New Leadership
By Lee Byong-chul
It was an easy win for President-elect Lee Myung-bak of the conservative opposition Grand National Party from the beginning, despite a bridge-burning moment only two days before the Dec. 19 presidential election.
The majority of voters judged that the conservative candidate would better represent true Korean ideals rather than the other candidates.
At last, the South Korean conservatives labored to achieve a democratic regime change as a result of mounting distrust in the government. We could call the change; the revenge of the angry conservatives.
A singular hope for South Korean conservatives who have been dumbfounded by left-tinted regimes over the past 10 years, Lee's focus on bread-and-butter issues eventually dwarfed a video clip demonstrating his ``inappropriate'' involvement with an investment company, where stock manipulation had allegedly taken place.
His troubled victory is likely to galvanize the fractured right wing, instead of making the big-tent party of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in American political terms.
His staunch supporters claim with certainty that the stock price manipulation was as nasty an allegation as Lee has ever been involved in, and he's been involved in some nasty campaigns. But nothing is so simple as that in the life of Lee, since the ideological differences and the suspicions his political rivals generated are too deep to bridge such a divide.
Is it then safe to say that Lee has been politically smeared or assassinated even before having the chance to speak in front of the people in the February inauguration ceremony in 2008? With the passing of a few painful months, he is likely to be rescued as if he were a quarterback by his offensive line.
His tainted fingerprints that have been dusted for several years will never be traced, because numerous voters who were severely betrayed by the outgoing president Roh Moo-hyun virtually helped to clear a path and bundle Lee into the presidency.
In particular, Roh's inexperience in foreign policies placed the solid Seoul-Washington relationship in jeopardy while confronting the Bush administration that also lacked a deep understanding of the complicated mechanisms of international relations. But now Lee springboards into a tougher sell ― North Korea.
He is likely to iron out the differences between Seoul and Washington by engaging Pyongyang in a pragmatic but principled manner, unlike Roh whose out-of-focus North Korean policies have been harshly criticized by the left and right alike
By contrast, Bush and his aides have described the North Korea regime and its leader as an ``axis of evil'' and the ``outpost of tyranny,'' but Bush most recently sent the North Korean leader a letter beginning with ``Dear Mr. Chairman.''
For almost ten years, the progressive here in Seoul ― and moderates ― successfully kept dragging the country more to the left.
Liberal policy-makers have found the sunshine policy necessary to help solidify the stability of the desolate regime on the one hand, and on the other have pushed U.S. leaders to revolutionize how they understood the essence of U.S.-North Korea relations. Despite this, the North Korean leader is still imprisoned by Juche [Self-reliance] ideologies and orthodox Marxist-Leninist beliefs against core tenets of political liberalism ― most notably a greater respect for human rights, greater tolerance for opposing political views, and the creation of more representative political institutions.
The politically oriented sunshine policy, which is under fire on account of ignoring some of the touchy issues mentioned above, has actually become formaldehyde, so that there will not be a one-sided assistance to North Korea any longer.
Some critics of the sunshine policy claim that the liberal regimes went to their grave not knowing the answer. But this controversial interpretation has a certain partisan appeal, lacks supporting evidence and cannot explain why so many experts supported the policy, even if they admit that Kim Jong-il presents an existential threat to the U.S., not to mention South Korea.
Lee is surrounded by conservative foreign policy experts and political handlers telling the President-elect to put more pressure on North Korea. Some of them assert that ``if Kim Jong-il is not stopped now, five years from now, we will have to deal with a North Korea that is armed with nuclear weapons and has delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction.''
Some of them will join a new government to articulate much of the conservative foreign policy. The President-elect wants the people to realize that North Korea is a better place without the dictator's portrait hanging on walls.
Some observers started to predict cautiously that the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics could offer an ideal opportunity to see the presidents from the two Koreas and the United States in case Washington-Pyongyang relations move forward smoothly. North Korea invited the New York Philharmonic to play in Pyongyang on February 26 after a tour in China, which South Koreans think offered the U.S. a ``political horizon'' for a final settlement.
There is no question that the Bush administration will make meaningful progress toward North Korea's nuclear weapons program before leaving office in February 2009. To that end, Bush needs more concrete action plans, not just words about action.
It's time for both Seoul and Washington to require smartness as well as toughness to shut down North Korea's nuclear program in a more concerted manner.
Lee Byong-chul is senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation, a non-partisan policy advisory body based in Seoul. He can be reached at bcleebc@gmail.com.