hankyoreh

Mar. 14. On that day Park and Cardinal Yeom discussed the launch of a committee

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter and Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

President Park Geun-hye has decided that she will serve as the chair of the preparatory committee for unification that she announced last month. The move makes clear Park’s intention to work directly for “jackpot reunification,” one of the key catchphrases of the current administration.

On the morning of Mar. 14, the government published its plans for the establishment and operation of the committee in a daily official gazette and released details of its organization, purpose, functions, and timeline.

As of now, appointments have not been made for any of the committee members aside from the chair. This appears to be a sign of Park’s interest and dedication to the committee.

According to the material released by the government, the committee will have a variety of roles, including defining the basic orientation of preparations for unification, determining and researching the work that must be done in each area, and creating a social consensus on the issue.

Including the chair and the two deputy chairs, the committee will be composed of around 50 public and private figures. One deputy chair will be from the government, while the other will be from the private sector.

To facilitate thoughtful discussion and to ensure effective operation, subcommittees will be established in each area, and there will also be a planning and operation panel and an advisory panel. In addition to planning and research functions, the committee will also have an executive role.

Committee members from the private sector are to include professors, experts, and the heads of research institutions dealing with unification policy. The members from the public sector will be drawn from the heads of government ministries such as the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Unification, and the Ministry of National Defense, and Blue House secretaries in such areas as foreign affairs, security, and unification.

“Considering that the preparatory committee has a research role, there will probably be more committee members from the private sector than the public sector,” said Kim Ki-ung, chief of the Unification Policy Office at the Ministry of Unification.

As soon as the presidential decree is drawn up to provide the legal basis for establishing the committee, work will begin on appointing the committee members, perhaps as early as the middle of next week. The committee will officially launch in April.

With Park serving as the head of the committee, it is likely that it will play an active role in creating and proposing the agenda for unification, as opposed to the passive role of surveying public opinion and offering advice.

“This suggests that Park’s interest in unification is not a transitory political performance but that she intends to get some results during her time in office,” said Kim Chang-soo, director of research at the Korea National Strategy Institute. The preparatory committee for unification could become Park’s personal task force for pursuing the goal of unification.

The question of who will serve as the vice deputy for the private sector is growing in importance. In order for the committee to be credible, the deputy chair needs to be someone who can provide balance to the conservative president and government official who will serve as the committee’s chair and the other deputy chair.

While the government has indicated that it intends to look for expertise, not ideological alignment, in its appointments, ideology is also expected to be a major factor for consideration.

Worries are already being voiced. “The conservative leaning of Park, the committee chair, could sway the overall direction of the committee,” said Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies. “This appears to be a far cry from the social consensus that was initially discussed.” Pointing out that committee members will find it difficult to express opinions that contradict the conservative bent of the government, Yang argues that the committee could ultimately become an organization that hews to the direction and policies of the Blue House.

It is also becoming more likely that the initial concerns that the function of the preparatory committee for unification will overlap with that of the National Unification Advisory Council (NUAC), a body established by the constitution, will become a reality.

The NUAC is similar in composition to the new committee, with the president serving as its chair and a total of 50 committee members. Since the council’s role is also comparable to the new committee - gathering opinions about unification in Korea and overseas and producing a nationwide consensus on the issue - it is expected that the already powerless NUAC will lose even more of its relevance.

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