hankyoreh

the minster of food

President Lee Myung-bak came in to office emphasizing the importance of the “restoration” of the U.S.-Korea alliance and overall relationship, but his America diplomacy has completely lost its way.

A symbolic example would be the cancellation of a visit to Seoul by U.S. President George W. Bush that had been scheduled for early next month. A government official confirmed on June 25 that the decision was made because of the beef situation. One observer, a key figure in the previous government’s foreign policy team, said that President Bush’s cancellation “shows you that the White House’s lack of confidence in Lee Myung-bak’s government is serious.” On June 23 the Washington Post said the White House does not have a lot of affection for Lee these days.

The Blue House says it is going to try again to have Bush visit around the time he is in Asia for the Beijing Olympics, but it remains unclear whether it will be successful. A White House spokesperson said on June 24 that while the possibility of a Seoul visit is not being excluded, White House officials cannot say for sure that a visit will happen, either. A Korean presidential official said on June 25 that it has yet to be decided when Bush would visit, but hinted that when Korea’s foreign minister meets with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 28 the topic might be discussed.

This, in turn, makes it difficult for the government to establish a long-term vision for the alliance, aside from the immediate issues.

“The waves created by the beef issue have meant that urgent and important items on the bilateral agenda are on hold,” said a key government official. “The beef issue has to settle down for the things on the agenda to be discussed, and there’s no knowing when that’s going to happen.”

The Lee government needed to have begun talking about Korea’s share of the burden of keeping U.S. troops in the country, a key issue for the alliance, back in April or May. Nevertheless, the two countries have yet to settle on a timetable for talking about it. The Americans want to have a big part of the cost of relocating U.S. forces within Korea to come from Korea’s “defense burden,” but public anger about American beef imports is causing fear that any such discussion would face highly focused criticism.

The “21st Century U.S.-Korea Alliance Future Vision,” a plan that was supposed have been announced at the meeting between Lee and Bush early next month, remains up in the air. “Due to problems with the location, it would have been difficult to announce the ‘Future Vision’ plan at the G-8 summit,” a government official said. “It will have to wait for another opportunity.”

Why is it that Lee’s America diplomacy has come to be so disheveled?

A foreign affairs expert with considerable experience in U.S.-Korean negotiations put it this way: “The biggest problem is that the Lee government approaches the U.S. as if it were thirty years ago. He does not consider that Korea is more powerful and has its own direction to take, and approaches the alliance as one of one-way dependence on the U.S.”

Other experts cite the Lee government’s inability to represent the Korean people, to be able to be responsible for their interests at international negotiations; the lack of an existing in-house system for dealing with foreign affairs; and confusion in the channels he uses for taking his vision for U.S.-Korea relations and applying that to the specifics.

Another expert had this to say: “The U.S.-Korea relationship is not just a matter of relations between governments. Relations between peoples are important, too. Lee’s government overlooked the Korean people’s changed view of relations with the U.S. and the way they feel about the relationship, that they wanted to be treated with the respect they feel Korea deserves for its abilities.”

Still other observers noted how, instead of having the Blue House’s senior economic secretary or the country’s trade minister be the first to go about those “additional” talks with the United States on the beef issue, Lee sent his senior foreign affairs secretary to put out the fire, an example of how he failed to appreciate the importance of having problems solved through an existing apparatus. One expert noted that Lee’s disdain for inter-Korean relations has ended up hurting Korea’s power to negotiate with the United States.

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