ed America’s best friend

Problem is what Korea lost to win favor

That President Lee Myung-bak is one of the five foreign leaders closest to Barack Obama comes as little surprise to Koreans. But the U.S. leader had better not get overconfident of his personal charm. Lee was also one of the best friends of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. If Al Gore or John McCain had occupied the White House, the situation might not have been much different.

Cheong Wa Dae may say this reflects Lee’s dyed-in-the-wool pragmatism that transcends difference in ideology or individuality. We hope so too. As most Koreans know, however, Lee’s diplomatic report card says otherwise.

There is nothing wrong with being closest to the United States, which, despite increasing troubles at home and abroad, is still the world’s No. 1 superpower. The nearer, the better, some might even say.

Yet there are at least two points a Korean president must consider when shaping diplomatic policy lopsided to one country: national interest and national dignity. Whether Lee has taken those factors into account in conducting his U.S.-centered foreign policy is doubtful and nowhere is this clearer in the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA).

According to WikiLeaks, Washington originally initiated the FTA talks as a means of holding Seoul within its sphere of direct influence in the former Roh Moo-hyun administration with its economic focus limited to beef and auto trade. That means Korea could _ and should _ have bargained on a more advantageous footing in most other economic issues. But Seoul failed to do so, as the first thing Lee did was to make secret promises on beef imports before his first summit with Bush.

After the controversial conclusion of the free trade deal, Lee even sold it to U.S. auto workers in Detroit, serving as the ``running mate” of Obama, as the New York Times put it. In our short memory span, no foreign leaders have gone as far. Moreover, all these were taking place while Korean farmers and small businesses, the two groups hit biggest by the tariff-free trade, were protesting against the KORUS FTA wondering whom their own leader was persuading and why. What Korea has won, or will win, in return is not clear yet.

Also, President Lee’s hard-line North Korea policy is not without reason. Pyongyang is one of the least likable and most dangerous regimes.

That does not justify the Lee administration’s rigid reciprocity and virtual indifference toward the state, whose fate can never be separated from that of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. The collapse of inter-Korean ties in the past four years has made most Korean people nervous about their security, while giving away most potential economic benefits to China. If South Korea’s economic and diplomatic concessions to the United States are only for the sake of containing North Korea, it would mean double or even triple losses for just one gain, while sharply reducing Seoul’s own diplomatic leverage.

Former President Roh’s calls for playing the role of a ``balancer” in Northeast Asia might be a little premature in terms of Seoul’s national and diplomatic capacity but was not wrong as an eventual destination. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Roh as ``hard to read,” and later welcomed Lee’s election as a ``touching event.”

A close relationship should be an equal one based on mutual respect, not one in which a party buys the other’s favor at the expense of its own interests. We hope the Obama-Lee friendship belongs to the former but are concerned this may not be the case.