Like it or not, President Lee and his predecessor, Roh, are as similar as they are dissimilar. Hailing from the traditional power base of the Gyeongsang provinces, both are confident, self-centered and rough of speech. Such traits, particularly the last, may be okay at home but not when directed abroad.
``I am neither pro-U.S. nor pro-Chinese,'' Lee said during an administrative briefing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tuesday. We are not tripping the president with his own words, but it would have been far better if he had said, ``I am both pro-Washington and pro-Beijing.'' Lee must have been conscious of criticism of his one-sided pro-American stance and wanted to stress pragmatic diplomacy through a fair and balanced approach. Still, it needs to be done by moving toward the two giants as closely as possible, not keeping both at a distance.
Granted, it was just a gaffe, but real danger seems to be seated deep within the president's diplomatic philosophy ― or lack thereof. Reports have it that talks about the economy ― how to secure natural resources in particular ― so dominated the 70-minute session that the North Korean nuclear crisis was not even tabled as an agenda item.
Denuclearization is surely a multilateral issue and ideology should give place to economic gains in diplomacy. The president, however, should know inter-Korean relationships are like a treadmill ― you should keep running lest you should lag behind and fall off. What the ``benign neglect'' of Pyongyang can result in has been shown by the Bush administration. Seoul should maintain at least same distance, or proximity, with both Washington and Pyongyang and not be reduced to bystander status in matters determining its own fate.
Nothing showed more symbolically the eventual fallout of Lee's one-sided pro-U.S. and pro-Japan policy than the presence of the U.S. aircraft carrier on the West Sea on the day the New York Philharmonic held a landmark concert in Pyongyang, followed by Russian military planes' show of force near our airspace days later.
The new government's resource diplomacy, though basically right in direction, leaves much to be desired. Most of all, it is more demonstrative than substantive. No African or South American countries would like it if Korea says it befriends them because of their resources, but that's what the government is doing now. What does Seoul have over Beijing, which has its own clouts and needs not watch the faces of Washington or Tokyo, armed with huge amounts of cash? The transfer of development know-how might be its only weapon, but even that should be used in a long-term, patient and quiet manner.
A good example was Lee's hasty meeting with a Kurdish leader on oil mining rights amid possible risks of irking Baghdad. A corporate chief executive officer may have to advertise his achievements with some hot air, but a country's Chief Executive should be more prudent.
In short, Lee, like Roh, needs a good diplomatic tutor. But it seems to be difficult to expect it from the Foreign Ministry, which quickly suited its policy keynote to its new boss but was rebuffed when it asked not for a tactical finetuning but for a bigger ministry building.