestyles. Even religiously, Koreans warmly accepted American inﬂuences:
Christianity, especially Protestantism, has widely spread among the public, rivaling the traditional Buddhism in the number of followers.
The recent reality, however, is far from the historical national brotherhood that Korean and American people had once taken for granted.
Koreans no longer demonstrate favorable feelings toward the U.S. According to Gallup polls conducted in 2002 and 2003, almost twice as
many South Koreans disliked the U.S. than liked it (60% to 34%).
Seventy percent of South Koreans thought that U.S. foreign policies hada bad impact on Korea, while only 15% regarded the U.S. inﬂuences as
good. Excluding Muslim countries, South Korea topped all other countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center in negativity toward the
U.S.’s war efforts in Iraq. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents said they
were disappointed by the lack of Iraqi military resistance; only 26% expressed a happy feeling about it.2 And 74% of South Korean respondents
agreed that the U.S. did not try hard to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq.3
When asked in 2002 if the U.S. government considered others’ concerns,
only 23% answered yes, as opposed to 73% saying no.4 As to the U.S.led war on terrorism, favorable responses were a mere 24%, relative to
72% opposing. This negativity in South Korea is by far the highest
among non-Muslim countries.5
The growing animosity to the U.S. is a rather abrupt and recent phenomenon. When anti-Americanism ﬁrst came to the fore in South Korea
in the 1980s, it was conﬁned to only a small segment of society. Radicalcollege students led anti-American campaigns, blaming the U.S. for perpetually dividing the peninsula and supporting the suppressive regimesof military dictators. But their often violent demonstrations failed togarner much public sympathy, and instead scared ordinary citizens off.
Trade conﬂicts between the two countries occasionally sparked feelingsof uneasiness in Korea, but hostility was far from widespread or serious.
The benign image of America as a helping neighbor was so deep-rooted
in the Korean mind that sporadic tensions did not make a dent in it until
the 1980s.

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

145

Anti-Americanism had to wait until the 1990’s to permeate into the
middle class and emerge as a socially salient and controversial issue.
Continuing trade conﬂicts antagonized increasing numbers of farmers,
industrial leaders, and workers. A series of crimes by U.S. soldiers stationed in the peninsula and the disputes over the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) angered the general public. Moreover, seemingly small
incidents in 2002—namely, the Winter Olympics short-track skating
episode and the deaths of two middle-school girls in a trafﬁc accident by
a U.S. armored vehicle—fueled an explosive burst in the Anti-American
mood. After reaching a peak during the 2002 presidential election, antiAmericanism seems to have somewhat subsided, but still persists amonga large number of Korean people. Today anti-Americanism is no longera radical leftist phenomenon in South Korea.
How was this turn of tide possible? What explains the growth of thisunfavorable attitude among Korean people toward their long-time ally?
These questions call for a very extensive and in-depth analysis on a wide
variety of factors including historical, social, economic, political, andcultural situations in both Korea and the U.S. as well as particular U.S.
foreign policies and general psychological tendencies of human beings.
It would be, however, impossible to deal with all those factors in a limited
space. Pursuing a much more modest goal, therefore, this article will
characterize how perceptions of America have recently changed in theminds of Koreans and also will interpret what implications the clashingperceptions of America between South Korea and the U.S. might havewith respect to trans-Paciﬁc relations in general.
Speciﬁcally, this article ﬁrst describes a curious characteristic ofKorean anti-Americanism: its main target of animosity is increasingly
the abstract concept of America as a whole rather than its particularleaders or policies. Then, it contrasts the recent Korean perception ofAmerica as a self-centered hegemonic Big Brother with the mainstream
American self-image as a ‘city upon a hill’ spreading noble ideals globally. Exploring the contradictory perceptions of America within the US
and in Korea, this article ﬁnds that they share a common ideological rootof narrow-minded nationalism. Unless people in both societies overcome
their nationalistic obsessions, this article concludes, they are bound tooverly exaggerate the virtue of their own values and practices and amplify hostility to the other side. If clashing perceptions of America, anatural by-product of nationalistic fervor in Korea and the U.S., persist,
they will be a major stumbling block to the broader trans-Paciﬁc relations as well as to the U.S.-Korea relationship in particular.

146

I.

SEONG-HO LIM

HEGEMONIC BIG BROTHER: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICA
IN SOUTH KOREA

A puzzling fact is that those Koreans who have unfavorable views of
the U.S. for the most part base their opinions on their feelings about the
U.S. generally, not about a speciﬁc leader such as President Bush. According to a Pew Center poll conducted in 2002, an overwhelming majority (72%) of the South Koreans with unfavorable opinions of the U.S.
attributed their negative view of the U.S. to a general problem with
America as a whole rather than a particular problem with President Bushor his foreign policies.6 Only 20% of the “unfavorable” respondents
based their views of the U.S. on President Bush. In virtually all otherPew-surveyed countries, by contrast, it was Bush and his policies, notAmerica in general, that aroused anti-American anger. Table 1 below
shows the results of the Pew surveys.
Table 2 below, summarizing the results of the Gallup Korea polls conducted in 2002 and 2003, supports the curious ﬁnding in Table 1 that the
Korean people with a negative view of America take the U.S. in its
entirety as the main target of their animosity. Unfavorable sentimenttoward the U.S. in general was stronger than that toward U.S. foreign
policy in particular: antipathy to an abstract macro-level object (i.e., theU.S. itself) was intense, while a more speciﬁc object (i.e., U.S. foreign
policy) aroused a relatively mild level of negativity. Regarding the question, “Do you like or dislike the U.S.?,” the number of the respondents
saying “dislike a lot” was slightly larger than that of those saying “dislike a little.” People with a strong animosity outnumbered those with amild animosity. On the other hand, regarding a different question on amore speciﬁc object, “Does the U.S. foreign policy have a good inﬂuence
on South Korea?,” the answers showed a reverse pattern. Clearly more
people chose the “somewhat bad” rather than the “very bad” answer.
The two tables below suggest that those Koreans harboring an unfavorable sentiment to the U.S. target their anger at the broader concept ofAmerica itself more than at narrower objects such as President Bush or
U.S. foreign policies. This suggestion is re-afﬁrmed by the fact that
Koreans with an anti-American attitude mostly resent the overall way
U.S. foreign polices are implemented; in contrast, speciﬁc contents of
U.S. policies are not necessarily a major factor brewing animosity. In apublic poll, those Koreans with a negative feeling toward the U.S. cited
U.S. unilateralism generally as the most important reason for their neg-CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’147

Table 1. “What Is the Problem with the U.S.?”(Opinions of those with an unfavorable attitude to the U.S.)
Mostly Bush(%)

America ingeneral (%)

Both
(%)

Don’t know(%)

N

France74

21

4Germany

74

22

3

1

266

4

Indonesia

69

20

7

Italy

67

24

9

301
798
190

Morocco

66

14

18

2

660

Pakistan

62

31

2

5

808

2

175

Canada60

32

6Nigeria

60

22

18

Great
Britain

59

31

8

3

153

Brazil

56

36

6

2

608

Australia

53

40

6

1

190

Turkey

52

33

12

3

829

Lebanon

51

32

16

1

710

Spain

50

37

12

2

281

Kuwait

44

42

8

6

159

Russia

43

32

15

10

281

Jordan

42

28

30

366

988

Israel

37

42

15

6

304

Palestine
Auth.

31

32

36

1

784

72

7

1

262

South Korea
20
Source: Pew Center 2003a, 22.

ativity: 58% of the anti-American respondents chose U.S. unilateralism
as the number one reason.7 The stationing of U.S. soldiers on the Korean
peninsula drew only 14.3% of the unfavorable responses, and the U.S.’s
hard-line policy toward North Korea drew an even smaller proportion,i.e., 4.5%. In fact, Koreans are overall highly favorable regarding close
ties with the U.S. For example, 93.1% of the respondents said that a good
U.S.-Korean relationship was important to the national interest; 81.7%
agreed that the mutual defense treaty contributed to peace; 87.4% concurred that the stationing of U.S. military on the peninsula was importantto security; and 82.8% agreed to the need to keep the U.S. military on

148

SEONG-HO LIM

Table 2.

Koreans’ Perception of the U.S. and Its Foreign Policy(ﬁgure: %)“Do you like or dislike the U.S.?”(Gallup Korea Poll 2002/2/26)

Age
20’s
30’s
40’s
Over 50’s
Education
Below highschoolHigh school
Over college“Does the U.S. foreign policy
have a good inﬂuence
on South Korea?”(Gallup Korea Poll 2003/2/8)

Like
a lot

Like Dislike Dislike Don’t Very Some- Some- Verya little a little a lot know good what what bad
good
bad

Don’t
know

4.8
2.2
11.1
18.6

18.3
19.0
29.8
31.4

8.4
9.2
14.9
27.1

28.8
38.4
26.0
22.5

41.4
35.6
29.4
16.9

6.7
4.8
3.7
10.6

0.3
0.9
1.0
6.1

8.9
7.7
12.8
19.6

49.8
48.1
51.8
36.3

32.7
34.1
19.5
10.9

19.8

32.2

19.5

13.8

14.7

6.4

15.4

33.9

11.2

33.1

8.1
5.1

21.3
23.3

32.0
31.2

32.8
37.0

5.9
3.5

1.5
1.2

14.4
9.9

45.4
51.3

23.1
29.7

15.6
8.0

IncomeLow
Middle
High

18.6
6.7
6.7

31.6
23.1
23.3

22.6
29.7
31.9

15.6
33.6
34.5

11.7
6.9
3.5

7.6
1.4
1.2

19.2
12.3
10.3

31.7
48.7
49.5

9.7
23.0
32.0

31.8
14.8
7.0

Residence
Metropolitan
Small city
Rural

9.5
8.1
11.6

23.5
24.0
29.1

32.7
26.1
24.1

28.9
34.0
27.3

5.4
7.8
7.9

2.2
1.7
4.7

12.6
12.4
12.6

46.5
46.4
42.1

24.6
24.1
20.4

14.2
15.3
20.3

7.6
7.6
4.0
22.0

19.5
20.3
15.9
29.9

32.4
33.1
31.2
18.9

36.3
36.4
43.8
17.9

4.1
2.7
5.1
11.3

0.8
0.5
0.0
4.8

11.8
9.9
8.4
10.6

46.7
51.0
45.7
36.5

25.7
33.0
37.8
16.6

15.0
5.6
8.1
31.5

10.8

20.7

31.2

32.4

5.0

3.3

15.0

53.6

17.5

10.7

6.9
17.4

30.6
30.6

26.8
24.7

26.5
16.1

9.2
11.2

3.1
5.5

14.0
19.3

42.8
42.0

18.3
11.9

21.7
21.3

Occupation
Blue collar
White collar
Student
1st industry
Selfemployed
Housewife
Unemployed

the peninsula at least until reuniﬁcation. While largely supportive of U.S.
foreign policies and a close U.S.-R.O.K. relationship, Koreans feel
offended by the general way the U.S. government treats them.
The tendency of Koreans to direct their negative feelings to America
in general more than to speciﬁc aspects of America is actually in line

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

149

with a growing global trend. Although the anti-American global publics
still think that Bush is a bigger problem than America in general, respondents in most parts of the world are recently more and more attributing
their negative views of the U.S. to America itself generally. Table 3 demonstrates this new global tendency of late. When comparing the 2005
survey with that conducted two years earlier, the tendency is undeniable.
The number of those who say that America in general, more than Bush,is mostly the problem with the U.S. has considerably increased in mostof the surveyed countries.
South Korea led this global trend of totalizing anti-Americanism
targeting America generally. As Table 1 above indicates, already in
2002/2003 Koreans attributed their negative opinions of the U.S. mostly
to America in its entirety. This was a few years ahead of the global trend.
Today, the object of antipathy in the minds of global anti-American
people has increasingly turned from speciﬁc aspects of America toward
the abstract collective entity, i.e., America itself. To totalizing antiAmerican critics, the U.S. represents the “they” who are collectively anouter-group fundamentally different from “us.” Since “they” are collective and abstract, they are not necessarily limited to certain speciﬁc vices;rather, “they” could be sweepingly condemned as the fundamental rootof all bad things. In Revel’s words, “[a]nti-Americanism is at base a totalizing, if not a totalitarian, vision”.8
When a public enemy is perceived to be something big, broad, andabstract, it tends to generate an especially strong degree of social wrath.
When the public enemy is perceived to be a collective whole rather thanparticular parts, anger is socially justiﬁed with relative ease. Reductionist
animosity, blaming the public enemy for all the problems, inevitably
creeps into people’s minds. America had enjoyed a highly positive image
as a benevolent big brother for several decades in Korean society, buttoday, in a massive turn of tide, it is facing a rise of totalizing animosity.
In the eyes of those Koreans with unfavorable views of their old ally,
America is today an imposing fearsome Big Brother who intervenes in
Korean issues and coerces Koreans to do this and do that. Notably, antiAmerican Koreans do not relate the malevolent image of Big Brother
only to Bush or his policies; but they seem to think that the whole
American system generally is fundamentally behind all the problems in
its relationship with other countries—such as unilateral foreign policies
and arrogant interventions in domestic issues.

150

SEONG-HO LIM

Table 3.

“What Is the Problem with the U.S.?”
Comparison of 2005 with 2003
(Opinions of those with an unfavorable attitude to the U.S.)Country

Year/Difference

MostlyBush(%)

America ingeneral (%)

Both
(%)

Don’t know(%)

Germany

2003
2005
Difference

74
65
9

22
29
+7

3
5
+2

1
1
0

France2003
2005
Difference

74
63
11

21
32
+11

4
5
+1

—
1
—

Britain2003
2005
Difference

59
56
3

31
35
+4

8
8
0

3
1
2

Canada2003
2005
Difference

60
54
6

32
37
+5

6
9
+3

2
0
2

Russia2003
2005
Difference

43
30
13

32
58
+26

15
9
6

10
3
7

Turkey2003
2005
Difference

52
41
11

33
36
+3

12
17
+5

3
6
+3

Indonesia

2003
2005
Difference

69
43
26

20
42
+22

7
0
7

4
15
+11

Jordan2003
2005
Difference

42
22
20

28
37
+9

30
41
+11

—
1
—

Lebanon2003
2005
Difference

51
47
4

32
32
0

16
19
+3

1
1
0

Spain

2003
2005
Difference

50
76
+26

37
14
23

12
7
5

2
3
+1

2003
2005
Difference
Source: Pew Center 2005, 16.

62
51
11

31
29
2

2
10
+8

5
10
+5

PakistanCLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

II.

151

CITY UPON A HILL: LINGERING MYTHS OF AMERICA IN THE U.S.

The growing totalizing antipathy toward the U.S. as a whole may be
no surprise, considering that American citizens themselves are increasingly taking a simple nationalistic “us-versus-them” attitude. Americans
tend to draw a clear dividing line between themselves as one nation andother foreigners. Americanism, a synthetic collection of various nationalistic ideas and values, has been further strengthened in American
society in recent years.9 When Americans believe that their nation is
uniquely blessed by God and is given the divine duty to spread justiceglobally, it is natural for them to view global issues from an ethnocentric
perspective. Then, it is also natural for foreign people to regard America
as a unitary collective actor and, if they are resentful, target their hostility
to America in its entirety rather than to narrower objects such as aparticular U.S. policy or politician. Anti-Americanism toward a broad
abstract object (i.e., America generally) in many corners of the world isa natural concomitant of the recent uniting of Americans under thenational ﬂag of Americanism.
Americanism is a loose amalgam of nationalistic patriotism, religious
moralism, and historical exceptionalism. Each of these elements, closely
related to and overlapping with one another, has increased in its intensity
in the past several years. Let me ﬁrst elaborate on the rise of nationalistic patriotism. Americans’ patriotism, already higher than in most othercountries, has further risen since 1999 among both Republicans and
Democrats.10 Up to 91% of the American respondents agreed that they
were patriotic; especially, the number of those who “completely” agree
has continued to rise since the mid-1990’s and reached its highest level(56%) in 2003.11 This growing patriotism entailed an ethnocentric sentiment hostile to foreigners and alien values and cultures. Twenty-fourpercent of the survey respondents seriously considered boycotting
French and German products because they were angry over France’s andGermany’s opposition to the war with Iraq; 14% said that they actually
stopped buying products from those countries.12 Seventy-seven percentof the respondents agreed that the U.S. should restrict and control foreigners coming into the country to live.13 The recent political conﬂicts
surrounding immigration policy reﬂect this ethnocentric patriotism.
Religious moralism, another component of nationalistic Americanism,has recently become even ﬁrmer and has further consolidated Americans’ethnocentric self-portrait as a chosen people. According to a Pew Center

152

SEONG-HO LIM

survey in 2003, an overwhelming majority of American citizens (81%)
said yes to a question asking if praying to God was an important part oftheir life; this ﬁgure is the highest ever since 1987 when the Pew Centerﬁrst began asking this question.14 Those who “completely” agreed thatpraying to God was an important part of their life comprised 51% of all
the respondents, a clear increase from 41% in 1987. In the same 2003
Pew survey, 87% agreed that they never doubted the presence of God.
Immediately after the 2004 elections, 32% of American voters identiﬁedthemselves as Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals.15 Reﬂecting theresurgence of religious voices, issues such as abortion, homosexuality,
stem cell research, and evolutionary theory have stirred intense moral
controversies and social conﬂicts to an extent inconceivable in other
Western countries. Typically, those social issues were dominated by religious groups backed by a large Christian population. With respect to thecontroversy surrounding evolutionary theory, a majority (55%) rejected
evolutionary theory and said that God created human beings as we know
them today; a mere 13% said that human beings have gone through evolutionary stages, and 27% agreed that human beings experienced evolution under the providence of God.16
Americans’ ethnocentric patriotism and self-righteous religious moralism have historically formed the unique idea of American exceptionalism. According to this peculiar idea, America is exceptional—in otherwords, different from other countries—in the sense that it was createdand has been maintained on the ideal values of liberty and equality anddoes not give a priority to realistic interests and power. America is a “cityupon a hill” that every nation must look to as the ideal model for civilized and moralized societies. Since the colonial era, American citizens
have cherished this self-ﬂattering notion of exceptionalism, thus claiming their moral obligation to spread American ideals globally. America
must be a good example for others to imitate, must defend freedom in acountry in jeopardy, and must bring freedom to those who have notenjoyed it yet. As long as this kind of exceptionalism drives Americans’self-perception, they continue to believe that U.S. actions on the global
stage are not merely for themselves, but for the world generally. They
think that U.S. interventions in other countries’ issues are indeed wellintended and thus globalist in a positive sense, not unilateralist.
The exceptionalist belief in the virtue of American values and in theinfallibility of American practices declined somewhat in the 1970’s as aresult of internal conﬂicts surrounding the Vietnam War, the civil rights

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

153

movement, and stagﬂation. But it has resurged in recent years, especiallyin the aftermath of the 9.11 tragedy. The rise of American exceptionalism
culminated in the emergence of neo-conservatives as the dominant actors
in American politics and foreign policymaking. Neo-conservatives arehawkish idealists: they believe that America as a chosen noble nationmust spread its ideal values of freedom and democracy to every cornerof the world and can do so only through a strong exercise of power. Neoconservatives certainly do not receive unanimous support from American
citizens; critics from liberal and moderate camps never hesitate to charge
neo-cons with being “extreme” in their policy prescriptions. While neoconservative foreign policies provoke some thorny criticisms, however,
the exceptionalist self-portrait of Americans as the blessed people living
in a “city upon a hill” that neo-conservatives re-popularized is today
widely accepted by Americans.
As patriotism, religious morals, and exceptionalist beliefs grow more
and more, Americans are looking at themselves through a self-centeredprism of nationalistic Americanism. About a half century ago, Louis
Hartz warned of the dogmatic attitude of Americans believing in theabsolute virtue of their liberal tradition and being intolerant of alternative ideas and foreign values.17 Americans’ dogmatism, Hartz argued,
stemmed from an excessively high degree of social homogeneity. To be
sure, the homogeneous society that Hartz had talked of became a mythin the 1960’s and 1970’s through a series of serious internal conﬂicts.
Social homogeneity has not been restored in America; rather, politicalpundits today point out an ever-widening polarization of American society. But, importantly, Americans—Democrats and Republicans alike—are today more nationalistic than, say, ten years ago. Even Democrats,
much less patriotic and less religious than Republicans, seem to takeglobal issues from a binary “us-versus-them” point of view. A strong
sense of threat by external forces, maximized by the 9.11 terror, musthave made American people think and behave more in a collective manner.
III.

NATIONALISTIC ROOTS OF ANTI-AMERICANISM IN SOUTH
KOREA

The previous two sections show both a fundamental difference and aclose similarity between the perceptions of America in South Korea andin the U.S. On one hand, Americans have a very positive perception of

154

SEONG-HO LIM

their country, while Koreans’ perception of America has turned fromhighly positive to somewhat negative or at most ambivalent. On the other
hand, however, both countries’ people increasingly think of America as
if it were a unitary entity. South Koreans with an unfavorable sentiment
to the U.S. tend to target their animosity toward America as an abstract
whole rather than toward speciﬁc policies or leaders, and U.S. citizens
increasingly cherish the idea that their country in its entirety was blessedby God. Totalizing anti-Americanism in South Korea today bears a close
parallel to a similarly sweeping (pro-)Americanism in the U.S.
The public perceptions in the two countries, though contradictory,
share the same nationalistic roots. National sentiment toward a foreigncountry is formed in relative terms, depending on situations in the country. Therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that Koreans’ comprehensive
negative feeling toward America as a whole has been at least partly
driven by growing nationalistic values and attitudes on the side ofAmericans. It is natural for anti-American people to vent their sweeping
anger at America generally, when Americans themselves approach
global issues from a simplistic “us-and-them” perspective. Figuring out
which came ﬁrst would be impossible, but nationalistic minds reinforce
each other. Intensiﬁcation of nationalistic Americanism motivates global
publics, including Koreans, to regard America as a unitary entity and, if
resentful, take a nationalist attitude by criticizing America in its entirety.
Totalizing anti-Americanism based on nationalistic values on the part ofglobal publics antagonizes nationalistic Americans who in turn come toignore all global condemnations, even valid ones, and go it alone. This
unilateral attitude of the U.S. further fuels a sweeping unfavorable feeling to the U.S. Nationalistic hostilities between the U.S. and other countries are trapped in a vicious circle.
Certainly, anti-Americanism in Korea has been provoked by manyother factors besides nationalistic impulses. There is a long list of shortterm and long-term factors that are at least partially responsible for the
recent spread of comprehensive uneasy feelings toward America. For
one, domestic politics in Korea must have played a role of triggering atorrent of unfavorable sentiment. President Kim Dae Jung pursued an
appeasing “sunshine” policy toward North Korea despite the U.S. government’s reluctance; he often publicly criticized the U.S. ofﬁcials’ hardline stance and rhetorically appealed to the Korean public. Then, in the2002 presidential election, the anti-status quo candidate Roh Moo-Hyunplayed the (anti-)American card; being anti-American was a vote-getter

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

155

in the election in the aftermath of the death of two middle school girls
hit by a U.S. armored vehicle. And left-leaning media and citizen groups,
in their efforts to shift the society in their direction, relentlessly attacked
established politicians and elites for their pro-American orientation. Fora while, in 2002 and 2003, the anti-status quo rhetoric by the new President Roh and his supporters sounded almost identical to anti-American
slogans. This kind of Korean domestic politics must have contributed tospreading suspicion and anger regarding the U.S. in many parts of
Korean society.
Bush’s unilateral hawkish foreign policy, marking a contrast to
Clinton’s softer engagement policy, also must have played a role inspreading unfavorable feelings toward the U.S. His allegedly arrogant
unilateralism reminds Koreans of the unequal, U.S.-dominant nature of
the bilateral relationship between the two allies. Moreover, in the eyesof his critics, his self-righteous moral stance highlights the hypocrisy or
double standard of U.S. policy. Speciﬁcally, critics charge, Bush’s aggressive posture toward North Korea (e.g., National Missile Defense
plan, the Axis of Evil address, preemptive strike policy, disapproval of“sunshine policy”) increases a sense of insecurity (both strategic and economic) in the minds of South Koreans who feel Bush does not consider
South Korean interests and puts South Korea’s security at risk.
Effective as they are to an extent, such short-term factors as domestic
politics in Korea or Bush’s policies alone could have not aroused sucha strong totalizing antipathy among Korean people. American ofﬁcials
may ﬁnd it politically convenient to attribute the growing anti-Americanism
in Korea to calculated political maneuverings by Korean partisan leaders. Similarly, anti-American Koreans may want to make Bush’s foreign
policies a convenient scapegoat to justify all their angry and uneasy feelings. But, without nationalistic ideology fanning antipathy to a hegemonic Big Brother, domestic politics or U.S. foreign policies would nothave been able to trigger a large-scale burst of animosity. Explaining a
totalizing hostility to the U.S. generally calls for more fundamental ideological factors.
In an effort to ﬁnd a fundamental factor for anti-Americanism in South
Korea, some may argue that a political distrust thesis is supported. A
growing public distrust of government and politics is likely to lead to asimilar level of distrust of a dominant foreign country that, as a partnerof the incumbent government, symbolizes a primary absolute power andauthority. According to a Pew Center survey, there has indeed been a

156

SEONG-HO LIM

rapid deterioration in the Korean public trust in government and politics.
Eighty-one percent of the South Korean respondents said that the government was usually inefﬁcient and wasteful.18 Among the 41 countries
surveyed on this issue, Korea was the third worst, after only Brazil (84%)
and Italy (82%). To quote a Pew Center report, “South Koreans also disapprove of the political changes that have taken place over the last ﬁve
years, a period marked by corruption scandals, economic problems andrising tensions with North Korea. Fewer than four-in-ten South Koreans(37%) approve of recent political changes, while a majority (56%) disapproves”.19
There seems to be a correlation between this distrust/dissatisfaction
and anti-American sentiment. Political distrust/dissatisfaction is stronger
among those who are younger, more highly educated, liberal, urban residents with higher income and those who belong to organized groups(blue collar, white collar, and students). These are the very people who
harbor a greater degree of anti-Americanism, too, as Table 2 aboveshows. Anti-political feelings might have been transformed into antiAmericanism, since many arguably believe that the Korean establishment(government ofﬁcials and politicians) is close to and even controlled by
the U.S. Anti-political feelings may beget general hostility toward any
authority in control of large parts of social life, and this general anti-establishment and anti-authority sentiment may promote a comprehensive negativity toward the U.S. with its dominating inﬂuences on Korean society.
The political distrust thesis, however, only partially explains the recent
rise in Korea of unfavorable sentiment toward the U.S. Few would deemthe current ruling regime as a close friend of the U.S.: President Roh waselected largely thanks to his anti-status quo and anti-U.S. promises, andhis administration’s policies have repeatedly irritated Washington ofﬁcials. His supporters—ruling party members and liberal groups—even
more explicitly express their reservations about the close historicalbrotherhood between the two countries. Considering this uneasy, tenseand sometimes even tumultuous relationship between the current Korean
government and the U.S., it would be difﬁcult to reason that Korean people’s distrust of their own government and politics naturally generated
their unfavorable attitudes toward the U.S. as a main sponsor of the government and real power holder.
All in all, nationalist movements and a nationalistic public mood seem
to provide the most fundamental driving force for the recent antiAmericanism in Korea. Without nationalist inﬂuences, other short-term

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

157

situations would have not been able to turn the Korean mindset in sucha rapid and massive fashion. In fact, Korean society in the 2000’s was
ready for nationalistic impulses to revive; several conditions have been
sufﬁciently met. For one, Koreans have a time-honored tradition of antiforeign sentiment as a result of humiliating historical experiences. They
were under Chinese hegemonic control for several hundred years, andthen Korea became a helpless arena for ﬁerce imperialistic competitionsin the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Sino-Japanese
War and the Russo-Japanese War effectively ended the long Korean history of monarchical rule and put the Korean peninsula under Japanesecolonialism (1910–1945). The post-WWII Korea then has been divided
and dominantly inﬂuenced by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, with thesouthern half of the peninsula as a peripheral state in the U.S. bloc andthe northern counterpart as a satellite state in the Communist bloc.
Seen from this long historical perspective, anti-Americanism may bejust a part or extension of a broader anti-foreign sentiment. According
to Chaibong Hahm, “it is not so much America per se that is the objectof nationalist sentiment. It is just that America happens to be the hegemon of the time and the possessor of the ‘global standard’ that Koreans
are forced to adopt”.20 Some form of antipathy to the most dominating
foreign power of the day—whether it is the U.S. or China or Japan—has
been and will always be present. Anti-foreign sentiment may be an inseparable part of the Korean national psyche that ceaselessly calls for thepresence of a certain wicked “them” to mirror and unite the innocent “us”
of the Korean people.
But Korean nationalism is not merely a reﬂection of time-honored
anti-foreign sentiment. It is also a product of more recent trends. Withoutsome recent factors, it would be impossible to explain why an overwhelming pro-American sentiment so rapidly and massively deteriorated and why so much hostility erupts today, but did not, say, in theearly 1980’s, when many South Koreans believed the U.S. government
was a crucial accomplice in Presidents Park’s and Chun’s authoritarian
rules. Some recent events or social trends other than a historical anti-foreign psyche inherited from the distant past must have awakened andfueled the previously dormant anti-American sentiment.
One such social trend underlying the recent antipathy to America is thecoming of the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War, South Koreans
had to seriously worry about military aggressions from the North andhad a strong incentive to maintain friendly ties with their powerful

158

SEONG-HO LIM

defense ally (the U.S.). Fear of Communist threats had naturally generated a ﬁrm pro-American mood. But the fall of the Berlin Wall and thecollapse of North Korea in economic as well as military capabilities signiﬁcantly reduced a sense of security threat in the minds of South
Koreans. Especially since the 2000 North-South Summit, North Korea
has been seen as a poor relative begging for help from a richer South
Korea. These changed situations alleviated the half-century-old antiCommunist hostility and consequently ushered in nationalism as a new
ideology ﬁlling the vacuum and uniting the society: “the discourse ofnationalism, hitherto relegated to a secondary status, began to resurface.”21 Anti-American sentiment is a natural component of this newly
rising nationalism.
Closely related to the post-Cold War situation is a substantial progressin democratization since 1987. A relatively freer social atmosphere now
allowed a long-forbidden nationalistic revisionist reinterpretation of
Korean history to go public, fueling resentment toward the many
historical roles the U.S. played in regard to Korea. A long list of U.S.
government actions—especially those in relation to the Katsura-Taftagreement (1905), the division of Korea along the 38 degree latitude(1945), the military rule of the southern half of the Korean peninsula(1945–48), the Korean War (1950–53), and tacit support for the past
repressive regimes—became vulnerable to revisionist accusations andnationalist anger. Some may say that anti-Americanism was an inevitable outgrowth of democratic advancement in a country where only anofﬁcial beautiﬁed image of the U.S. had been allowed previously.
The respectable economic success of South Korea in the 1980’s and1990’s was another social trend that helped nationalistic anti-American
feelings to grow. It boosted a sense of conﬁdence and national pride
among South Koreans and lessened a once-dominant motivation to relyon the U.S. for economic assistance. As the South Korean economy
soared, the U.S. began to be often seen as a competitor, not a benevolent
sponsor as it used to be. The increased trade conﬂicts between the U.S.
and a rising Korean economy bolstered many newly-proud Koreans’
antipathy toward U.S. trade policy in particular and America’s hegemonic status in general.
The nationalistic mood was not merely a product of economic success; ironically, it was also fueled by terrible economic failures. While
making considerable economic achievements through the 1990’s, SouthCLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

159

Korea also suffered through some tough adaptation problems in its transition from a state-led economy to a globalized free-market system. Thistransition, far from smooth, ampliﬁed a sense of irritation and often confusion among a large number of ordinary Korean citizens. The eventual
ﬁnancial debacle and the IMF bailout in 1997 and 1998 were seen as anational shame, spreading a sense of humiliation and helplessness acrossthe society. South Koreans, now suddenly in bankruptcy, felt resentful
toward the IMF and its leading nation, the U.S., for globalization-inﬂicted
problems and their encroaching on the economic independence of South
Korea in return for the IMF bailout. Regardless of whether this national
resentment of the IMF and the U.S. was justiﬁable or not, globalizationand its concomitant negative consequences helped arouse nationalistic
sentiment in South Korea and thereby provided a favorable condition for
animosity to the U.S. to grow.
A combination of the above social trends—the coming of the postCold War, democratization, economic success, globalization and its adaptation crisis—have promoted a strong nationalist atmosphere in South
Korea since the 1990’s. Today nationalism has surged as the dominant
ideology leading the Korean public psyche. Among the Pew-surveyed
Asian countries, South Korea was near the top, only slightly behindIndonesia, in the percentage of respondents agreeing that their way oflife needed to be protected against foreign inﬂuences: Indonesia 87%,
South Korea 82%, Philippines 81%, Bangladesh 77%, India 76%,
Pakistan 71%, China 64%, and Japan 63%.22 A historic change of the
Korean national mood from a highly pro-American to somewhat ambivalent to negative status was possible only with this backdrop of strong
nationalist values: “A rise in anti-Americanism might be a component
in the natural path of South Korea’s graduation from a client state to a
dynamic and vibrant member of the international community”.23 The
U.S., the single global superpower and the long-time dominant patronof South Korea that has prevailed in most aspects of the U.S.-R.O.K.
relations, becomes a natural target for nationalistic resentment.
Moreover, the recent re-strengthening of nationalistic Americanism on
the side of Americans furthers the anti-American sentiment of global
publics and especially instigates a totalizing animosity targeting the U.S.
as a whole, as the South Korean case exempliﬁes.

160

SEONG-HO LIM

CONCLUSION
This article reveals a curious characteristic of anti-American sentiment in South Korea: the abstract object of America in general rather
than its speciﬁc aspects is a main target of unfavorable feelings.
Nationalism, rising as a dominant ideology in Korea as a result of several
social trends, domestic politics, and unilateral U.S. foreign policy, is driving a sweeping negativity toward America as a hegemonic Big Brother.
And the re-surging nationalistic Americanism among Americans
sanctifying themselves as a chosen people living in a ‘city upon a hill’
is further fanning a totalizing animosity toward the U.S. Firm nationalist
impulses in both Korea and the U.S. underlie the surprising antiAmericanism and comprehensive hostility toward America in its entirety
in South Korea, once undoubtedly the closest ally of the U.S.
Unless people in both societies overcome their nationalistic obsession,
the future of the U.S.-R.O.K. relationship is not likely to be very bright.
Koreans and Americans are bound to overly exaggerate the virtue of theirown values and practices and intensify unfavorable attitudes toward theother side. Nationalistically-driven people have a distorted negative
perception of others and keep a rosy mythical perception of themselves.
Perverted perceptions reinforce each other. Anti-Americanism in South
Korea in turn reverberates back through anti-Koreanism among
Americans who might feel betrayed about being disliked for theirarguably benign policies. Negative feelings escalate in a vicious cycle.
Unless the clashing perceptions of America, a natural by-product ofnationalistic fervors in Korea and the U.S., disappear, they would posea real threat to the U.S.-Korea relationship in particular as well as to thebroader trans-Paciﬁc relations.
Whom and what to blame? It is not easy to pinpoint a cause of thegrowing anti-American sentiment globally. Efforts to narrow down on
a particular cause could easily ﬁzzle down to a blame game. Some
sweepingly attribute the escalating hostility between Americans andanti-American global publics to problems on the side of the U.S.—its
hegemonic inﬂuences and power, ethnocentric moralist values, and unilateral actions.24 Others ﬁnd a root cause of the global clash of contradictory perceptions and antipathies on the side of complaining non-U.S.
countries—their economic distress, social instability, political upheaval,
identity crisis, partisan demagogy, extreme tribalism, and even pure jealousy.25 The two camps seem trapped in a stalemate continuing their

CLASHING PERCEPTIONS OF ‘AMERICA’

161

blame game with no real conversation, let alone a conclusion. This article
ﬁnds an implication from the South Korean case: ethnocentric nationalist
ideologies tend to blind the people in their perception of other countries.
Only overcoming extreme nationalistic feelings would allow us—
Koreans, Americans, and other global publics alike—to approach international relations in a rational and balanced manner.
NOTES
Korea Times, 9 May 2003.
Pew Research Center, Views of a Changing World, June 2003, 4.
3Ibid., 24.
4
Pew Research Center, What the World Thinks in 2002, November 2002, 60.
5
Ibid.
6
Pew Research Center, 2003a, 22.
7
Joongang Daily, 22 September 2003, A4.
8
Jean-Francois Revel, Anti-Americanism (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002),
143.
9
Stanley A. Renshon, ed., One America? Political Leadership, National Identity, andthe Dilemmas of Diversity (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001);
Michael Lind, The Next American Nation: the New Nationalism and the Fourth ofAmerican Revolution (N.Y.: Free Press, 1995).
10
Pew Research Center, Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized: 2004 PoliticalLandscape, November, 2003, 33.
11
Ibid., 28.
12Pew, Views, 22–23.
13
Pew, Evenly, 28.
14
Ibid., 65.
15
NYT/CBS Poll Paper Release 2004/11/18–21, 32.
16
NYT/CBS Poll Paper Release 2004/11/18–21, 28.
17Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (San Diego: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1995).
18
Pew, Views, 109.
19
Ibid., 65.
20
Chaibong Hahm, “Anti-Americanism, Korean Style,” in Anti-Americanism in
Korea: Closing Perception Gaps, Issues & Insights, Paciﬁc Forum CSIS, Vol. 3, No 5,
July 2003, 20.
21
Ibid., 16.
22Pew, Views, 94.
23
Seung-Hwan Kim, “Anti-Americanism in Korea,” Washington Quarterly 26, no. 1(Winter 2002), 115.
24
Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance(N.Y.: Metropolitical Books, 2003); Tami Davis and Sean Lynn-Jones, “City upon aHill,” Foreign Policy, 66 (Spring, 1987); James Morone, “In God’s Name,” American
Prospect, May 2003; Fareed Zakaria, “The Arrogant Empire,” Newsweek, 24 March
2003.
25
Fouad Ajami, “The Falseness of Anti-Americanism,” Foreign Policy, 1 September
2003.; Russell Berman, Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem (Hoover
1
2

162

SEONG-HO LIM

Institution Press, 2004); Lee Harris, “The Intellectual Origins of America-Bashing,”
Policy Review, Issue 116, 2002/2003; Moises Naim, “Anti-Americanisms,” Foreign
Policy, 1 January 2002; Jean-Francois Revel, Anti-Americanism (San Francisco:
Encounter Books, 2002).