hankyoreh

Senior presidential secretary for national security strategy Kim Tae-hyo announced his resignation on July 5 after being fingered as the one responsible for the closed-door push for a General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan. This is the second resignation over the matter, coming on the heels of foreign ministry spokesman Cho Byong-jae stepping down after divulging that the Blue House, not his ministry, spearheaded the GSOMIA’s secret passage by the Cabinet.
Though they have both resigned, the two men bear entirely different levels of responsibility. Kim was at the helm from start to finish, whereas Cho merely disclosed one small part of a long process. The resignations also came in the wrong order. Given the nature of the situation, Kim should have tendered his first. With all this confusion over the sequence and the weight of responsibility, some are questioning whether they can tell the difference between the coach and the athletes on the field.
The Blue House is now investigating the matter, and says it will determine where responsibility lies and take action accordingly. We will have to wait and see what comes of this, but it does not look like things will go away that easily. At the very least, the Blue House is going to have to explain why it deceived the Cabinet over the course of two explanations to the National Assembly even after tentatively signing the agreement in April.
It will also need to clearly state just who was responsible for this. Other things that need to be determined include just how much President Lee Myung-bak knew about it, and what roles were played by Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin, who initially led the agreement push; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan, who took over from him; and senior secretary for foreign affairs and national security Chun Young-woo, who coordinated this. The public will not accept a half-baked resolution that has responsibility pinned on Kim Tae-hyo, Cho Byung-je, and foreign ministry Northeast Asia bureau director Cho Se-yeong while obscuring the bigger picture.
If there is any silver lining, it is the departure of Kim, a neo-con who has directed the administration’s hard line against Pyongyang and its focus on Washington. Kim, the son of one of the president’s friends, has been routinely criticized for taking an outsized role in foreign affairs and national security policy that belies his actual job title. A number of observers have suggested that the GSOMIA situation may have stemmed, at least in part, from his favorable views on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces intervening in the event of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula. Although there isn’t much time left for the Lee administration, we hope Kim’s leaving will serve as an occasion for it to restore the balance with its one-sided policies on North Korea and neglect of China.
There is another lesson to be taken here: we cannot allow any one person to dictate the country’s foreign affairs and national security policies. In that sense, we urgently need to bring back the last administration’s National Security Council as a way of enforcing controls, balance, and sharing of opinions between government agencies.
　
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