U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is the most widely known ― and probably respected ― Korean in the world right now.
So it was natural the government gave a hero's welcome to the U.N. chief who came back Thursday for a five-day stay, the first visit since he took office one and a half years ago. It was rather ironic to see Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, who served as chairman of the U.N. General Assembly, greet his former chief of staff at the airport.
Treating Ban with protocol belonging to a head of state is an international practice. Now that he is here, however, this should also serve as an occasion to check whether Korea's contributions to the world stage are befitting the home country of the U.N.'s top official.
It was suggestive in this regard that the first thing Secretary-General Ban did here was to meet with the Korean troops to be stationed in Lebanon as part of peacekeeping operations in the Middle East country.
Ban also never forgets to preach on the need for Seoul to make greater contributions to the official development aid congruous with its status of the world's 13th largest economy. Reports said among his lesser-known agendas during a meeting with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan will be Seoul's overdue payment of U.N. contributions,
Korea's stingy ODA contribution, which remains around one fifth the OECD average, is no longer news, as Seoul has paid only 0.06 percent of its gross domestic product for the world's poorest countries, the lowest level among the 30-member club of industrial countries.
Its contribution to PKO activities stands at a relatively high rank of 12th in the world. The ranking, however, falls to 25th, when Seoul's payment for humanitarian causes, is taken into account.
These failures to live up to the nation's international economic and political status, along with Seoul's extremely passive stance in global environmental discussions, such as the carbon diet issue, are quite problematic not least because of the Korean-born U.N. chief's passionate activities to expand the global body's role in tackling these issues.
One of the most commendable policies of the Lee Myung-bak administration was its pledge to enhance the nation's ``soft-power" diplomacy by promoting economic aid for and cultural exchanges with less developed countries.
Its consequent implementation, however, has left some room to be desired, as the government made it too obvious that Seoul's cooperation with developing countries is part of its strategy to secure dwindling natural resources. The clumsy act could throw Korea into a place Japan stood decades ago, when Tokyo's aggressive advances toward the third world earned it the not so graceful nickname of ``economic animal." Soft power grows when aid is provided as pure aid with few strings attached.
After all, the Lee administration's ongoing diplomatic trouble stems from its narrow vision focusing on the United States or ``big-four" powers instead of looking toward a wider horizon.
The time has long past that Koreans, especially younger generations, broke free of the yoke of national division and expanded their stage to the whole world.