President and foreign policy

Korea needs leader with historical, diplomatic sense

Contrary to popular expectations and previous instances, President Lee Myung-bak made only cursory remarks about Japan and other regional problems in his Liberation Day speech Wednesday. Instead, he mostly focused on the economy, especially on how Korea has joined the ranks of leading industrial countries during his tenure, a claim open to partisan debate.

The change in priorities in Lee’s address, his final one for Aug. 15, showed two things: first, he has achieved too little in terms of regional diplomacy to talk about. Second, the President couldn’t press Japan any harder on official occasions, because he had gone too far “unofficially.”

This page welcomed Lee’s visit to Dokdo on Friday as a belated but appropriate shift of policy from silent diplomacy toward openly declaring Korea’s sovereignty over the rocky islets also claimed by Japan. And it hoped the seemingly abrupt visit was actually a long-considered, well-calculated move ― not in terms of domestic politics but from a diplomatic perspective ― and will be backed up by thorough follow-up measures.

We are now less certain about the latter part. President Lee says the visit was planned as long as three years ago. But it was a few months ago that his administration attempted and failed to sign an intelligence-sharing treaty with Japan. If Lee had thought his surprise visit to Dokdo and bilateral military cooperation pact could somehow work together, he might either have unduly overestimated or underestimated his Japanese counterparts. Pursuing the two simultaneously was nothing but self-contradictory.

Equally hard to understand were the President’s remarks in the aftermath of the visit. He called for the Japanese emperor to apologize and visit Korea, but there had been no formal discussions about an imperial trip recently. Lee’s comments on Japan’s weakened status in the international community were simply unnecessary. He either might have been encouraged too much by the rising approval rating or was just anxious to demonstrate his anti-Japanese traits, both of which were a little more than indiscreet for a national leader.

To sum up, Lee’s remarks were not wrong but the question remains whether the occasion and timing were right, especially for a head of state.

What all this shows is the importance of a leader’s historical sense and diplomatic ability especially at a time when territorial disputes are raging in East Asia. In retrospect, Seoul’s relationship with its neighbors ― especially with Pyongyang and Beijing ― couldn’t have been worse since Lee took office. Now that its ties with Tokyo are at their lowest point in years, albeit somewhat inevitably due to Japan’s attitude, the Lee administration’s “pragmatic” diplomacy ― a big misnomer itself ― has reached a dead end.

Lee’s lack of grand design and strategic consistency has led him to a roller-coaster style of diplomacy that goes between extremes. The conservative leaders’ undue priority on rigid morality and principles ahead of peace and people’s lives has also made the Korean Peninsula the most insecure it has been in a decade.

All of which explains why voters should take not only economy and democracy but also diplomacy into account when they choose their next leader in December. <The Korea Times>

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