By Lee Chang-sup
A big problem of the five-year single-term presidency is that the head of state is unable to chart a long-term plan for the country.
Like his predecessors, President Lee Myung-bak faces the same dilemma. He has difficulty in initiating new programs stretching beyond his presidency. Lee is unable to present his new policies to get re-elected. His successor might reverse his policies.
In his fourth year of presidency, Lee must now confine himself to completing what he has undertaken, including the four-river refurbishment project.
The same problems dogged his four predecessors. A sense of urgency on the part of the single-term president has often led to ill-conceived policy initiatives. Overly-hasty attempts to implement policies during their tenure have encountered hurdles.
The incumbent resident of Cheong Wa Dae has always been over-ambitious at the beginning of his presidency, falsely believing that he could engineer comprehensive and historical change, a task the single-term president is unable to realize.
Park Chung-hee was said to have spent five years before he was confident in what he was doing, during his 18-year rule.
The incumbent denies much of what his predecessor has undertaken. President Lee adopted an “anything but Roh” (ABR) policy. The result is discontinuous, rigidly demarcated periods.
Lee made a complete U-turn on Seoul’s North Korea policy. He also scaled down or scrapped Roh’s project of creating “Innovation Cities” in the provinces. The project was to promote balanced growth between the capital area and the provinces. The list goes on.
Many long-term policies await the attention of the government.
First of all, Korea must chart a long-term policy to increase its population, including a proactive immigration policy and the hike of the world’s lowest birth rate.
Korea will soon undergo a seismic change in the population as more than seven million Korean baby-boomers, comprising 14.6 percent of the population, and born between 1955 and 1963, will retire in less than a decade.
Their retirement will be socially costly if they receive pensions without working. The society is unprepared for their generation. Unlike their parents, most of them will live beyond 80. They will be an enormous burden on the pension and medical insurance funds. The government needs a program to make them an asset to the country, not a liability. When they have no work and live only on pensions, the economy will lose vigor. Japan’s loss of economic vitality originates from its fast-aging population.
Also outside the radar of policymakers is the reform plan for pension and medical insurance funds, together with a state-debt reduction program. Korea’s national debt has been growing fastest in the OECD.
Lee’s proposal to establish a unification fund will end just as a slogan. It is still unclear what position Lee’s successor will take toward North Korea. The South has undergone a tumultuous gyration in North Korea policy.
Seoul’s leader has little room for charting a long-term policy toward a unified Korea. Few would deny that the North Korean regime will go. The only question is when it will collapse and who will take it over ― either South Korea or China.
A sudden end of the Kim Jong-il regime would be unbearably costly although a slow death of the communist country would also be dear.
Unification costs will be $50,000 per South Korean or more than $2 trillion, twice the gross domestic product, in the case of the North’s sudden demise. This will raise the government debt by four times to 147 percent of the GDP by 2040.
A natural end of the Kim’s regime, would result in a unification cost of about $7,500 per South Korean, according to professor Nam Sung-wook of Korea University.
A unification policy should be a consistent process that must continue for decades. Before German unification in 1990, Hans Genscher had served for 19 years as West Germany’s foreign minister. Unification policy was Kim Dae-jung’s top priority, but he had six different unification ministers and five different foreign ministers.
The IT industry has been drifting as President Lee abolished the IT ministry.
In hindsight, Korea’s Cyworld might have become a global social network if it had a strong government backing. Despite its launch ahead of Facebook, Cyworld is unable to move beyond South Korea. Facebook dominates the global social network world.
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) drained three trillion won and saw the death of more than three million pigs and cows. Damage control of this catastrophic accident might have been possible if policymakers under the previous administrations were in charge now. Manuals for the epidemic have gone together with the disappearance of FMD experts from past governments. This forced the Lee administration to cope with the disease from scratch. It is one example of numerous trials, errors and policy blunders of the single-term presidency.
Korea is not born anew as a new leader takes office. The past cannot be erased. No meaningful progress is possible without history and continuity, according to Kim Choong-nam, author of “The Korean Presidents.”
He said nation building is a long-term process. It took Europe centuries to build up its countries. In Korea national goals and policies change frequently in line with changes of government. The country badly needs to maintain long-term developmental goals, strategies and policies beyond one administration.
Change of government is inevitable but heads of state must try to learn from the failures and successes of their predecessors.
Lee Chang-sup is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. He can be reached at editorial@koreatimes.co.kr.