hankyoreh

which they refer to as the Grand Canal Project in disguise

President Lee Myung-bak offcially announced Monday that he would not push a controversial project to build a grand canal up the Korean Peninsula during his term. He has drawn a clear line a year after he said during a special press conference on June 19 of last year (at the hight of the US beef candlelight protests) that he would not push the project if the citizens opposed it.

It appears Lee’s announcement that he would abandon building the canal during his term is largely the product of a political judgment that doing so would ease debate and tensions over whether his project to restore Korea’s four great rivers was simply a preliminary step in constructing the canal and give him the energy to push the river restoration project.

Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said Monday that “there was still considerable opposition to the canal project, and more importantly, it appeared some were linking the river restoration project which the administration views as vital to the canal issue and politically using it to create strife.” He said the president has made a decision, based on the judgment that it would be best to put things in order.

Park Jae-wan, senior presidential secretary for state policy planning, said no matter how many times ministers or Cheong Wa Dae secretaries explained that the canal would be difficult to build time-wise and differed from the river project starting with the planning, the people did not believe it. He said the president made his announcement based on the judgment that to clear up the misunderstanding, the president needed to make a direct announcement. The president stressed in a radio and Internet address today the need for the river restoration project, bringing up the examples of the Han River, Cheonggye Stream and Ulsan’s Taehwag River. He added that he hoped there would be no more misunderstandings about this issue.

Some also view the president’s statement as part of a recent campaign stressing communication and reconciliation with the people ongoing since his pledge to “strengthen centrism.” This is because the canal project has been considered a symbol of miscommunication and mistrust between the Lee administration and the people, and it seems with the statement the president has taken the advice of outside figures to give up on the canal. In his address, Lee said he urgently felt that it would be hard for Korea to become an advanced nation without overcoming social tensions and divisions.

Nevertheless, Lee did say his belief in the need for the canal is unchanged, hinting that he still has strong feelings about the project. He said it’s something he has thought about from the time he was in the private sector, long before entering politics, and that he had proposed the canal to the government in 1996 when he was a lawmaker in the 15th National Assembly. Because of this, it’s still unclear whether his statement that he would not push the canal project during his term will clear up suspicions that the river restoration project is just clearing the way for someone else to build a canal connecting the Han River and Nakdong River in the future.

The Democratic Party, Liberty Forward Party and Democratic Labor Party immediately went on the offensive, saying that if Lee wants to prove he’s really given up on the canal, he needs to show sincerity by taking steps such as slashing the budget for the river restoration project. About this, Park Jae-wan said if the river project were about the canal, they’d have to build lock gates and terminals, and dredging would have to be deeper than now.

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