Did foreign minister know it?

On the front page of our Tuesday edition, we ran a story about a mix-up inside the government over its handling of a military information-sharing pact with Japan.

The headline ― Rebellion against lame duck ― concisely summarized the situation, one that couldn’t even be imagined, say, six months ago.

President Lee is scheduled to leave office in February 2013, leaving him with about eight months in his tenure. But since the next president is elected in December, Lee’s remaining time of governance is actually only six months. Considering that parties are expected to select their standard bearers by August, the President will likely be relegated to the role of caretaker in the next couple of months.

By some indications, the ministry took this timeline well into consideration when it shifted the blame to Cheong Wa Dae through a “senior government official” in the face of growing public criticism about the way the Korea-Japan military intelligence pact was handled.

The official in question told multiple media outlets that the presidential office had ignored his ministry’s request to have the Japan agreement openly dealt with and pressed ahead to endorse it at a Cabinet meeting, which the President missed due to a trip to Latin American.

His meeting with the press took place after a leak to the media that touched off public criticism, rekindled anti-Japanese sentiment and triggered a number of protest demonstrations. The official asked the media to attribute him as a senior government official ― a typical request when an individual is willing to be a media source, on condition that he or she is not publicly identified.

Two questions inevitably arose.

The first was asked in the Tuesday article and, more specifically, in its headline kicker: Did the foreign minister endorse staff criticism of Cheong Wa Dae’s handling of the deal with Japan?

It is possible that the publicly anonymous official went it alone without consulting his boss, Minister Kim, perhaps out of personal frustration after seeing his organization take the undeserved bum rap.

Still, there was no word that Kim upbraided the official. Maybe the minister is waiting for directions from Cheong Wa Dae before dealing with his subordinate.

The presidential office has denied any plan about replacing the minster, although the opposition wants Kim as well as Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik removed to be dismissed.

Or perhaps, he consulted with Kim in advance and gained his endorsement. The foreign minister has so far given no indication that he had prior knowledge of his staff’s actions.

After his ministry and the presidential office were criticized by the media, Kim told his staff at a meeting that it was not appropriate to pass the buck to somebody else about an affair that the ministry was ultimately responsible for.

Considering the senior official’s job in the ministry, it would be hard to deny that, even if he didn’t actively seek the minister’s approval, the official still acted, secure in his conviction that whatever he did wouldn’t deviate much from what the minister wanted.

The second question was whether or not the President’s lame duck status had factored in the official’s action and, by extension, that of the minister, if he had given his nod to it after the fact.

If Minister Kim and his senior official were fired, at least theoretically, they will go down as martyrs for their ministry or improve their chances of being used for important jobs in the next government. I neither want to believe that this was their motivation nor have any evidence to substantiate such a view.

It is well known that during this final stretch of his tenure, the President should have a more compelling reason to stick to them because he wants to complete his presidential agenda smoothly and there will be fewer candidates to take the job in the twilight of his administration.

One notable fact is that Minister Kim doesn’t belong to President Lee’s inner circle and is sometimes dictated to by presidential aides about what policy his ministry should follow and how it should be implemented.

Conflicts between bureaucrats and those elected to power are not uncommon. In the common course of events, bureaucrats rebel when elected officials are in a weakened position.

The latest brouhaha can be taken as a phenomenon that usually takes place in the final term of an elected government, but the cost to the country is too high.

As a result of this latest power struggle, our nation has sustained serious damage to its reputation. The government notified Japan of its decision to delay the scheduled signing with only an hour’s notice, making our country look like a banana republic where there is no rule of law and governmental words of intent can be flipped around at will. Holding deep-seated resentment toward Japan is one thing but breaking a promise made is another. It is time for us to separate one from the other.

Secondly, whether the foreign ministry intended it or not, it is inevitable that his rebellion has opened a can of worms and more similar incidents are bound to follow. I hope that President Lee will be prepared for this because the nation deserves a decent finish to his administration. <The Korea Times/Oh Young-jin Managing editor>

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