hankyoreh

During a press conference in Seoul on Apr. 25

I had downed the shot of soju and was about to take my leave when the man vehemently said, “President Park - she has got to go.” This was a diplomat who had fought the good fight while advising the foreign policy decisions of seven presidents, from Chun Doo-hwan in the 1980s to Park Geun-hye. His face nearly purple, he went on: “Politicians are talking about separating domestic affairs from foreign affairs, but that could get us into serious trouble. If North Korea commits a military provocation, Park will attempt to capitalize on it with an overblown response. She‘s capable of anything. It’s really worrying. Right now, Park must not be left in charge of foreign affairs,” he said. The diplomat summed up four years of foreign affairs under the Park administration with three words: incompetence, irresponsibility and lies.

The more knowledgeable people are, the more concerned they are about Park’s authority over foreign affairs. On Nov. 16, 42 experts in the areas of unification, foreign policy and security, including former unification ministers Jeong Se-hyun and Lee Jong-seok, released a statement calling on Park to “give up all of her powers over foreign affairs.”

“Foreign affairs isn’t some overseas tour. It‘s not a chance to wear the clothes your secret confidante has picked out for you and to smile in a fashion show. [. . .] If President Park shared classified security information with ’an old friend‘ and allowed the leader of a religious cult to edit speeches announcing unification policy, she isn’t capable of managing foreign affairs,” the experts said.

The diplomat continued his observations: “If she can‘t even answer reporters’ questions at home, what could she do abroad? Since Park became president, she has refused to answer questions at press conferences. Press conferences without questions without questions an important testing ground for negotiations where presidents prepare for summit diplomacy.”

The embarrassing secrets of Park‘s government have already spread across the universe. The phrases that have appeared in major foreign newspapers in articles about the Choi Sun-sil scandal have been truly shocking: “robot,” “puppet,” “shaman adviser,” “shamanistic rituals,” “sorcerer regent” and “astrological system.”

“No foreign leader will take [Park] seriously when she has already lost her authority and credibility at home,” said Seogang University Professor Suh Bok-kyung in the Financial Times on Nov. 4. The implication is that Park is incapable of summit diplomacy.

And yet Park says that she will go to Tokyo to take part in the trilateral summit with China and Japan once the schedule is confirmed. “If President Park is unable to attend for domestic reasons, we stand to lose a lot,” Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said before the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Nov. 17.

Park surprisingly has resumed the push for the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) between South Korea and Japan. Defense Minister Han Min-koo told reporters on Nov. 14 that “future assessments are sometimes [positive] even when there is major opposition,” and Yun told the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Nov. 17 that “the threat of North Korea‘s nuclear weapons and missiles is more serious than the people think.” In their eyes, the 59% of the public who are opposed to the agreement (according to a Gallup poll on Nov. 18, with 31% in favor), are simply the unwashed masses.

In Park, Yun and Han’s behavior, there is not the slightest trace of any concern about the constitutional significance of the totally unprecedented disregard of constitutional government found in the Choi Sun-sil scandal, the presence of a million citizens in Gwanghwamun Square who want to rectify this and the fact that Park’s approval rating has been stuck at 5% for three weeks in a row. Park and her ministers completely deny that South Korea is a democratic republic in which all power derives from the people (according to Article 1 of the Constitution), which means that foreign policy must be founded in democratic legitimacy. The implication is that the right to sit on the council of state should be stripped not only from Park, who has already been politically disenfranchised by the public, but also from Yun and Han, who dismiss the voice of the people as ignorance.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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