Did North Korea Sink the Cheonan?
By Randall Holcombe • Tuesday August 17, 2010 1:28 PM PDT • 13 Comments
On March 26, 2010, the South Korean patrol boat Cheonan sank, resulting in the death of 46 South Korean sailors. The South Korean government said the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. As this story reports, South Korea will release a final report of about 250 pages, detailing the findings of 74 investigators from South Korea, the United States, Sweden, and Australia. The study presents the evidence that shows the Cheonan was, in fact, sunk by a North Korean torpedo.
One interesting part of the story says, “Opinion polls show that 20% to 30% of South Koreans doubt the investigation committee’s findings.” Talking with my US friends, none of them has expressed any doubt in the claim (made by the US government as well as the South Korean government) that the North Koreans sank the Cheonan. Yet, talking with South Koreans, they tell me that many of them believe the Cheonan ran aground, which is what caused it to sink. The opinion poll results reported in the WSJ story back up my casual observation on this.
Why would the South Korean government lie? Talk of military threats often boosts support for incumbent politicians, and that’s the reason for the doubts I’ve heard from talking with South Koreans. They view their political leaders with a healthy degree of skepticism, and as a result, 20-30% doubt the government’s claims about the Cheonan.
The US government has made the same claims, has supported the South Korean government on this, and has stepped up its military exercises with the South Koreans as a result of the sinking of the Cheonan. In contrast to the skepticism of South Koreans, I’ve seen no evidence of any doubt in the US that North Korea sank the Cheonan.
It’s an interesting observation on people’s trust in their government.
To be honest, I doubt Americans care so much about South Korean warships as South Koreans do. You’ll find a lot more scepticism about e.g. reasons for Iraq War, causes of 9/11, JFK assassinations etc.
Shed Plant | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
Yes, good point, Shed. But I was surprised to find that such a high percentage of South Koreans doubted their government’s story.
Randall Holcombe | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
Randy, the surprising thing may be that 70-80 percent of South Koreans do NOT doubt their government’s story.
I generally disbelieve anything a politician or political spokesperson says in public. If later I acquire other, more reliable information that confirms the politician’s claims, I may alter my initial belief. It is possible that the sun rises in the east, even though a politician or other government functionary claims that it does, but the politico’s claim creates a strong presumption that it rises in another sector.
Robert Higgs | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
One factor you’re missing is the tribal sympathy some South Koreans feel for North Koreans. It’s the case for some that they’re unwilling to believe it of the North rather than distrusting their own government. From afar it may look like a reflection of mistrust in government that is growing in the U.S., but up close one can see that different factors are at work.
More than a few South Koreans are proud of the North Korean nuclear weapons program for the same reason.
Try this for some more background.
Ampontan | Aug 17, 2010 | Reply
I know you’re skeptical, Bob, but are you really surprised that 70-80% of Koreans don’t doubt their government? Shed raised a good point, but even here, what percentage of Americans don’t believe the government’s accounts of the Iraq war, 9/11, the JFK assassination, etc.?
I agree with you that Americans SHOULD be skeptical, but it appears to me that only a very small percentage are. That’s why I was surprised to see such a high percentage of South Koreans express doubt about their government’s claims. Surely that’s a higher percentage of doubters than we’d find under similar circumstances in the US.
Randall Holcombe | Aug 18, 2010 | Reply
Skepticism for skepticism’s sake is not very useful. One would have to study the circumstances of any event to be “skeptical” (in this case, skepticism = doubt as to government account?).
Too bad the North Koreans aren’t polled on their attitudes toward their government and whether it was responsible. We aren’t talking about a Canadian neighbor to the North, after all. And South Koreans have shown far more restraint on this “hot” peninsula than the North. Their government hasn’t been building nukes, launching missiles toward Japan, issuing hysterical threats, and — oh yeah — imprisoning their people (there is no other word for it).
I doubt most of the 80% majority and most of the 20% minority have no basis for their beliefs other than past experience, general ideological disposition, etc.
Democratic government are bad but we can study and find a reason for our skepticism (or not). Even worse, there are the totalitarian regimes like North Korea. We libertarians should at least point that out lest we look like knee jerk ideologues.
Jonathan Bean | Aug 18, 2010 | Reply
One reason I found this story interesting is that I was in Seoul last week at a conference, and one of the things I discussed with the Koreans at the conference was the skepticism of South Korean citizens regarding their government’s account of the Cheonan incident. This news story gave the the 20-30% numbers to put behind my personal observations.
Speaking of North Korea’s totalitarian government, another thing the South Koreans told me was that there remains a feeling of unity in that on both sides of the border they believe Korea is one country, divided and under the control of two governments. But here is another surprising thing that came up in conversation: apparently there are “many” South Koreans who believe that it’s the North Korean government, not theirs, that should be the government for a unified Korea. I don’t have any numbers on this, so can’t say how large that group is, but I was surprised that the South Koreans mentioned it, as I certainly heard nothing about this before. Hard as it is to imagine, at least some South Koreans are more supportive of the totalitarian government in the North than their own government. I suppose this is not much different than the communist sympathizers in the US during the Cold War, but still...
Randall Holcombe | Aug 18, 2010 | Reply
If they ‘ran aground’ as you said the sailors would still be alive. A boat this size would have to run aground on incredibly sharp rocks and how could not even ONE sailor have made it to shore if they ran INTO the shore???
Meanwhile, N.Kore...a grows more restless and resistant to any reason.
I LIVED on the N.Korea border in China for almost a year. The N.Korean people are like ghosts, like dead men walking. All of them will do ANYTHING to stay away from N.Korea.
If a N.Korean woman is deported from China (or anywhere), she is put into a work camp and given only water until she starves to death. If she returns pregnant, the baby is aborted (forced abortion) and she will be regularly raped by the guards because she is ‘unclean’ so it doesn’t matter if she gets raped or not.
The main trade that China has with N.Korea is Sex Slaves. N.Korean women are traded for electronic goods, food, clothes, or whatever else the rulers of N.Korea have a fancy for.
For all people’s Political Banter, no one actually pays attention to the people in N.Korea or how Black the situation is there.
N.Korea’s Olympic team trains at a public gym and when the coach lost Kim Jong put him in a prison work camp:
http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/sow_experts/post/North-Korea-players-train-in-public-gym?urn=sow-248532
http://www.tmz.com/2010/07/30/north-korea-soccer-coach-kim-jong-il-kim-jong-hun/
Raymond | Aug 19, 2010 | Reply
Jon,
I can’t speak for others, but I myself am not skeptical for the sake of skepticism–indeed, I’m not even sure what it would mean to be so.
I am skeptical because my nearly fifty years of interacting with politicians and government functionaries and studying their speech and behavior have taught me that lying is intrinsic to their activities. In fact, one might argue, as F. G. Bailey does in his magnificent book Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership (Cornell University Press 1988), that honesty and political leadership are incompatible. If political leaders told the truth, they could not retain the loyalty and popular submission they need to carry out their programs, which always include a certain amount (in our day, a very large amount) of robbing and abusing Peter in order to reward and please Paul.
Robert Higgs | Aug 19, 2010 | Reply
I agree with you, Bob. Everybody SHOULD be as skeptical as you are, for the reasons you mentioned. But, for the most part, they are not, which is why I was surprised at the (relatively) high degree of skepticism Koreans had regarding their government’s pronouncements on the Cheonan incident.
In 2009 I published a paper in The Review of Austrian Economics titled “Principles and Politics: Like Oil and Water,” which makes a point similar to yours. If you have principles you can’t succeed in politics. But for the most part I don’t see that this line of reasoning characterizes the thinking of most of the American electorate.
Randall Holcombe | Aug 19, 2010 | Reply
Randall Holcombe wrote, (although he did not state whether the polls were taken right after the military’s one-sided TV announcement of the “findings announced May 20″),
“One interesting part of the story says, “Opinion polls show that 20% to 30% of South Koreans doubt the investigation committee’s findings.””
But that poll may be outdated and/or was erroneous,
for I have read elsewhere,
“[m]ore than half citizens of S. Korea don’t believe the official report on that sunk ship.”
South Korean people’s firsthand knowledge about the pro-government polls is that they are ridiculously overinflated.
A proof: war-fear-mongering South Korean President Lee Myung-bak got unexpectedly humiliated on the June 2 election by the “Supposedly less so enlightened” Korean people,
when “survey conducted by the major daily [pro-government]Dong-A Ilbo and the Korea Research Center from May 24 to 26[7-days-before] forecast[ed] that Oh would beat Han by 20.8 percent.”
Actual election result: 0.6 percent(=”47.4 percent”-”46.8 percent.”)
Source: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2921960
LetsTry Reason | Aug 20, 2010 | Reply
Gulf of Tonkin
Bay of Pigs
War on Drugs
War on Terror
http://911review.com/articles/anon/false_flag_perations.html
Why would anyone doubt the government?
BambiB | Aug 24, 2010 | Reply