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By Lee Byong-chul
Will the new South Korean President be able to weave a successful web of alliances between Seoul and Washington again? Some may think so given his inaugural address, which was full of rosy prospects about the alliance.
Upon taking office on Feb. 25, President Lee Myung-bak vigorously expressed guarded optimism about the relationship by stating that ``We will work to develop and further strengthen traditional friendly relations with the United States into a future-oriented partnership.''
And his key foreign policy posts all went to pro-American experts ― Yu Myung-hwan as foreign affairs and trade minister, Lee Sang-hee as defense minister and Kim Byung-kook as senior presidential secretary for foreign and national security affairs.
The new President also reiterated his trademark pragmatic inter-Korean relations aimed at economic aid in return for the abandonment of the North's nuclear weapons program, while discouraging the ``Korea-is-one-nation-ideology'' centered assistance to North Korea.
His remarks were an unmistakable echo of the conservative intellectuals' expectations that South Korea should be a ``natural ally'' of the United States.
Unlike the diplomatically misguided Roh Moo-hyun government that overwhelmingly called for an equal partnership only to invoke diplomatic tension between Seoul and Washington, the new government will be focusing on fortifying the strategic alliance with the United States.
And not surprisingly, North Korea is not an investment. Further, President Lee wants to hold the Unification Ministry accountable for poor inter-Korean results.
First of all, the role of the Unification Ministry has conspicuously diminished in terms of its human resources and budget, whereas the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry has regained its fame as a de facto control tower of comprehensive foreign policies including key inter-Korean affairs.
The crippled Ministry of Unification, because of its limits in North Korean affairs in accordance with the revised law of the governmental organization, must be reduced to invisible as it has no policy impact.
Its own operations and decisions will hardly affect inter-Korean relations in that the ministry will no longer be able to make unilateral and ``political'' decisions that determine the volume and type of investment businessmen will make.
Second, in the past years since the first inter-Korean summit talks in 2000, the Ministry of Unification has presided over the policies related to inter-Korean issues. Through the continual interpretation and reinterpretation of the policies, the ministry has created newer policies.
Its policy judgment has been always based on the President's bias, prejudices and political motivations. Terms like ``the sunshine policy'' or ``policy for peace and co-prosperity,'' which were earlier liberal rallying cries, have all become largely meaningless.
So, President Lee radically reformed the old guard of the sunshine engagement policy to empower a brand-new organization that is able to bolster up his political thinking based on pragmatism.
The Foreign Ministry, which has remained under the deep shadow of the half-baked sunshine policy aimed at strengthened inter-Korean relations rather than the strained ROK-U.S. ties, can now reflect the new President's diplomatic philosophy about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, human rights and other fundamental questions.
The oldest ministry's functional approaches to Stalinist communism according to the U.S. playbook may hasten the collapse of the Kim Jong-il regime on the one hand and on the other, shoot itself in the foot diplomatically.
Worst of all, the extended role of the Foreign Ministry could be a dangerous balance, particularly in dealing with North Korea.
Critics of the ministry point out that it will become a bastion of pro-American factions with less interest in resolving the stalled nuclear negotiation through dialogue other than with sanctions, and less interest in assertive humanitarian aid to poverty-stricken North Koreans, but greater interest in taking steps similar to those the Bush administration left, in order to meet the needs of the conservatives. It is worth being careful.
Third, President Lee's wrong nomination of Nam Joo-hong as unification minister eventually reinforced the position of the Foreign Ministry while shaking off the small-sized Ministry of Unification again after Nam withdrew his nomination on Feb. 27, only two days after the new government was installed.
Whatever the reasons might be, President Lee failed to make the nomination an important part of presidential politics to please the conservative base; despite the charge of playing hardball politics from a liberal viewpoint, much to the delight of radical conservatives.
Notwithstanding President Lee should have requested Nam's nomination be withdrawn earlier instead of standing up against the opposition parties-controlled National Assembly.
The evidence that has emerged since the appointment overwhelmingly shows there is not a scintilla of evidence to support Nam. After all, it only showed that the President protected the wrong side in an effort to tilt the entire Unification Ministry to the hard right.
Fourth, Foreign Minister Yu, not to mention presidential aide Kim, should endlessly remind the President that China has already become an attractive strategic counterweight to the United States, at least in terms of the growing close commercial relationship.
Unlike Nam, Yu knows how to walk around or jump over the potential land mines in the bureaucracy. Yu who served until most recently as ambassador to Japan should advise the President to appoint a so-called big shot as ambassador to Beijing who will implement the President's foreign philosophy, while ensuring that the ambassador will become significant in a rock-solid South Korea-China relationship.
In the age of the borderless globalization, South Korea's national interest should not exclusively rest on a particular county. A Seoul-based Asian diplomat told me recently that Lee government's pro-American foreign policy should be kept as low-key as possible in order not to generate unnecessary outrage from Beijing.
He then added that ``South Korea may date America but should not marry it, because China is increasingly a big hand to South Korea.''
South Korean politics has now shifted to the right, and for good reason. The Lee government can be driven by a rightwing U.S. administration's desire to install a friendly government into power.
But all the governmental departments do not necessarily have the same standpoint toward North Korea. Or they don't need to seek to be as neutral as a baseball umpire. Such difference among them is a recipe for a healthy and sound debate leading to the rational choice of policies.
At the same time, the unanimous voice can paralyze any efforts to put together a framework of peace regime on the Korean Peninsula in the future. The serious problem is that those who promised to be independent or neutral gradually becoming loyal playmakers of the President's team.
Lee Byong-chul is senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Coopertion (IPC), a nonpartisan policy advisory body based in Seoul. He can be reached at bcleebc@gmail.com. The views expressed in the above article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the IPC, or that of The Korea Times.
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