By Oh Young-jin
Knowledge Economy Minister Choi Joong-kyung is unique for a member of the current Cabinet.
The former vice finance minister is not as cautious as Strategy and Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan, who served as labor minister and as senior presidential secretary. The 55-year-old career bureaucrat speaks his mind and goes for policies he believes in, however controversial they may be.
In terms of determination, Choi resembles his boss, President Lee Myung-bak, who, as a former construction CEO, came from the other end of the social spectrum as one who used to work for an industry that was regulated by bureaucracy. Lee’s nickname is “bulldozer,” while Choi has the same forceful nickname that sounds culturally insensitive to Westerners.
Choi didn’t play it safe in his effort to force refineries to provide discounts for gas prices, despite the industry’s lobbying and indirect pressures through the mass media. It was Choi’s contribution to President Lee’s all-out campaign to tackle inflation, something inevitable in his growth-oriented platform.
In what is often criticized as Lee’s populist move to tame big business, Choi has charged ahead in the face of the media backlash, telling conglomerates to cut down on executives’ pay and hire more in order to help ease youth unemployment or pushing for “ economy” gas stations to bring competition to the cartel-like refinery industry.
Taken all together, it would not be an extreme exaggeration to say that Choi is like a fearless platoon leader under company commander Lee, who doesn’t believe in retreat.
So when The Korea Times met Minister Choi during a recent interview at his office in the Gwacheon Government Complex, questions were focused on his relationship with his boss.
“It is his devotion to the job,” Choi said, when asked about his boss’ biggest characteristic as leader. Obviously, he shared the Confucian reluctance to speak about those who are senior both in age and rank to him, protesting at one point that the interview should be focused on the ministry’s affairs.
But it didn’t take long for Choi to get refocused and reply in unmistakable terms. “I feel that more people will have a chance to see how President Lee works,” Choi said, citing the long hours of concentration Lee maintains for jobs on hand and insight for work ahead.
Then, Choi cited the controversial “four-river restoration” project as an example of Lee’s leadership.
“I have seen it in person,” he said of his recent trip to one of the construction sites. “I can tell you from my own tour of the site that, if it were not for all the dirt moved and waterways rearranged, the damage from recent bouts of torrential rain would have wreaked much greater havoc.”
The billion-dollar four-river project is aimed at bringing systemic and ecological order to the nation’s four biggest rivers and their tributaries but has been under heavy fire by opposition parties for being a ploy to resurrect Lee’s campaign pledge to connect the nation by a big canal and criticized by environmentalists as an ecological disaster in waiting.
“By tradition, a national leader is judged by how he or she governs two things _ forest and water,” Choi said. “Planting trees and reforesting our lands was the job of the late President Park Chung-hee.
“Laying the groundwork for water security and flood control should be President Lee’s achievements,” Choi said.
Asked what Lee thinks about his assessment, Choi recalled that he brought the subject up when he had a chat with the president but said that Lee was reticent.
Choi then talked about the G-20 summit in Seoul and the upcoming nuclear summit that helped elevate Korea’s standing in the world under Lee’s governance. But he said that he saw what he thought to be a snapshot of Lee’s leadership during their trip to South Africa for a promotion to win PyeongChang, a winter resort city in Gangwon Province, the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
“I saw Lee shake hands with members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), asking them for their votes,” Choi remembered. “I wished more people had a chance to see him in his tireless promotion of PyeongChang’s third Olympic bid.”
It was not the first time that Choi had seen Lee in action up close and personal.
During his stint as senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, Choi was said to talk about the general reluctance in Korean society to give leaders credit even where it is due.
“We have a president we can be proud of,” he was quoted as saying. “We have to promote him. Promoting him is not for his sake but is for us by letting the world know better of our leaders and helping them deepen their understanding of us.”