ICG's Backgrounder on Post-Election ROK
International Crisis Group has always impressed me with its sober analyses. Although I've only skimmed the full report, the one paragraph on the anti-US beef protests impressed me for a pithiness that manifests the limited salience of the events better even better than any photograph.
The government, however, has been paralysed by street protests and the opposition boycott of the new assembly, which officially convened on 30 May 2008. Street demonstrations began shortly after President Lee's decision to reopen the domestic market to U.S. beef during a summit with President George W. Bush only days after the April elections. U.S. beef imports were the catalyst for the protests, but they grew as citizens opposed to numerous other policies joined, with the result that Lee increasingly became their target.
The missing element involves comparing the legitimate protest, and its collateral grievances, with global movements opposed to food shortages and hydrocarbon prices.
Also, I would point out a more compelling «debate» between Gord Sellar («Catholics 1, Riot Cops 0») and Scott Burgeson («A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to City Hall Tonight») than I've read elsewhere. I only wish I had encountered it earlier.
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