PARK GEUN-HYE AND GNP LEGISLATORS ON BEEF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 000952

SIPDIS

STATE PASS USTR FOR CUTLER, USDA FOR TERPSTRA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/10/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KN KS
SUBJECT: PARK GEUN-HYE AND GNP LEGISLATORS ON BEEF
CONTROVERSY, DOMESTIC POLITICS AND NEC

Classified By: Amb. Alexander Vershbow. Reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: Over lunch with Grand National Party (GNP)
leader Park Geun-hye, the Ambassador discussed the current
controversy over the re-opening of the Korean market to U.S.
beef and made the strong case that U.S. beef was safe,
telling Park that we rely on leaders like her to calm the
situation. The Ambassador noted that he was disappointed
with Park's remarks the previous day that called the ROKG
attitude on beef "problematic," and that the government
should have made it clear that public health and safety are
its top priorities. Park defended her remarks, saying that
while she believed U.S. beef was safe to eat, the Lee
government had not adequately educated Korean consumers.
Park, who seemed reluctant to talk about domestic politics,
expressed her disappointment in the GNP leadership for
preventing her supporters from returning to the party and
possibly forcing them to form a negotiating bloc in the
National Assembly. Representative Jin Young, also in
attendance, discussed the Embassy relocation, noting that he
did not expect a new Embassy could be built in his district
of Yongsan, but instead thought the Kyunggi Girls School site
would be more appropriate. The lawmakers also discussed
prospects for the KORUS FTA and North Korea. End Summary.

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BEEF
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2. (C) The Ambassador told Park Geun-hye he was disappointed
by her May 6 statement that renegotiation of the April 18
agreement to reopen the Korean market to U.S. beef, if
necessary, could be an option. Facts and science should be
the guideline for any discussion of beef; if the beef issue
continued to be treated as a political football and reacted
to emotionally, it could damage U.S.-ROK relations. Park
explained that the Korean people were not against U.S. beef
since U.S. beef was imported to Korea in the past. The
concern was that in the negotiating process, the ROKG had not
acted in a prudent fashion and did not show enough concern
for the health and safety of the Korean people.


3. (C) Koreans, like most people, Park explained, do not
like to be told what to do. Rather than seek consensus and
support for the agreement to reopen the Korean market to U.S.
beef, the ROKG struck the agreement with the U.S. and told
Koreans after the fact. She admitted that spreading false
rumors about U.S. beef was dangerous and unhelpful. The GNP,
which was against the importation of bone-in beef just
several months ago, changed its position with no attempt to
explain to the Korean people why. The GNP and the ROKG had a
responsibility to explain this change in approach, and the
lack of such an explanation contributed to people's unease.


4. (C) The Ambassador explained that U.S. beef exporters
removed all SRM from all cows and instituted rules to
regulate the type of feed that cows could eat in 1997.
People have been misinformed, the Ambassador said. Since
these rules went into place, BSE has been under control in
the U.S. Of the 350 million cows born in the U.S. since
1997, none had been detected with BSE. The U.S. hoped to
make passage of the FTA possible in the U.S. in 2008 and a
quick resolution of the beef issue would contribute to this
process. There were additional time constraints as
negotiations to reopen the beef market could not begin before
the April 9 National Assembly elections. Therefore, there
was just a narrow window for the negotiation after the
elections and before Lee's visit to the U.S. In the past,
some in the U.S. thought that Korea was not reliable on
trade, and the Ambassador said he was concerned that if the
ROK asked for a renegotiation or cancelled the agreement,
many would lose the trust that had been built up in recent
months. The U.S. was willing to allow more ROK inspectors or
make other gestures to help the ROKG in ensuring the
agreement would survive.


5. (C) Park said that she supported the KORUS FTA and still
hoped that, despite the recent problems over beef, the FTA
would pass the National Assembly in Korea. With beef, the

most important thing was what the Korean people think, and
the clear dissatisfaction of the Korean people had to be
addressed. Further, Park said, the majority of the
protestors and those participating in candle-light vigils
were not left-wing activists. Granted, the left-wing element
was using the beef issue to their own political gain, but the
overriding concern of the protestors was not political, but
with "well-being" and protecting their health. There are
students and mothers who are demonstrating because they are
concerned U.S. beef could be bad for their health or for the
health of their children.


6. (C) Park said it was good to tell people there had been
no cases of BSE in the past, but the agreement stipulates
that even if there is a case in the U.S., Korea has to
continue to accept shipments of beef until the situation was
resolved through various procedures, which would take time.
This caused people to be furious. If there are no U.S. cows
born since 1997 with BSE, why not add a clause in the
agreement to allow Korea to suspend shipments in the unlikely
event that a case of BSE were unearthed? The Ambassador
refuted this, saying that even if a case of BSE was
discovered there might not be scientific reasons to halt
shipment, because the cow would be prevented from entering
the food supply under the current protocol. This effectively
removed any chance diseased meat would be exported.


7. (C) The Ambassador noted that all future agreements with
China, Taiwan and Japan would have to be the same as the
agreement with the ROK. There are 95 countries that now
import U.S. beef under the same conditions which the ROK
agreed upon. Park said that the Lee government has a
responsibility to resolve the issue with the people. The
Ambassador agreed and added that everyone had to help the
government to bring some rationality and honesty to the
conversation. Park said she had always maintained
rationality in her approach to this and other issues and
would continue to do so; her main goal was to protect the
Korean people.


8. (C) Newly-elected lawmaker Gu Sang-chan said that the
dissatisfaction over beef was because people had many
problems with President Lee and they simply chose beef to
manifest their disaffection with the newly-minted leader.
The Ambassador said it was fine to criticize President Lee
but it was not acceptable to say that people will die if they
eat U.S. beef.

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NORTH KOREA
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9. (C) Park said that North Korea was not really a political
issue at the moment. If President Lee lost people's trust,
however, no matter what Lee does or what his policy stance
was it could cause problems on the Peninsula.

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EMBASSY RELOCATION
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10. (C) Representing Yongsan district (the site of USFK
headquarters and the future site of the U.S. Embassy),
recently re-elected lawmaker Jin Young said it would be very
difficult for the U.S. Embassy to be built anywhere on the
military base in Yongsan. Jin had proposed and passed a law
in June 2007 that said no buildings were allowed anywhere on
Main or South Posts. He said this law was not because the
U.S. Embassy was not welcome in his district; it was.
Instead, he wrote the law to protect the base from
encroachment by the ROK Ministry of National Defense (MND)
and other entities that wanted to slice up the base. He
intended to make all of Yongsan garrison into a park. Rep.
Jin asserted that the MOU between the U.S. and the ROK
allowing the U.S. Embassy to be built on a portion of the
base did not take precedent over the law he authored.
Several days ago, Jin brought this up with Foreign Minister
Yu Myung-hwan during a hearing at the National Assembly, and
the two agreed the law posed difficulties. If the embassy

could not be built in Yongsan, the logical option would be to
build the new Embassy on the site of Kyunggi Girls School
(the site previously agreed in the 1990's, until the ROK
cancelled the deal in 2004). The location, in central Seoul,
was a much more appropriate site for the U.S. Embassy, Jin
said.

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DOMESTIC POLITICS
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11. (C) The Ambassador asked if Pro-Park Alliance (PPA)
lawmakers or pro-Park independents would be allowed back into
the ruling GNP and asked if there was any real dialogue
between Park and President Lee. Park said there was
currently no dialogue between her and Lee and, while allowing
there could be some dialogue in the future, did not sound
sanguine. Park said that some in the GNP worried that, if
the independents and PPA lawmakers were allowed back into the
party, Park would form a faction within the GNP and either
lead the party herself or support someone to be party
chairman from her group. Therefore, GNP leadership was
blocking the reentry of her supporters to the GNP. Park said
she had recently announced that she would not run for the
party chairmanship, so she thought that this would have
solved the issue. In fact, voters selected those who failed
to receive GNP nominations and ran outside the party because
the nomination selection process was flawed. It seemed
natural that those who shared the same policy stance as the
GNP and were rightly elected should rejoin the GNP. If the
GNP says that these lawmakers cannot join now, there is no
justification to bring them back to the party after the GNP
convention in July. If there is no progress on this issue,
the PPA and independents will have no choice but to form a
negotiating group.

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LEE-BUSH SUMMIT
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12. (C) In response to Park's questions about how the
President Bush-Lee summit went, the Ambassador said that
there was an immediate personal connection between the two
leaders and they both realized they shared the same
perspective on a variety of topics, from the alliance to Kim
Jong-il. The warm atmosphere of the summit was particularly
welcome after several cold summits with former President Roh
Moo-hyun. The Ambassador said that Bush read a lot about
what Lee thought about North Korea, human rights, trade and
other issues and was ready to welcome Lee. Bush was also
impressed with Lee's fulfillment of his promise to reopen the
Korean market to U.S. beef. Roh had made that promise as
well, but did not follow through. To top it off, the two
presidents' personal styles and personalities are similar and
all of this contributed to a successful summit.


13. (C) Beyond the personal rapport the two leaders built,
the summit improved relations in a concrete way. One
decision that came from the summit was to freeze troop levels
in the ROK at 28,500 for the foreseeable future. This
decision was made not only because of the continued threat
that North Korea posed, but also to assure the Korean people
that the decision to transfer wartime operational control
(OPCON) was not the first step toward the withdrawal of U.S.
forces, but that in fact the U.S. commitment to Korea's
security was ongoing. The two agreed that the alliance
should be broadened into a global and regional strategic
partnership. Lee seemed to agree that continued non-military
contributions by the ROK in Afghanistan made sense. There
was no list of demands that President Bush presented,
contrary to what some ROK newspapers had written.

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FTA PROCESS
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14. (C) Representative Jin, the ranking member of the
Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee, said that there was not
much hope the KORUS FTA would pass during the special session

that will end May 24. First, there would be a hearing May
13-14 about the FTA. After that, the law will go to the law
review sub-committee. From there, the FTA had one day -- May
19 -- to go before the plenary for a vote. Jin noted he
chaired the review sub-committee so that step would be
perfunctory; but, in order for the FTA bill to pass, there
could be no delays, which was unlikely. UDP lawmakers were
hoping to exchange renegotiation on beef for passage of the
FTA. They also attempted to leverage support for an
inter-Korean Prime Minister-level summit from the GNP, but
Jin said he had stopped that request cold.

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COMMENT
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15. (C) Park Geun-hye's relations with Lee Myung-bak are
still rocky; the public spat between the two shows no signs
of abating -- it is as if the fight for the GNP candidacy is
still ongoing. The lines are clearly drawn; Jin and Gu are
clearly with Park. Reflecting this, the two did not have
kind words for Lee's recent performance.
VERSHBOW