Two Leaders Internet Story

By Kim Seong-Jun

Unlike most Korean people around me, my weekend is not full of variety. Returning to Korea after fulfilling four years of overseas service in Tianjin and Shanghai, China, I've become more inert than before in seeking out something enjoyable and meaningful at weekends. One reason may be my acute stress, growing day by day, while working at my company in Korea. Another may be the country's outcries against the deadpan Korean leader.

Frankly speaking, what with sleeping and watching television, I turn into a weekend corpse despite being henpecked by my wife for being lazy and not helping my son enough with his homework. My experience of living in China for more than four years has resulted in an insatiable desire to know about today's China, its culture, society and economy, not to mention the controversial Beijing Olympics. To watch these Chinese programs is somewhat of an obsession for me and is now one of my routine behaviors at weekends in Korea.

As usual, I turned on the television last Saturday afternoon and came to watch a Chinese news program by CCTV (China Central Television) satellite broadcasting.

It was around 10 o'clock in the morning and the usual one-hour national news was on the air on CCTV Channel 4 reporting on China's leader Hu Jintao. Since watching Mr. Hu on the news frequently through Chinese mass media while in that land, I've had a bellyful of CCTV's regular news on the world's new economic superpower.

But, the day's report on him was more intriguing than previous ones.

Mr. Hu appeared interested in learning the people's opinion on June 20 and paid a visit to the office of the People's Daily, China's leading newspaper. At the paper he gave reporters on duty a speech of encouragement. And then, what the Chinese leader did surprised me. He sat at a female reporter's desk and began to chat on a Chinese Internet site for 20 minutes with more than 200 million Chinese netizens.

He was said to utilize the Internet to get domestic and overseas news, see what the people's concerns are and see their advice to reflect on his management of national affairs with the ruling Communist Party. The Chinese government is known for its control of the freedom of the press in China and I still think it has not yet fully changed as I experienced many cases in China where national incidents or accidents that happened were not adequately reported on. Standardized news reports by the mass media all reported about the successful Chinese leader and his sycophants without commentary or criticism, which sometimes drove the Chinese people to indulge in nationalism.

But, what is apparent now is that China is changing by itself under a more sensible and advanced leader with more reform-minded volition, as is the case of Hu. Hu's utilization of the Internet without doubt contributed to China's quick recovery from the Sichuan earthquake last month.

On the contrary, how is the Korean government under its leader President Lee Myung-bak faring? Only four months have passed since Lee took office as president but we've yet to see him smile, let alone laugh while being covered by the Korean mass media. What has gone wrong with this once powerful leader of a Korean big enterprise and Seoul mayor, who promised a far-reaching ``747" (7 stands for annual economic growth by 7 percent, 4 for national per capita income of $40,000 and 7 for Korea being one of seven economic superpowers in the world) in his election pledges?

The new Korean leader has failed to live up to the people's expectations. Most of his policies turned out to be against what the Korean people wanted, including the mindless Grand Canal project, the import of U.S. beef carrying the risk of mad cow disease without considerate and thoughtful negotiations with U.S. counterparts, the rich men's cabinet and Blue House, and the many public pledges given in lip-service only. He and his ministers are blackmailing the people into believing that what Internet netizens are spreading about mad cow's disease is a ghost story.

I wonder whether Lee has read what numerous netizens have written on the web debating rooms over the past four months.

At least, if President Lee does not want to be nicknamed in the category of ``failed presidents,'' he should no longer stick to his own style and attitude of not listening to what the grassroots in Korea are voicing whether for or against him. He is a new president who has more than four years to lead Korea and our external circumstances, including skyrocketing oil prices are hard to deal with at present, so we again express our hope he will be more sensible and awake in the future. President Lee, why don't you now go to the square of the City Hall or logon to your computer to see and read what the Korean people are most concerned about?

The writer works for Korea Marine Transport Co. (KMTC) in Seoul and wrote an English essay book, ``Thoughts of Myself,'' a collection of articles printed in The Korea Times. He can be reached at his e-mail address sjkhim@kmtc.co.kr.