The East Asia Spectator/Orient Express
Pleszczynski, Wladyslaw
THE EAST ASIA...
...South Korea already sells around $500 million in goods annually to the mainland via Hong Kong and is always on the lookout for a greater share of any market...
...This partner is mainland China...
...Some denied that China was even sending a delegation to the Asian Games...
...ambassadors who led "full country-team" briefings on my group's behalf, since each of them spoke off the record...
...In Peking, Washington Post correspondent Daniel Southerland told me that the Chinese are fascinated by the South's economic boom...
...to keep paying outlandish sums for the privilege of providing the Philippines with its external security...
...I won't mention the four U.S...
...Nor will I mention any of the people in my group, since after three weeks we were more like family than friends...
...Unfortunately, even he wants the U.S...
...Oh, there are a few Americans with clout in Japan: for example, Warren Cromartie and Mark Brouhard...
...Embassy (probably by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski because he's a major player in the PRC's revived relations with Moscow), he said only that the PRC opposes any activities that would increase tensions in the Korean peninsula...
...All that Taiwan wants from the U.S...
...In this respect, Enrile is no different from the bulk of his compatriots, who see U.S...
...The irony may not be lost on Taiwan, which counts South Korea as one of the few countries in the world still to recognize it as the real China...
...The Taiwanese are ready to pay billions—in cash, as Chang reminded us...
...They are close to reaching some agreement on constitutional reform, and for all his dictatorial proclivities President Chun fully intends to step down as promised in 1988...
...is that it not renege on the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979—and that we sell them a few high-performance jet fighters...
...ever paid rent on its Korean bases...
...And so, children in Manila walk the streets naked, people live on park benches and in trees, and the economy is going nowhere...
...Say what you will about the politicians of South Korea, at least they have no claims on U.S...
...consolation was provided in a meeting led by Tai-Chu Chen, the distinguished former ambassador whom Jimmy Carter ran out of Washington in 1979 when he cut formal ties with the Republic of China...
...If you're confused by the rhetoric emanating from the PRC, keep an eye on the future course of relations between Seoul and Peking...
...Nor has the U.S...
...As for Deputy Foreign Minister Qian Qishen, who came to us with the sterling recommendations of the U.S...
...interests as those damn Philippine bases, which by the way he has no intention of our ever leaving...
...When Kim Young Sam spoke to us at a downtown Seoul hotel, it was in a room teeming with Korean secret police...
...Still, it sometimes seems that the opponents of strongman President Chun Doo Hwan would prefer to be operating in a Philippine environment...
...They have entertained secret delegations of South Korean businessmen, and word has it they are sending several hundred people to the Asian Games to be held in Seoul this fall...
...What Kim Dae Jung and his partner in heading the New Democratic party, Kim Young Sam, never acknowledge is that South Korea's political tensions are hardly the byproducts of economic failure...
...No doubt the two Kims are responding to what John Burgess of the Washington Post termed the country's "runaway capitalism"—sweatshops, strong-anti-unionism, ruthless government controls...
...In Seoul we missed seeing the foreign minister because he was off in Central Africa setting up export deals...
...Come to think of it, some of my new friends need no introduction...
...ambassador to brief us...
...In fact, they pack plenty of it, hitting homeruns and patrolling centerfield for the Yomiuri Giants and the Yakult Swallows, respectively...
...aid as a precondition of life...
...largess...
...But he closed a 90-minute session with us at Wladyslaw Pleszczynski is managing editor of The American Spectator...
...It will be an indicator of how serious China is being about reform...
...aid in 1961...
...As in February, her fate continues to rest primarily in the hands of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile,-who's positioned himself as the country's major guarantee that its February Revolution is not followed by an October Revolution...
...Taiwan's loss has also been its gain...
...Fortunately for South Korea, it is slowly acquiring a secret partner who may just provide the protection needed for the games to come off...
...Some are impressed that since coming to power in what her supporters love to call "the February Revolution," Cory has not changed in her basic character and temperament...
...aircraft to Taipei...
...Perhaps he meant that as a slap at the North...
...Both of them have spent a good portion of their careers in jail, under house arrest, or in exile, and each has survived at-tempts on his life...
...You'll notice I haven't yet used the word J-a-p-a-n...
...Not that it really matters all that much anymore...
...Next time your congressman complains about Taiwan's trade surplus with the U.S., remind him that one way out may be to support the export of sophisticated U.S...
...ORIENT EXPRESS When your assignment is to cover five east Asian countries in twenty-one days and file copy on the twenty-second, there's really time only to introduce a few of the friends you made along the way and offer a sampling of their concerns...
...In these circumstances, it is remarkable that the two sides are actually talking to each other...
...Others think that's just the whole problem...
...50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986...
...But I'd rather not this time...
...In t the country's incredible economic trnsformation of the last twenty-five years can be directly traced to the suspension of U.S...
...He traveled to the Orient in August with the World Media Association...
...It has become a model of self-reliance, its own economic boom shows no signs of quieting, and it has mastered the art of what its new deputy foreign minister (and illegitimate grandson of Chiang Kai-Shek) John Chang described to us as "substantive relations" in dealing with the 140 or so nations that no longer have diplomatic ties with Taipei...
...I sat in the bleachers one Saturday night in packed Jingu Ballpark...
...So long as we are able to talk to each other," she said, "we'll be able to solve our problems...
...Peking is fearful that recent Soviet inroads in the North will leave it with another Vietnam on its periphery...
...Kim Dae Jung, whose following in the West is much greater than at home, told us straight out that he would have been much freer under Marcos...
...Not that Kim Il Sung will not do his best to wreck the next Olympics...
...But the true test will come when the athletes go home...
...Camp Aguinaldo with this reminder: "The name of the game is necessity and survival...
...Someone even spoke of unprecedented direct flights between Peking and Seoul...
...Cromartie hit two homeruns to lead his team to victory...
...When we met with Kim Dae Jung at his home, it was on one of those rare days that he's notrestricted to quarters...
...Brouhard almost hit one out, but in his next at-bat failed in the clutch and his team lost...
...Though Aquino says she wants her country to become more self-reliant, in the same breath she releases the catch that this can happen only "with the help of others...
...Seasoned observers, however, can't see her lasting another year...
...In Taipei, of course, there was no U.S...
...In brief remarks to us at Malacanang, she announced that her government's decision to begin "peace" talks with the Philippine Communist insurgents is part of the same "nonviolent" process of "dialogue" that brought a peaceful end to the Mar-cos dictatorship...
...Enrile may prove as important to U.S...
...THE EAST ASIA SPECTATOR...
...In any event, the whole beauty of these budding ties between China and South Korea is that neither side can officially recognize the other...
...For the time being Enrile remains condescendingly loyal to his lady president...
...It's not easy to come to terms with the sense I picked up in Tokyo that some other country has passed yours by...
...If nothing else, it will tell you where your congressman's priorities lie...
...It could be that the Seoul Olympics are looming like a savior on the domestic horizon...
...The Japanese have even learned to neutralize American athletic prowess...
...Of course, Chinese officials will never tell you anything...
...Burned by its experience with Marcos, the Reagan Administration has no choice but to stick by Aquino...
...Seoul needs someone to rein in the North...
...One can even under-stand the tendency of each to equate the fate of democracy in South Korea with the fate of his own person...
...There's also a strategic reason for the relationship...
...How shrewd, I thought...
...Corazon Aquino, for instance, who in September embarks on a "people to people" visit to the U.S...
Vol. 19 • October 1986 • No. 10
