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2 SPEAKING
FREELY The UN's Ban: The honeymoon is
over By Sunny Lee
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BEIJING - Ban
Ki-moon needs to be more than just diplomatic.
Secretaries general of the United Nations have a
well-known tradition: they have had to rely on
strong US backing to win the job. The UN may be
seeing another tradition formed by two of its
most
recent ex-chiefs: they displayed an increasingly
visible relationship breakdown with the US toward
the end of their term.
At one time, this
disharmony between the UN chief and the US was
such that a secretary general did not
automatically advance to a second term. Boutros
Boutros-Ghali is the case in point. The US vetoed
his re-election in the Security Council despite
unanimous support from its other members.
Kofi Annan, Boutros-Ghali's successor, had
also been blessed for the job in the beginning.
He, however, distanced himself from US foreign
policy, most noticeably in his opposition to the
war on Iraq, calling it "illegal". Annan also
accused the US of engaging in human-rights abuses
during its campaign to fight terrorism and of
taking military action without broad international
endorsement.
For the United States, that
was embarrassing enough and more than
unpardonable. Annan's "bad faith" ended his career
on an unhappy note. His last days in the office
were marked by a strained relationship with
Washington, like a couple going through a divorce.
Now there is a new secretary general, Ban
Ki-moon from South Korea, who again was chosen for
the high post with Washington's blessing.
President George W Bush personally wished him
"good luck" when Ban visited the White House as
South Korea's foreign minister accompanying
President Roh Moo-hyun last September.
In
the first straw poll on candidates, John Bolton,
then the US ambassador to the UN, voted for both
the South Korean and the Indian candidate. But
after the White House bestowed its blessing on
Ban, he voted only for the South Korean.
Interestingly, Ban happened to be China's
favorite as well. According to South Korean media
reports, some officials in the Bush administration
had initially expressed reservations about Ban
because they saw him as being "pro-China". That
was a cautionary note on the increasingly closer
relationship between China and South Korea.
China has become South Korea's largest
export destination since 2003, replacing the US.
According to a South Korean embassy official in
Beijing, currently 21% of South Korea's global
exports depend on China. That's a lot for a single
country. The official expects the figure will
continue to increase as South Korea's economic
dependence on China deepens in the coming years.
The two countries' ties are not limited to
economics. In the political arena, the two have
shown greater cooperation on the six-party talks
on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.
Chinese Communist Party officials held friendly
soccer matches with lawmakers of South Korea, a
traditional ideological ally to the US. That was
troublesome enough for the US.
China was
also one of the first countries that quickly
welcomed Ban's election. China's media even cited
a village in southern Henan province as claiming
that Ban's ancestors may have migrated from there
a long time ago. The town is said to be the origin
of the "Ban" tribe.
According to South
Korean press, those worrisome voices in the US
administration were, however, stifled by Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, who supported Ban by
saying he carries himself "professionally" and
wouldn't be influenced by his personal orientation
or national interest.
Professor Paul
Kennedy of Yale University said Ban has the
benefit in his new job of enjoying the backing of
both the US, with its tendency to push for
intervention, and China, which is reluctant to
interfere in the internal affairs of member
states.
"If anyone is going to try to
bridge the gap between them, then it would be
somebody like this guy whom they both trust partly
because he is not dramatic," Kennedy said.
Ban had pledged during his campaign for
the seat that he would promote reform. But details
about how he would do it were kept in the dark. As
well, his low-key manner and lack of charisma were
questioned as making him appear too "weak" to
competently handle the top job.
Ban's home
country came to defend him on this criticism. Park
Soo-gil, an official with the Foreign Ministry,
said in a media meeting that Ban is someone who
"knows how to disagree without being
disagreeable".
It was this aspect of Ban's
nature that earned him his current post, because
the UN traditionally shuns controversial figures
who have "sinned" against any Security Council
member nations that
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