[Editorial] More of Lee’s foreign policy failures

Posted on : 2008-07-16 13:05 KST Modified on : 2008-07-16 13:05 KST

The whole country is up in arms about the decision by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to state that Dokdo is Japanese territory in a teachers’ instruction manual. Japan is gradually increasing the intensity of its territorial claims on Dokdo, this while ignoring historical and substantial truth, and its behavior must not be tolerated. The Korean government is taking action in response to Japan’s provocation, by recalling Seoul’s ambassador and better asserting Korean control over the islets.

However, the action the government is now taking does give you the feeling it is making a big to-do to hide its own policy failures, given how its approach was completely different from previous Korean policy towards Japan. Ever since Japan first mentioned Dokdo as Japanese territory in 2001, it has been taking the wording to a gradually higher level. The Japanese ministry made it known last year that it would have Japanese students introduced to Dokdo as Japanese territory via the instruction manual in question. The situation we see today, then, was to have been expected, and yet President Lee Myung-bak declared at April’s Korea-Japan summit that for the “future” he would “not question the past.” Earlier, Seoul’s ambassador to Tokyo had said that Lee told him to “not be restrained by the past and not pry about the little things.” The ambassador also said Korea should “put the issue in our pocket and not bring it out” even though “the Dokdo and textbook issue is something where there are provocations from the Japanese side.

The Lee administration did not stop at expressing its intention to tolerate provocations about Dokdo and the past. The Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology dismantled the history task force that it had created in February of last year to deal with Chinese and Japanese distortions of history. It is only natural for Japan to have yelled with delight. How can you call it “normal diplomacy” to have taken that approach, only to now apparently have the president and other government officials imploring the Japanese not to list Dokdo as Japanese?

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting that when Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda informed Lee of what would happen with the instruction manual while Lee was at the G8 summit last week, he responded by saying “now is not a good time” and asking him to “wait.” This report is even more shocking. We would like to believe the Blue House spokesman when he strongly denies the report, but considering how Lee and his administration have been behaving all this time, the fact is that it is hard to write this off as some attempt to create division within Korea society. Lee needs to clearly separate for us what is true and what is inaccurate, and, if true, he needs to receive strict censure for neglecting his responsibility to protect and defend the nation’s territory.

The situation we have today originated in the administration’s flippant and shallow thinking about relations with Japan, and international relations in general. It needs to reflect on its approach and give deep consideration to the interests of the Korean people and state and base foreign policy on that, because only by doing so will there be a future for Korean diplomacy.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

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