Recent posts from Ask A Korean! and Gusts of Popular Feeling have got me thinking. Both say that while the US beef protest organizers may be motivated by anti-Americanism, the vast majority of ordinary participants are not. Ask A Korean! has a chart translated from the Dong-A Ilbo:

The graph is estimated attendance to protest by date, and notes associated with the date. Blue bar is the attendance estimated by the police, and gray bar is the attendance estimated by the protest organizers.

Protest on June 6, which was the 72-hour candlelight vigil, attracted 56,000 or 200,000, depending on who is counting.

One on June 10, which was the 21st anniversary of June Protests (important event in democratization history of Korea), attracted 80,000/600,000.

One on June 13, which was 6-year anniversary of the death of two middle school girls who sparked a wave of anti-Americanism (don’t ask), attracted 15,000/30,000.

Protest on June 14, which was the funeral day of a protester who immolated himself, attracted 12,000/35,000

One on June 15, 8-year anniversary of June 15 Declaration (important event in North-South Korean history), drew 3,000/15,000.

Finally, the protest on June 16, when the protest leaders began adding different political issues on the agenda, drew 1,300/3,000.

So, at least through June 16th, protest attendance has dropped like a rock. The obvious question here is, does this show that protestors were motivated only by resentment at the Lee administration and are turned off by the inclusion of the broader agenda of the anti-American wing of the Korean left? It’s a good theory. But I still wonder why resentment at Lee’s handling of the government didn’t explode until the US beef deal came out. And furthermore, why I never heard anyone saying that Koreans were so intensely unhappy with his governing style until the protests had been underway for a couple of weeks already. So — can readers solve this puzzle, or show me some editorials or opinion polls I missed where that unhappiness was expressed prior to the beef deal?

Quick update: I just remembered this survey which found that just 13% of respondents wanted a “harmonious” president who would communicate with the citizenry.