“It’s not just the president. We’re team players” ; Blue House secretariat meetings changing under Pres. Moon

Posted on : 2017-05-26 16:12 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
New administration making meetings forums for real exchanging of views, not just officials jotting down the president’s words
President Moon Jae-in greets participants at the first senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting at the Blue House on the morning of May 25. (Blue House photo pool)
President Moon Jae-in greets participants at the first senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting at the Blue House on the morning of May 25. (Blue House photo pool)

President Moon Jae-in: “Senior secretaries’ and aides’ meetings are settings for communicating, sharing, and making decisions.”

Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok: “Can we express disagreements with the president’s orders?”

Moon: “It’s not a matter of ‘can you’ - it’s an obligation. You can also tell the public in the briefing after the meeting that there were ‘opposing opinions’ and ‘internal debate.’”

The breaks with precedent came early and often at President Moon Jae-in’s first senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting at the Blue House on the morning of May 25. It was a night-and-day contrast from secretariat meetings under predecessor Park Geun-hye, where senior secretaries would busily scribble orders from the president in their notebooks. The name is one of the changes: while the past administration called the gatherings “secretariat meetings,” the new administration renamed them “senior secretaries’ and aide’s meetings” to include the secretariat as well as aides for the economy and science/technology. Among the senior secretaries and secretaries attending were Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok, Chief of Staff for Policy Jang Ha-sung, and Office of National Security chief Chung Eui-yong.

After shaking hands with the attendees, Moon poured himself a cup of coffee and said, “It’s a deeply moving experience for me to be at my first secretariat meeting in ten years.”

“These senior secretaries’ and aides’ meetings will be settings for addressing the governance agenda that will decide the future of the Republic of Korea,” he continued.

Moon went on to say the meetings would be “settings not for communicating the President’s orders, but for everyone to share and discuss things to make decisions.”

In addition to telling attendees not to “hesitate to express opposing opinions,” Moon advised them to “go ahead and say wild things, give your rough impressions of things you don’t know that much about.”

The message was that such comments expressing sensible skepticism from a non-expert perspective could help in addressing issues with armchair arguments and ill-advised policy decisions. Senior Secretary to the President for Political Affairs Jun Byung-hun said it was a “relief to be allowed to say ‘wild things.’”

President Moon Jae-in presides over the first senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting at the Blue House on the morning of May 25. (Blue House photo pool)
President Moon Jae-in presides over the first senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting at the Blue House on the morning of May 25. (Blue House photo pool)

The Blue House applied a “three nos” principle to the meetings: no rank-pulling, no dictations, and no preconceived conclusions.

“We’re not going to need dictation or meeting materials for these meetings in the future,” Moon said.

“We’re going to have laptop meetings. Once the Blue House computerized work is upgraded, the meetings will be stored automatically as electronic documents,” he explained.

The use of the e-Support System means that presidential orders will be recorded and transmitted without the need for dictation to avoid problems in follow-up efforts.

Moon also said he would be doing away with partitioning inside the Blue House.

“It may be difficult to separate policy issues from security and political affairs issues, but things that require a political determination, even if they’re matters of security of policy, should be discussed at the senior secretaries’ and aides’ meetings,” he said. In particular, Moon noted that the trial and error experienced by the Roh administration in deploying troops to Iraq and pursuing a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US was the result of barriers between the political affairs, policy, and national security teams.

Other issues addressed at the May 25 meeting included preparations for a summit with the US and reports on special activity expenses. Moon also asked attendees to work to ensure passage of a revised supplementary budget for job creation during the National Assembly’s June extraordinary session.

“It feels like things are working the right way now. From now on, it’s not just the president. We’re team players,” Moon said at the end of the meeting.

Moon presides over senior secretaries’ and aides’ meetings twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

By Lee Se-young, staff reporter

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

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