Moon's wrong head and high chin

By Oh Young-jin

Chung Eui-yong

Less than two months after his inauguration, President Moon Jae-in has faced a few diplomatic sticklers. One person has been involved in all of them ― the chief of the presidential National Security Office, Chung Eui-yong.

Moon fought hard to get his foreign minister nominee, Kang Kyung-wha, confirmed by the National Assembly, but when there appeared no chance, he pressed ahead with the nation’s first female foreign minister. A stylish former interpreter for the late President Kim Dae-jung with the habit of keeping her chin up, Kang has been the target of attacks for acts that are deemed unfit for a high office holder.

It may not need much explaining why Chung is Moon’s wrong-headed lieutenant.

This was on the day after he was appointed when he was supposed to receive a briefing about the deployment status of a U.S. missile interceptor Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. Then, pandemonium broke loose as his office alleged that the Ministry of National Defense had cheated on the deployment. An unusual probe was conducted to question the current Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Chung’s predecessor Kim kwan-jin. Only a working-level three-star general was relieved; but the mystery remains. Han is a leftover from the previous government because his successor is held up in a confirmation process.

Chung was sent to the United States to placate the ruffled feathers of President Donald Trump’s administration as the situation made the U.S. an accomplice in the alleged THAAD smuggling. Chung, a career diplomat and one-term lawmaker, showed his lack of finesse when he came back to talk about the “understanding” expressed by a senior Trump official about the “SNAFU.”

He had obviously taken it as U.S. consent for the delayed deployment.

But the atmosphere in Washington quickly got frosty as Trump and politicians, both Democratic and Republican, went up in arms over Korea’s stance on THAAD. THAAD came back when the President said that he still didn’t understand how the deployment was accelerated during a pre-summit interview.

As national security adviser, getting to the bottom of the issue was Chung’s job. He apparently has failed. Theories abound. One is that Chung jumped to the conclusion that the previous government tried to cheat, while taking stock of the deployment. Another is that the probe failed to find a clear answer. What is still puzzling is that Moon has been kept in the dark. This can make short work of the Moon-Trump summit, where THAAD is emerging as a make-or-break issue.

Then, Chung talked to Moon Chung-in, President Moon’s senior adviser, before he left for a seminar in Washington. So he could have prevented the adviser from making radical suggestions and upsetting the Trump administration. The U.S. government wanted Seoul to clarify whether professor Moon represented President Moon’s position or not. The President hung his adviser, the architect of a pro-dialogue strategy, out to dry. These “mistakes” appear serious enough to make Chung the fits whose head will roll, but the fact that he hangs on to it may reveal two things. Moon may take Chung’s counsel very seriously; or the President wants to keep some tension in his relationship with Washington. I wonder what he talked about over dinner with the adviser he ditched after the Washington fiasco.

Moon’s foreign minister is also an unproven commodity.

Some conservative male types privately raise an issue over her high chin, arguing that it makes her look arrogant.

However silly this is, their bias is bound to affect public opinion unless she performs her duties adequately. To the President, she is as much a PR asset as a liability. She had her child registered under a fake address to help her assigned to a good school; allegations that she had cheated on gift taxes and her adult daughter’s renunciation of American citizenship to help her mother get the job, are among other things to consider.

Then, there is skepticism about her work capability. She has not experienced tough negotiations of high-stakes national security issues such as North Korea’s nuclear and missile challenge and the thorny issue of comfort women, or former sex slaves, with Japan.

So far, she has parroted the government’s positions on both issues but soon enough it will be in plain sight whether she has what it takes to be a Madeline Albright, President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, or has the clout of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s top envoy, or at least a decent foreign minister.

Her priority is to show that she can be an independent thinker who can develop her own storyline to push the Moon government’s foreign policy agenda; as well as to distinguish herself from the crowd. It’s a hard job because so far her primary merit to get the job is her gender. Many of her predecessors turned into zombies with little mandate ― one being Kim Sung-hwan in the Lee Myung-bak administration. Still, Kim fought a nasty power struggle with presidential secretaries thanks to his deep roots in the ministry.

Kang doesn’t have such a pedigree ― an outsider who joined the foreign service thanks to her linguistic ability. That can heighten her chances of ending up as a foreign minister who has only one thing to boast of ― the first female for the job with her chin up. Or she should show she is not a pushover. The upcoming summit will be the first test of that mettle.

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times’ chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.