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Kim Hyun-chong, second deputy chief of the Blue House National Security Office, announces South Korea’s decision to withdraw from its General Sharing of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan at the Blue House on Aug. 23. (Blue House photo pool)

When it comes to South Korean diplomacy these days, nobody gets talked about more than Kim Hyun-chong, second deputy chief of the Blue House National Security Office.

The setting was the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Sept. 16. Chung Jin-suk, a lawmaker with the Liberty Party Korea (LKP), asked Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha to respond to claims that she and Kim “had gotten into an argument where you ended up fighting in English at the end.” Kang replied, “I will not deny that.” Instantly, Kim was catapulted to center stage.

The incident in question took place during President Moon Jae-in’s tour of Central Asia last April. Kim got into an argument with Kang in English while he was criticizing a report written by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) employee. It was much talked about on the diplomatic rumor mill, but it hadn’t been major news. But when Seoul subsequently came out strongly against retaliatory export controls by Tokyo and decided over Washington’s objections not to extend its General Sharing of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan, Kim was named as the key presence in the more muscular diplomatic approach to the US and Japan.

On Aug. 30, the conservative paper Chosun Ilbo wrote that an “autonomy wing” had taken over the Moon administration’s key foreign affairs and national security positions and was “threatening a South Korea-US alliance that has lasted for 70 years.” Kim, the newspaper said, was the wing’s “field commander” who was “spearheading hardline policies toward the US and Japan, including the decision to pull out of GSOMIA.” Chung’s mention in the National assembly of the “argument” five months earlier in Central Asia happened on Sept. 16; the following day, the conservative media unanimously laid into Kim. Many denounced the deepening “crisis” of foreign affairs and national security, with talk of the “Kim vs. Kang conflict” and “leadership battle between the Blue House and MOFA.” On Sept. 18, Kim attempted to smooth things over by tweeting that he had “only myself to blame.”

Following a front-page story in the Chosun Ilbo on Oct. 4 and questions from Chung in a parliamentary audit of the South Korean UN mission the same day, controversy raged again over “Kim Hyun-chong making a diplomat kneel.” Apparently, Kim had been berating a diplomat for a protocol error during a UN General Assembly meeting in September. The diplomat in question reportedly explained that the kneeling wasn’t something Kim had demanded, but something the diplomat had done voluntarily as a gesture of apology. The same day, Na Kyung-won, the LKP floor leader, demanded that the “Blue House troublemaker” Kim be replaced. “As a representative of the so-called ‘autonomy wing,’ he has spearheaded irresponsible anti-Japan policies and encouraged the abandonment of our security with the GSOMIA termination,” she claimed.

A repeated pattern has taken shape with the Chosun Ilbo and Chung Jin-suk exposing “scandals” involving Kim, which are then blown up into claims of “diplomatic crisis” by other conservative media and politicians. But differences and conflicts between national security offices and foreign affairs authorities happen in other countries too. The frictions between recently “fired” White House National Security Advisor John Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were an open secret. During the Jimmy Carter administration, then White House National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance clashed on everything from Soviet Union policies to China, Africa, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the response to the hostage situation at the US Embassy in Tehran.

Similar tensions and differences obviously exist between the Blue House and MOFA. Within the ministry, there’s a current of disgruntlement where the Blue House is perceived as “not trusting” MOFA and attempting to handle everything on its own. If it is critical of the established diplomats’ leanings, the Blue House ought to be working to implement policies more efficiency by finding and engaging more diplomats that it can work with. But this approach of taking sensational tidbits like “Kim Hyun-chong and Kang Kyung-wha arguing in English” and inflating them into claims about the “Moon administration’s diplomatic crisis” smacks very strongly of a politically motivated attack.

Kim arrived like a comet during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, producing results with his leading role in negotiations on the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA). But questions have remained about the current situation with the trade and law expert taking over the role of de facto diplomatic “control tower” from National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong, whose own role has diminished markedly. Shortly after the final decision on GSOMIA, Kim called it an “opportunity to upgrade the South Korea-US alliance,” explaining that South Korea would be meeting US hopes for a larger contribution the alliance through high-tech weapons acquisition and other steps to beef up its autonomous defense capabilities.

In terms of negotiations on South Korea’s share of US Forces Korea defense costs – with the US demanding a large increase of US$5 billion– Kim appears to be envisioning something along the lines of a trade deal, where Washington can potentially be won over through a “contribution” involving the purchasing of large amounts of US-produced high-tech weaponry. It also remains unclear how Kim is approaching South Korea’s key diplomatic issue, namely North Korea.

Kim’s forceful and blunt statements and approach have often made him a target for attack. People who have worked with him are mixed in their assessments: some say he is “competent and does his homework” or exhibits “drive and the ability to achieve breakthroughs,” while others have called him “spiteful” and “temperamental” and criticized him for “riding employees too hard.” But with the global geopolitical climate currently in a state of upheaval – including the trade and power battle between the US and China, uncertainties surrounding the threat of impeachment against Trump, and North Korea-US negotiations and the Korean Peninsula peace process at a time when the strategic approach of relying on “decisions” by Trump has hit its limits – any assessment of him needs to start by asking how forward-thinking his aims are and how sophisticated his strategies are.

By Park Min-hee, staff reporter

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