HONOLULU - Why is it that South Korean presidents inspire scathing criticism
very soon after taking office - and in some notorious cases suffer still
greater opprobrium in the years after vacating the presidential Blue House in
Seoul?
The world showered praise on Kim Dae-jung, comparing him to South Africa's
Nelson Mandela, after he defeated a conservative in the midst of the 1997
economic crisis; he quickly lost popularity at the apogee of his career after
winning the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2000. He seemed to have formed the
basis for inter-Korean reconciliation by meeting North Korea's leader Kim
Jong-il in the first North-South summit in June 2000, but his Sunshine
Policy lost its luster as North Korea stone-walled on real concessions on its
nuclear program and then resumed making nuclear warheads in 2003 after the
breakdown of the 1994 Geneva framework agreement.
Kim's successor, Roh Moo-hyun, after defeating the same conservative who had
lost to Kim Dae-jung five years earlier, was widely reviled for his
left-leaning economic policies as well as his propensity for providing aid for
North Korea with very little to show in return. His popularity did not
increase, even after he followed in Kim Dae-jung's footsteps and journeyed to
Pyongyang in October 2007 for the second inter-Korean summit with Kim Jong-il.
Now it is Lee Myung-bak's turn. Easily elected in December in a popular
conservative reaction to the left-leaning leadership of the previous decade,
Lee appeared initially to have all the power he needed to ram through economic
reforms and adopt a tough policy toward North Korea. Moreover, he appeared to
answer concerns over sometimes strained relations with the US by journeying to
Washington last month for a summit with President George W Bush that seemed to
have opened a new era in US-Korean relations.
As has so often happened in modern South Korean history, Lee finds himself
under vitriolic, unrelenting attack from leftist activists who've found a
weakness in his armor of conservative popularity and support. Lee's foes have
picked on the issue of the deal that his government made with US negotiators in
the hours before he met Bush to resume importing US beef. After regular nightly
demonstrations, they've broadened their protests into a general assault on Lee
that threatens to deepen existing divisions among conservatives and force Lee
into compromises he had hoped to avoid.
Korean analysts at the US government-supported East-West Center and the
University of Hawaii see the rising protests as presenting fresh problems for
US-Korean relations at a time when the leaders of both countries have been
pinning their hopes on major breakthroughs in trade and defense as well as
six-party talks with North Korea.
The full significance of the demonstrations against resuming imports of US
beef, banned in 2003 after the discovery of Mad Cow disease in an American cow,
was evident when Lee went on national television with apologies to the nation
for the excessive confidence, if not arrogance, that he is perceived as
displaying since his inauguration three months ago.
"I admit that the government has been lacking in efforts to sound out public
opinion and try to seek people's understanding," said Lee. "I also humbly
accept the criticism that I have been negligent in carefully reading the
public's mind. I very much regret all this."
Lee's show of humility was just a cover, to be sure, for his determined
insistence on carrying through not only with the beef deal but also with the
US-Korea free trade agreement (FTA) that needs ratification by both the US
Congress and South Korea's National Assembly.
Having done with the apologies, Lee got right to the point, that the US
government had given a written assurance of the health and safety of its beef
and that Korea desperately needs that free trade agreement to pull itself from
the economic doldrums in which the country is perceived to have fallen during a
decade of left-leaning leadership.
With more than 70% of the South Korean economy dependent on foreign trade, said
Lee, the Korea-US agreement "constitutes a new way out for the Korean economy",
and would "help increase exports and foreign investment as well as the national
income" and would, "first and foremost", create 300,000 new jobs. "We cannot
afford to miss this opportunity," he said, "for the desperate young job-seekers
in particular."
That reasoning, though, has done little to deflect the united opposition of the
same political forces that Lee defeated so easily in last December's
presidential election.
Strategists for the United Democratic Party, the main opposition grouping, see
the beef protests as critical to a chain reaction. The first step is to
undermine the beef agreement, and the next is to convince a majority of US
Congress members that South Koreans will not import US beef, agreement or no
agreement. In that event, the Congress would be likely either to vote against
ratification - or fail to vote at all.
At the same time, Lee's foes promise to do all they can to tear the FTA apart
when it comes up for a vote in the National Assembly. Lee's Grand National
Party holds a slim majority only when drawing on support of conservatives
outside the party, and Lee also has to wheel and deal with conservatives close
to his main foe inside his party, the unpredictable Park Keun-hye, daughter of
Park Chung-hee, the dictatorial president who was assassinated in 1979.
Analysts see the fight over importing US beef as the lever with which activists
who oppose not only Lee but also the US-Korean alliance hope to revive their
flagging movement. Beef as an issue for the moment has far more traction than
negotiations on getting North Korea finally to give up its nukes.
The question analysts ask, though, is whether any South Korean president can
gain unequivocal popular support and respect. The administrations of all
presidents have been mired in scandals, with the possible exception of that of
Park Chung-hee, who during his 18 years in power gained a reputation for
increasing ruthlessness but not for corruption.
Chun Doo-hwan, the general who took over 10 months after Park's assassination,
and a number of his closest relatives, were all charged with massive
corruption, as was his successor, Roh Tae-woo, also a general. Chun and Roh
were also convicted in the killing of more than 200 people in the Kwangju
revolt in May 1980, but were freed and pardoned by Kim Dae-jung's predecessor,
Kim Young-sam, whose son was also at the center of a corruption scandal.
All three of Kim Dae-jung's sons were charged in bribery scandals, as were a
number of others in his administration and that of Roh Moo-hyun. Roh Moo-hyun
in particular suffered from dwindling popularity, with ratings at times well
below 20%. Lee, after an extremely brief honeymoon period as president, has
seen his popularity ratings on a similar downward slope - he's viewed as
high-handed and insensitive to the needs of his people.
Lee tried to address just that problem, promising his government would "be more
humble in approaching the needs of the people", while he himself accepted
"responsibility for all the deficiencies that the administration has incurred
in its initial months".
A spokesman for the United Democratic Party said Lee's apologies "didn't even
seem honest", while the far-left Democratic Labor Party, a minority grouping at
the forefront of anti-government protests, called on Lee to "stop mocking the
public with lame excuses".
The question, though, is whether any Korean president can emerge untainted by
controversies - and scandalous investigations. A spokesman for Lee said his
government had answered all the critics on the topic of beef and the FTA, and
the opposition did not "have any grounds" for trying to prevent ratification of
the FTA.
"Let us all march together," he said on television, but the record of the first
three months of his rule show that he, like all who went before him, will have
to endure a litany of complaints that will not cease until he has ceased to be
president.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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