Un-Beefing Free Trade Pact with U.S.

Beef was a rare commodity in early-1970s Korea — rare and expensive as precious metal! Even though my parents were then part of the middle class, they couldn’t easily afford beef for their three boys. Still, our family was fortunate. Every Saturday evening, my mother would cook a meager 600 grams of bulgogi for our family of five. The three of us would devour that amount in about 30 seconds even before my parents had time to lift their chopsticks. Growing up in Korea back then, we were always frustratingly hungry for more beef.

In early 1975, our family immigrated to the United States. Los Angeles was heaven on Earth for no other reason than plentiful beef. We would eat beef every evening and we would eat until we couldn’t eat anymore. We even ate oxtail and many other high-risk parts of the cow which, according to Korea’s left-leaning politicians, potentially carry mad cow disease and should not be imported into Korea.

According to Rep. Kang Ki-gab of the Democratic Labor Party, who is most vocal about opposing Korea’s reopening of the beef market and ratification of the free trade agreement with the United States, mad cow disease from American beef can be harbored in the human body for nearly 10 years before the symptoms show up and kill unsuspecting Koreans. Rep. Kang also alleges that a “scientific study” conducted by a Korean scientist ostensibly proves that ethnic Koreans are genetically more susceptible to mad cow disease than Caucasian Americans.

Well, it has been little over 33 years since my father, mother, brothers and I started eating American beef, and so far there are no symptoms of mad cow disease in our family. Come to think of it, all of my ethnic Korean uncles, aunts and cousins living in California (and the other 2 million Korean-Americans living in the United States) show no symptoms of mad cow disease, either.

In one of my recent visits to Seoul, I had the chance to sit down at a barbecue restaurant with a Korean acquaintance over a beef dinner. As typical for a restaurant of that type in Seoul, the price was somewhere between the stratosphere and Mars. With the eye-popping price of 45,000 won ($44) per 150 grams, dinner for two men cost 250,000 won ($246), and we were still hungry afterwards.

The most surprising part of that evening, however, was that my acquaintance, who, combined with his wife’s income, earns around $40,000 annually, has never eaten at such a beef restaurant. In fact, he said that he does not even eat beef at home, and that his children have never eaten beef. Apparently, because beef is so expensive, they eat cheaper pork belly whenever they have an urge for meat.

It is as if time has stood still in Korea, as if nothing has changed in over 30 years. The Korean economy is seriously unbalanced when middle-class families cannot afford to eat beef. In 30 years, Korea has built the world’s leading semiconductor, shipbuilding and steel industries. Yet it cannot even feed a majority of its people with such basic food items as beef.

It’s like looking at the old Soviet economy. They built intercontinental nuclear missiles and had technology to send astronauts into space, but could not supply such basic items as toothpaste, soap and nylon stockings. What does it mean to be the 13th-largest economy in the world when a majority of the people cannot afford to eat beef?

The hysteria in Korea over the reopening of the nation to the importation of American beef misses one big point. Without cheaper American beef, beef prices will remain so outrageously high that only the privileged will be able to afford it. In short, in the name of protecting the general public’s health from unsubstantiated and groundless threats, the leftist politicians and the mass media, armed with unscientific data and senseless rumors, will deprive the people of a basic food item.

On a closely related note, after long and arduous efforts by both administrations, the Korea-U.S. FTA now has a narrow window of opportunity for passage in the U.S. Congress and the Korean National Assembly. When the U.S. Congress goes into summer recess in August, that window of opportunity may close, and it may not reopen for a long time, wiping out any hopes of Korea gaining an advantage in the U.S. market vis-a-vis its competitors.

Notwithstanding this race against time, the liberal United Democratic Party, presently controlling the majority in the legislature, is linking the vote on the ratification of the FTA with the renegotiation of the beef accord. The former will create jobs and wealth for Korea and the latter relates to the inspection issues surrounding the imports.

Why should a discord over the beef inspection put a stop to national economic growth? Unless the UDP is simply playing politics to gain the upper hand against the new Lee Myung-bak administration, I don’t understand the logic behind the thinking: “We don’t want jobs for our people or economic growth unless American oxtails and offal are proven safe to eat.”

If the UDP is, indeed, playing politics with the FTA, that is most unfortunate as it could be one of the most costly plays in Korean history. The FTA is poised to bring unprecedented economic benefits to the Korean nation and its people. However, the political game being played by the UDP could result in punishing the very people they ostensibly claim to care for. They can play politics with beef at any time, but time is running out on the FTA. Hopefully, reason will prevail within the UDP and they will de-link beef and the FTA.