One-sided negotiation pattern
Korea Times
One-sided Negotiation Pattern
By Carsten Haertl
19 June 2006
Before I moved to South Korea, I learned my host country is practically an American protectorate. By watching news it is easy to see from outside: Wartime command, intervening in North-South relations, and so on.
After some weeks living in Seoul, I found myself living rather in a 52nd state of America: American food & drinks on the table, American Standard'' in the bathroom, U.S. university degrees on people's CVs, et cetera. Great, an interesting fusion of two different cultures!
Since the Korea-U.S. FTA is in the news and in public debate, my concern is that South Korea is going to be an American colony. To be clear: Economically I love FTAs and I hope for both countries the result next year will turn out to be a success. Like for my home country, Germany, as a member of the world's largest Free Trade Zone, called the European Union. But the master vs. slave pattern that we see daily by reading the news about Korea and the U.S. looks incredible for an outside observer.
My first surprise came when the government announced the film screen quota cut, pushed by Hollywood, as a precondition for even starting the talks. This overnight decision gave a foretaste of the FTA talks nature. Koreans might call thisnegotiation among equals’’ _ from a third party standpoint it looks like testing how rude and aggressive the dominating side can proceed.
On June 8 we all could read in this newspaper that this screen quota cut is nothing but beneficial for Korean movie culture, resulting in even more'' Korean products of higher artistic quality. The man who is telling this to the Koreans is a professor, an American, not Korean, professor of economics, not of art. And it is the most amazing satire I found so far in the screen quota debate.
I learned Korea had to this year import a fixed amount of rice from California. Obviously, no big retailer wanted to buy it for resale, due to quality doubts. Donating, exporting further, or other reasonable solutions are not allowed (by whom? why?). So the rice mountain causes a big headache for the government.
Obviously there is no consumer demand behind the deal, but the imported product has to be pressed by force into the local market. Koreans might call thisfree trade,’’ but for me it looks like a Communist-style command economy,'' forced by a foreign farmer's lobby.
FTA talks started with big complaints about truly domestic issues, not related to foreign trade. The Korean taxation of vehicles does not favor oversized and gas-wasting cars, thereby standing against U.S.-car sales. An ecologically very smart taxation system! By the way _ the same is common in Europe.
The other complaint is a newpositive list’’ for drug-reimbursement that does not favor innovative, high priced pills. A smart system that leads usually to efficiency and cost-consciousness in the medical sector! And obviously Korean people live well with a fraction of health to expenses compared with unhealthy societies like the U.S. or Germany. So why give up this kind of national health policy?
Both attacks are far from market economy understanding and far from negotiation among equals. A lack of smart, localized marketing shall be compensated by lobbying aggressively during the FTA talks. Instead of admitting marketing failures and aiming to adjust their products to foreign market needs, the supplier industries blame the target country for being ``different,’’ and aggressively force their governments to change their domestic laws and consumer habits to American style. Otherwise, no FTA until 2007!
And this one-sided negotiation pattern is regarded as a matter of course, at least when I follow the newspaper reports. Who could imagine all this taking place in U.S. talks with _ let’s say _ France, Japan, or other proud and independent countries. Unthinkable. I really wonder if the self-placed time pressure to finish this historical project has put South Korea into a self-humiliating position, from where it is not easy to escape.
The writer is a German manager living in Korea for 3 years now.
