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“I wish there would be some sort of rhetoric.”

That was the response of one ruling Grand National Party member on November 18, in response to President Lee Myung-bak’s comments the previous day in Washington, D.C., when he said, “if North Korea gives up its nuclear program and comes out into the international community, the Republic of Korea is going to work together with the international community to develop the North’s economy.” The GNP National Assemblyman was expressing his frustration with the way President Lee’s approach to North Korea is out of step with the “engagement approach” of the incoming U.S. administration of Barack Obama.

This can be taken apart and looked at as a problem with President Lee’s “CEO-style approach” to North Korea as evidenced when he says there is no inter-Korean problem because U.S.-South Korean relations are going well and the domestic political situation.

President Lee Myung-bak came to office saying he would be the “economic president.” He has stuck to an approach to North Korea that assumes the problems can be resolved with a business mindset. The idea is that it would also help the South to grow the North’s self-sufficiency to the point where its citizens live at a higher level than they do now.

“President Lee probably came to the understanding that only economic reform and openness would be the answer for North Korea as he traveled as a businessman to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the eighties,” said Cho Haejin, a GNP Assemblyman who is an aide to the president.

The Vision 3,000 initiative Lee’s campaign put on the table early last year as part of his presidential campaign is his package of policies on Pyongyang, and it reflects his business mindset. In it, Lee proposes that if the North comes down that road of denuclearization and openness, South Korea and other countries could then give it massive economic support. It is about strict reciprocity, calling on the North to take action commensurate to what the South is able to give.

“The president believes there needs to be a return-on-investment effect, even about North Korea,” said someone who participated in the development of the policy platform for Lee’s presidential campaign. “What we gained during the sunshine policy of the recent administrations has not proved as useful compared to what we invested, so (the president) thinks we need to abandon” that approach. Members of the Lee administration are firm in their belief that something has to be done about the sunshine policy, which they believe was a failure by the previous administration to improve the lives of regular North Koreans, and the North’s brinkmanship tactics, in which the North has made the gains that it wants in every crisis.

According to one presidential aide, Lee “is in a similar situation as President Roh Moo-hyun was because he is being attacked by both progressives and conservatives about North Korea policy.” This aide says the president has a clear approach to Pyongyang, but that after his approval ratings hit the floor in the wake of the candlelight protests early in his administration, he has lost the confidence needed to push full steam ahead with a single principle.

“The president has had to read the minds of conservatives who thought Lee Myung-bak would be different,” said the aide.

One parliamentarian who is also an aide to Lee, however, said the political situation “isn’t one in which the president’s policy towards Pyongyang can really show its stuff,” citing the candlelight protests, the economic crisis, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s health, and a change of administration in the United States.

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