For young Korean leaders

By Choi Yearn-hong

My first advice to young Korean political leaders: please do not bring your “bodyguards” to meetings.

Bodyguards are seemingly their personal kobuns, a Japanese word meaning something akin to the “entourage” they represent in my eyes.

They make the new Korean political leaders look like “old-style” politicians. I saw presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung accompanied by their kobuns whenever they went out. Once my friend in San Francisco called me to advise Kim Dae-jung to act as a rational political leader during his stay in Washington as a political exile.

My friend, then a patriotic man, was not happy to see Kim coming out of his airplane with his so many kobuns. He asked me, “Why did he need so many kobuns when he visited San Francisco?” During Kim’s exile in the States in the early 1980s, I was Kim’s close associate. So my friend naturally told me about the airport story, which was funny but sad. He was an opposition party leader from a developing nation. (Now, it is no longer a developing nation. It is more advanced nation.)

His airport story went further: Senator Edward Kennedy arrived in San Francisco alone with his briefcase in his hand on the same airplane. “Why does Kim have so many bodyguards around him?” I saw that he was accompanied by his secretaries whenever he travelled in the United States during his two-year stint in Washington. I thought he felt lonely.

I also thought old-style politics could be defined as: the boss must be surrounded by more secretaries to show off his power and authority. Later, I saw that South Korean politicians always bring more than a few secretaries when they visited Washington. I was sick and tired of seeing them. Their intellectual power was questionable. There was not much rational thinking or high-level knowledge involved in their conversations with their American counterparts.

I was asked to arrange meetings for them with many high-level American politicians, and so I did, but I was disappointed to find out they were not ready to sit down and talk about policy issues between the two nations. After a few minutes’ conversation, most of them ran out of things to say, let alone intelligent observations.

Now, I see opposition leaders Kim Han-gil and Ahn Cheol-soo organizing a new political party. They are surrounded by so many of their secretaries, bodyguards or whatever you call them. They are ridiculous looking to my eyes. Why do they want to show off their power and authority through the number of their secretaries or bodyguards?

They remind me of Japanese gangsters. Why do they need such a large entourage when they go to a simple luncheon meeting? Pathetic. Ridiculous, isn’t it? That cannot be the way to go for new politicians. If they want to follow their old political leaders, then they are OK. But most Korean people want new politics. In these changing times, they should change their style as well as the substance of their policies.

I believe they discuss substance, but they still maintain the same old political style. How regrettable.

I admire Kim Han-gil’s decision to form a new political alliance with Ahn, a new face in Korean politics. Ahn persuaded Kim to adopt new policies to cut off blind nationalism to appease the North Korean dictatorship and reckless street demonstrations when the opposition party cannot win inside the National Assembly.

Their party platform will be really new, if it officially adopts such proposals. They will be impressive to the people as a new young political party. Admirable.

Ahn should push Kim to accept cost-benefit, analysis-based government programs. If they are democratic political leaders, then they must consider that all governments should design public policy programs based on limited revenue.

Populist politicians have proposed free lunch, free transportation and free welfare. There is no such a thing as a free lunch program. However, such free programs have dominated Korean politics for the past 10 years or more.

The government’s deficit budget will cause bankruptcy sooner or later, if it has not yet. Insane politicians, in the name of democracy, may ruin sound democratic government, and more than that, the economy. Many South Korean local governments have been facing de facto financial bankruptcy. Many Korean politicians want popular votes. They don’t seem to care about maintaining a sound, balanced budget. Their mentality is: Who cares? Who cares about the future? They are very much focused on the present time.

The national government is no exception. The opposition party confronting the Park Geun-hye government should try to reduce government programs, rather than expanding them. That will make for a sound opposition party voice. They should recognize the economic difficulties many European nations face.

North Korea policy should be reviewed with the same basic cost-benefit approach. Blind optimism and the nice Sunshine Policy did not change anything in terms of a peaceful reunification, or the peaceful co-existence of the two Koreas. Some opposition party leaders are still blind to the fact that North Korea bombed Yeonpyeong Island in daylight and a South Korean patrol ship in the dark. Pouring in astronomical amounts of aid must have helped North Korea develop its atomic weapons and long-range missiles.

It seems that Ahn, a presidential hopeful, has noticed the failure of the Sunshine Policy and proposes a change of policy. South Korean people are not blind to the things North Korea has done to the South. Ahn and Kim should accept the change of its North Korea policy. If not, they may never reach the Blue House in the next election.

Most recently, some lawmakers visited Washington to get some bogus credit for the Virginia Legislature’s passage of a bill that would change high school textbooks and maps to use both Sea of Japan and East Sea when referring to the body of water between Korea and Japan.

What kind of politicians are they? Were they able to persuade their American counterparts about the fairness of using both names? I have serious doubts about many of the lawmakers who visited Washington. They should not waste taxpayers’ money any more for their international “tourist” programs.

Young Korean politicians, please free yourselves from old-style politics not only in style, but also in substance. First of all, they should be armed with knowledge about international politics and logical thinking in order to be qualified to be new political leaders.

If and when they visit Washington, they should be smart enough to engage in intelligent talk about specific issues with their American counterparts. I would like to see such politicians in Washington.

I want to cheer be able to cheer for new young Korean politicians.

The writer is a political scientist retired after a long teaching and government career in the United States and Korea. He has been a contributor to The Korea Times since 1966.