hankyoreh

The government has come under fire for bungling the chairman’s statement at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Regional Forum in Singapore. In particular, many critics say the government desperately needs to reconsider its policy on foreign affairs and foreign ministry officials because the blunder came after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade took a series of body blows in its mishandling of beef negotiations with the United States and the territorial dispute with Japan over the Dokdo islets.

Park Myeong-lim, a professor at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies, said, “The government’s foreign policy has repeatedly been shoddy in terms of its philosophy, vision and national interests. Incidents such as this will happen again if the government delays an in-depth reconsideration of its policy to reestablish the national interest in the post-Cold War and globalization era, rather than simply going back to the past.”

Experts say the diplomatic blunder committed at the ASEAN Regional Forum was the result of the South Korean government’s mindset, which views the international diplomatic stage from the perspective of past confrontations with North Korea. The government came under fire because it tried to resolve the shooting death of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean solider at Mount Geumgang (Kumgang) with the kind of confrontational diplomacy it used in the 1970s and 1980s, critics say. What’s worse, the government’s actions are expected to further strain inter-Korean relations because the South Korean government displayed apparent disrespect for the inter-Korean summits and the Oct. 4 Summit Declaration.

Nevertheless, the government is sticking to its hasty excuses, saying that it “hadn’t known what was written in the chairman’s statement” before it was released or that “the chairman’s statement is under the direct authority of the chairman.” The government said it was not in the position to prevent the controversy by fine-tuning the statement before its release.

Nevertheless, the government is sticking to its hastily-made excuses, saying that it “hadn’t known what was written in the chairman’s statement” before it was released or that “the chairman’s statement is under the direct authority of the chairman.” The government said it was not in the position to prevent the controversy by fine-tuning the statement before its release.

However, experts have raised questions about the government’s excuses because they say that it would not make sense for the chairman’s statement to have been released without having first been circulated among the participating nations. The chairman’s statement itself indicates that it may have been written as the result of consensus among the participating nations because the paragraphs within begin with phrases such as “The ministers of the participating nations” or “The meeting.” If, as it has said, the government did not know what was written in a draft statement, it would pose a bigger problem because it would reveal the limitations of South Korean diplomacy, the experts said.

In response to the controversy, a high-ranking official at the presidential office of the Blue House attempted to tone down the meaning of the chairman’s statement, saying, “The chairman’s statement includes references to things that have happened over the past year. Other than that, the inclusion of the October 4 declaration had no particular meaning.” But critics say that it does not make sense for the government to have attempted to make diplomatic efforts just to remove a meaningless paragraph from the chairman’s statement.

One of the reasons why the government’s foreign affairs and security policy has been in disarray is that there is no “control tower” responsible for coordinating it. As the Lee administration abolished a system used by the previous administration in which the National Security Council was in charge of coordinating sensitive issues, there has been rampant flip-flopping at the diplomatic stage. Another reason is that the system of checks and balances among the government agencies for foreign affairs and security has collapsed. The more important reason, however, seems to be the government’s amateur approach to diplomacy and lack of philosophy for its foreign affairs and security policy.

A former high-ranking government official in the field of foreign affairs and security said, “For either diplomacy or policy on North Korea, there should be a clear message toward our counterpart. The message of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s policy on North Korea and foreign affairs isn’t clear.” In addition, the former official said, “If the philosophy isn’t future-oriented, the government should polish its diplomatic methods. The government’s attitude at the ASEAN Regional Forum was indisputably amateurish.”

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