Do Je-hae edits news stories as part of the AI team.
President to focus on 'outcomes' in 4th year in office
President Moon Jae-in pays tribute at Seoul National Cemetary, Thursday, with Cabinet members and senior presidential secretaries. Yonhap
By Do Je-hae
By Do Je-hae
President Moon Jae-in's main focus this year will be centered on achieving tangible progress in improving the people's livelihoods with the clock ticking on his time in office and a crucial election just months away.
Starting the New Year, the President is putting emphasis on his administration's efforts to actually get people to feel the benefits of his policies. The general election, considered a test of Moon's performances since assuming office in May 2017, will take place in April. Coming off a hectic diplomatic schedule in Chengdu, China where the President met with leaders of China and Japan, Moon is expected to focus on domestic affairs in the coming weeks to achieve a good result for the ruling party in the elections.
Cheong Wa Dae is preparing for a New Year press conference where the President will give a clear outline of his focus this year. But from several public messages this week, it is evident that some keywords for his administration this year will be the people's “happiness” and “outcomes” for his policies.
In a social media to mark the New Year, Moon stressed 2020 will be the year to “give back to the people.” “The precious seeds of change that have been planted amid difficulties will blossom and will surely come to fruition without fail with tangible results. We will make a new leap toward being a country where everyone lives well together,” Moon said.
Restoring trust
Moon's renewed focus on “results” and “outcomes” from the people's perspective stems from the urgent need for the President to recover the people's trust in his administration after various policy missteps and devastating scandals involving close aides that have severely dampened his approval ratings.
At the height of his popularity, his job approval rating was well over 70 percent. But since his five-year presidency marked its half-way point in November 2019, this has been stuck in the 40-percent-range, with little progress from some of the biggest policy goals in his administration, particularly on lifting the economy and improving the employment situation.
More people are starting to turn their back on the President due to his administration's inability to deal with issues that are very sensitive for the electorate, such as soaring housing prices that are stripping more people of the hope of owning their own homes and building a stable life.
More than half of respondents who had a negative assessment of Moon's performance in an SBS survey cited his poor economic leadership as the biggest reason for their view, followed by his responses to North Korea and his personnel decisions.
Public sentiment toward the President, who arrived at Cheong Wa Dae with the promise to build a new Korea following the corruption scandal and impeachment of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, turned noticeably negative after Moon's appointment of his problematic aide Cho Kuk as justice minister in September 2019.
He pushed through the appointment despite a huge backlash from the opposition and many Koreans who saw the former presidential senior secretary for civil affairs as unfit for the post due to a series of allegations of corruption and other illegalities.
But Moon continued to stand by Cho although the scandal has dashed the hopes of many Koreans that his administration would be different from previous ones where corruption and misuse of power were taken for granted. The presidential office has also been hit by allegations of election meddling, which has also dealt a significant blow to the integrity of the current administration.
Focus on economy
One of the best ways to salvage the public's waning trust in his leadership is to focus on the economy, which has a direct impact on the people's livelihoods. Although his key economic policies such as the “income-led growth” has sparked much controversy, they stem from his firm determination to fundamentally address the aggravating social gap and widening economic inequality. Given this, it is unlikely that he will change the direction of his economic policies in the latter part of his time in office.
“Despite the growth in national economy which is considered a miracle around the world, many people are still struggling. The benefits of our economic growth have been concentrated on a small number of the upper-class and large companies, and have not been evenly distributed among all the people,” Moon said during a New Year speech in 2019.
“There have been some headway made in innovative growth and introducing a fair economy, but employment indicators have not met expectations in terms of quantity. Self-employed people are complaining of difficulties. The manufacturing sector, which has been our traditional strength, continues to suffer. We failed to properly respond to changes in the industrial structure and consumption patterns brought on by automation and online consumption. This has led to fear of the future and has undercut the people's confidence in the government's economic policies.”
The problems highlighted in last year's New Year address remain much the same, so it is expected that Moon will stress more fundamental solutions to the economic challenges this year. But it remains to be seen how convincing his words will be in the twilight of his presidency.
Diplomatic challenges
Another area Moon will continue to devote much attention to is diplomacy. He is facing a myriad of challenges with North Korea, Japan, China and the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un virtually announced that he will go back on his moratoria on nuclear and missile tests during a major policy conference this week. Moon has continued to highlight relations with North Korea as one of his achievements, but Kim's repeated snubbing of South Korea has put Moon in an increasingly difficult position and has undermined his role as “a facilitator” in the denuclearization talks.
Moon's consistent drive to improve ties with North Korea has angered the opposition party and many Koreans who are running out of patience with them. “Cheong Wa Dae's response to North Korea's provocations is too idle. The first thing the President should have done this morning is to announce a stern warning to Kim, not approving the appointment of Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae,” said Rep. Shim Jae-chul, floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea during a party meeting, Thursday.
The President will also have to deal with the heavy pressure to improve ties with both China and Japan this year, on top of dealing with the growing demands of retaining the alliance with the U.S., including a unilateral demand for more money to maintain U.S. troops stationed here. On a recent visit to China, Moon got an agreement from both China and Japan on the need to put dialogue ahead of confrontation in dealing with North Korea, which is a position also maintained by Washington.
But an escalating U.S.-China rivalry has put Korea in a very difficult situation, as seen by the dispute over the deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in Korea that produced a strong backlash from Beijing. Korea's role in Washington's Indo-Pacific Strategy, aimed at containing China's rise in the region, is giving Moon a serious challenge this year as he looks to rebuild ties with Beijing, with a possible rare visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Korea in the first half of this year.