[Opinion] A Drunken Diplomat

The police monitoring drunk driving in Daehyeon-dong, Seodaemun District in Seoul on the night of December 12 discovered a car with a diplomatic license plate driving into the alley to avoid the roadblock. The police chased the car and brought it to a halt, then asked the driver for his license. But the driver brandished his immunity rights as a Chinese diplomat and did not even open the car window. The confrontation continued for eight hours. Finally the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade made a “diplomatic negotiation” with the Chinese embassy and confirmed the driver’s status indirectly, but they failed to conduct a breath test.

Selected in 1961, the “Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations’ bestows immunity rights by selecting diplomatic agents” official documents, personal documents, and correspondences as exempt from jurisdiction. They are also exempt from the host country’s right for criminal, civil, and administrative jurisdiction. But the convention notes that “it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the residing State.” The immunity rights are not for the individual diplomat’s benefit or for special treatment, but to aid in the exercise of his functions, and are based on mutuality.

Even diplomats are required to respond to the police requests for identification or breath tests. In the United States, when diplomats are caught driving drunk twice, the Department of Defense may request the corresponding embassy to expel the diplomat from the country. Even in China, diplomats are not exempt from submitting their identification and responding to a breath test when caught driving drunk. But it may have been the case that the Chinese diplomat resisted because he had looked down upon the Korean government, which can say anything to the U.S., yet is cautious toward the Chinese historical distortion such as the Northeast project.

The response of the netizens was not different. The Internet spewed forth words such as “The Chinese diplomat was grandstanding because they see themselves as a big country.” “What would happen if an American diplomat did this? We would probably have burned the car down and held candlelight demonstrations.” “Leftist anti-American demonstrators, why don’t you hold anti-Chinese demonstrations as well?” We are curious what leftist groups that are unforgiving toward the small mistakes of the American soldiers in Korea or Americans and set these actions as opportunities for anti-American movements would say to this incident.

Kwon Sun-taek, Editorial Writer, maypole@donga.com