SPEAKING FREELY
Monkey business portends tough year for Roh
By Bruce Klingner

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South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun pledged in his New Year's address to make 2004 the "first year of political reform", but the Year of the Monkey is likely to dog the president with continuing corruption accusations, flagging approval ratings, and a public increasingly skeptical of Roh's character and capabilities. All of these factors will severely constrain his ability to implement the political and economic reforms necessary to invigorate South Korea's economic recovery.

Moreover, Roh's focus will predominantly be on domestic issues rather than on foreign policy, to include inter-Korean relations. To be sure, Seoul will continue to pursue improved economic and political ties with Pyongyang, heralding the Kaesong industrial project and resumption of transportation links across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as evidence of the merits of its engagement policy.

However, Roh's corruption troubles, his dwindling popularity, and growing questions over the validity of "asymmetric reciprocity" with Pyongyang will translate into a decreasing likelihood that Seoul will forcefully engage the United States on its hardline policy toward the North, despite Roh's vows to "lay a new foundation for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula by peacefully resolving the North Korea nuclear crisis". As a result, Roh will prioritize the application of his dwindling political capital to further his domestic policy goals.

Roh's New Year's pledges. The president in his New Year's speech called for implementation of reforms to eliminate corruption and the regionalism that has long plagued South Korean politics. While acknowledging the depth of the public's "despair and harsh criticism", Roh said the current pain would become the "fertilizer for a new kind of politics" and serve as the means for the government to regain the country's trust. Roh called the upcoming April parliamentary elections a "touchstone" that would provide the opportunity for an "epochal new turn toward allying regionalism and realizing clean politics". Roh said his administration's economic focus would be on job expansion and would include a US$1.6 billion special fund for new investments in tourism, leisure and other service businesses. The government will also implement regulatory reforms to encourage foreign investment.

Falling approval ratings. Roh, a former human-rights lawyer who ran on a platform of political reform, has seen his approval ratings plunge to 23 percent as a result of investigations into his party's acceptance of illegal payments, the arrest of several aides, and bitter partisan fighting with the majority opposition party in the National Assembly. A Chosun Ilbo survey showed the public was evenly split on whether to investigate the president, with 45 percent in favor and 47 percent against. One-third of the 738 respondents contacted on December 30 agreed that the president should step down or be impeached. A Korea Times survey found that, despite Roh's pledge upon entering office to reduce corruption, 48 percent of the respondents thought there had been little to no improvement.

Opposition parties have predictably condemned the president's actions and raised again the possibility of impeaching Roh for "violating laws and lying to the people in public". The opposition asserts that the results of the prosecution's investigation showed that Roh was present when illegal campaign donations were handed to aides and that he ordered that money be "embezzled" from funds remaining from a local election.

Grand National Party spokesman Park Jin said it was "time for the president to keep his promise about resigning" because "the president's illegal funds that have surfaced so far are already more than a tenth of [the illegal funds received by] the GNP". Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) leader Chough Soon-hyung questioned how Roh could continue to perform his duties "with such a fatal wound on his morality".

Minicar or limousine? President Roh has not denied his own party's corruption but sought to minimize public criticism by deflecting attention toward the opposition parties, which he characterized as even more corrupt. At a dinner of senior government officials, Roh described his presidential campaign as a Tico, Korea's first minicar, which had difficulty getting fuel, while referring to the opposition GNP campaign as a limousine attached to a fuel car.

Questions over Roh's suitability as president. Roh's unorthodox displays of self-criticism and call for a referendum on his presidency have been perceived as either deft political moves to generate public support or reflections of an immature candidate who has yet to make the transition to head of state. Similarly, Roh's comments about the US during the campaign and early months in office are alternately seen as reflecting national pride by asserting a more equal role or as amateurishly taking advantage of rising anti-Americanism brought on by a tragic situation - the traffic deaths of two Korean schoolgirls struck by a US armored vehicle - to strain the bilateral relationship needlessly at a time of increased tensions brought on by North Korea's admission of violations of its nuclear agreements.

Focus will be inward, not northward.  The successful escape of Jeon Yong-il and his arrival in Seoul on December 31 after being held for 50 years as a prisoner of war by North Korea have generated public anger and criticism of Seoul's timidity in pressing Pyongyang on similar cases due to the administration's concern over jeopardizing its engagement policy with the North. Revelations that the 72-year-old former soldier was repeatedly rebuffed by the South Korean Embassy in China, then arrested by Chinese authorities, and on the verge of being repatriated to North Korea until public protests forced Seoul to act contrasted sharply with Ministry of Foreign Affair's claims that it had "made its best effort" to bring Jeon home.

The Ministry of Defense estimates there are 500 POWs still alive in North Korea, along with an additional 487 South Koreans abducted by the North. Jeon is being used as a cause celebre by conservatives and veterans groups to criticize Roh and predecessor Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy". Kim's grandest accomplishment while in office, the 2000 inter-Korean summit, has itself been tarnished by admissions that Seoul paid $500 million to secure Pyongyang's participation in the meeting. The "cash for summit" scandal, in which prosecutors stopped short of charging Kim, has led to the perception that Kim "bought" his Nobel Peace Prize and dimmed South Korean public ardor for continuing to provide significant amounts of aid in return for minimal concessions by Pyongyang, especially in light of continued threats over its nuclear program.

A year of uncertainty ahead. Donga Ilbo characterized the present internal situation, saying "the sense of a crisis is on the rise with a feeling that the country will become one of all broken dreams." Political tension will continue, with some expecting the April parliamentary election to provide a mandate for the ruling or opposition parties. Yet current polls show public support to be extremely low and evenly split among the three main parties, with each party drawing below 20 percent. The refusal by the National Assembly to allow the arrest of seven of its members has caused widespread outrage against all parties with April being described as "payback time", though it is unclear which party would benefit the most when all are held in such disdain.

The previously cited polls that show low approval for Roh, but also an accompanying low support for ousting him, reflect a public more willing to live with a bad president than the turmoil that would result from Roh resigning or being impeached, a case of "better the devil you know than the devil of the unknown". Discoveries of additional corruption involving the president or his aides, or continuing uncertainty and malaise resulting from a drawn out investigation, would further hinder Roh's ability to refocus the public's attention on measures needed to improve South Korean competitiveness. The state of the South Korean economy will likely have much to do with Roh's approval ratings. With some economists predicting a strengthening economy, and one more likely to be increasingly oriented toward China than toward the US, improving economic statistics could translate into higher support for Roh.

North Korea will continue to be a wild card and Pyongyang's actions will impact the public's perceptions of Roh's engagement policy and, hence, of his overall qualities as president. Accommodating actions by North Korea would reflect well on Roh and negatively on Washington's hardline policy, with an accompanying decrease in public support for the bilateral alliance. Conversely, an escalatory North Korean policy or a failure to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue as a result of Pyongyang's intransigence would further undermine inter-Korean relations and Roh's outreach to Pyongyang, but could lead to increased approval for the relationship with Washington and, perhaps, calls for the US to postpone its announced troop redeployment and drawdowns. In any case, much of Roh's fate this coming year lies outside of his own hands and control.

(Copyright 2004 Bruce Klingner.)

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.