hankyoreh

Kim Jong-cheol, Editorial Writer, The Hankyoreh

After Lee Myung-bak won the Grand National Party’s presidential primary, I went back and read two books he has written, Sinhwaneun Eopda (“There is No Glorious Myth,” 1995) and Jeolmang irajiman Naneun Huimangi Boinda (“They Say Its Desperation But I See Hope,” 2002), and read them carefully. The first thing he said when the GNP chose him as its candidate was that he was going to “change the party’s ‘color’ and the way it functions,” so I was curious about what kind of color he could possibly be talking about. If figured I could get closer to what is in his head in the books he has written.

There was a lot more original stuff in there then I expected. For starters, he is very critical of Korea’s conglomerates and their position in the country's economy. “I have no intention of denying the role the chaebol (jaebeol) played in the period between when economic development began and the growth we enjoyed in the 1980s,” he writes in Desperation. But “the form the chaebol take and their imperial management structure cannot be made to fit with the trend toward speedy change” and “irrational clan-style chaebol management is not a system that works for the 21st century.” That might be something you would only naturally expect from someone who used to be a business executive, but it is also an accurate understanding of what problems the Korean economy needs to solve.

Lee also expresses a fine view of companies and labor in his books as well. In Desperation he says “companies have to bear responsibility for elevating themselves to international standards in terms of their governing and financial structure and corporate transparency ... Before calling for a more flexible labor market and saying that unions are an obstacle to growth, companies first need to make themselves transparent.”

This is enough to make you think are reading the words of one of the progressive camp’s reformist presidential candidates. The same goes for when he writes that “if the state is going to collect taxes,” it “must hold precious the lives of the people and maintain a level of welfare that allows the people to maintain some quality of life.”

He appears to be considerably “open” about his initial thinking on North Korea. “Economic cooperation with North Korea is not about helping it unilaterally,” he writes in Glorious Myth. “It is economic cooperation, not aid. It is about North and South developing together.” Here you are made to feel you are looking at the roots of the sunshine policy.

In Desperation, he suggests building a joint performance venue for young people in the DMZ. “What better vision could there be for Korean reconciliation than for the generations that were not hurt by war to be able to share in a culture that allows them to feel true love for the Korean people?” He also proposes building a thermal power plant within the DMZ and having North and South share the power it produces. Even just calling for this is original and a profoundly new direction.

Since the start of his campaign, however, Lee has been diametrically different. Gone is the rational thinking about labor and business. All you see is an attitude of pro-big business or “growth first” and a focus on development as the first priority. About business, he makes all sorts of sweet promises, including one that says he will lower their taxes and relax regulations. At the same time he says he is going to “get rid of political unions, hard-line unions and illegal strikes.”(from a campaign speech given in Ulsan on July 31)

He calls the sunshine policy a complete failure because of Pyongyang’s test of a nuclear device. When it comes to the upcoming inter-Korean summit, he says, “negotiating, when the North has a nuclear program, recognizes that nuclear program.” He says he is “worried that president Roh Moo-hyun might not define a clear agenda and come back from Pyongyang having agreed to all sorts of things.” This is out of step with his own pragmatism.

I do not know how the GNP is going to change under Lee’s leadership, but Lee needs to change for sure. It is not desirable for the country, nor for he himself, to be the frontrunner and be consistently pro-big business, anti-labor and hard-line toward North Korea. Even if he is not going to go about reform, I would hope he would be able to maintain at least a little balance. He is also wrong in his attempt to re-arrange the landscape by embracing the Democratic and People First parties. He should emulate a non-mainstream politician who used to be a business executive and show his own unique colors. That way he will remain his own politician with his own name, whether he wins or loses the presidential election.