A decade-long ”sunshine” engagement between North and South Korea abruptly ended after Lee declared his own conservative ”Vision 3000” policy which promised North Korea ”conditional aid” only when it had completely abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
The North’s dismissal of Vision 3000 was immediate: it cut off virtually all dialogue with the South. Lee’s visit is taking place amid these crises which demand unusually strong collaborative and complementary outcomes from his ”summit diplomacy” with Rudd.
According to The Korea Times, the summit between Rudd and Lee will discuss ”joint responses to climate change and the global financial crisis”.
The summit will also include discussion on ”ways to promote Korean studies in Australia” and increase bilateral exchanges in culture and human resources, as well as free-trade-agreement issues. President Lee is apparently keen to boost cooperation in green energy development, particularly through promoting his Government’s policy of ”Low carbon, green growth” and his recently announced ”Green New Deal” which aims to ”promote eco-friendly growth in order to ensure sustainable development”.
This apparently coinciding national interest of both Australia and South Korea arouses public curiosity about the South Korean leader. Who is he?
Having promoted himself as an ”economic president”, Lee former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and former mayor of Seoul is known for his bulldozer-like approach and ”creative pragmatism”, a man who gets things done fast.
After electing him with high expectations in a December 2007 landslide following 10 years of pro-left liberal leadership, South Koreans looked to President Lee to bring his corporate drive and success to a sagging economy.
He, in fact, captured many South Koreans’ imagination with what he called his ”7-4-7” vision, promising to achieve annual growth of 7 per cent, double per capita income to $US40,000 within a decade, and become one of the world’s top seven economies.
After a year in office, however, Lee is struggling to revive an economy hit harder than most by the global financial meltdown, and faces an increasingly negative North Korea, angered by his hardline stance towards the regime.
Domestic opposition to his policy initiatives and pro-US stance has also blown out into mass demonstrations. The latest polls show that only a third of South Koreans think he’s doing his job well. The public believes that, by insisting on his so-called ”MB-nomics”, the Government Lee leads has amplified the vulnerability of South Korea to external shocks.
Lee’s first major domestic setback occurred when he allowed beef imports from the US, which had been banned previously over fears about mad cow disease. Three months of citizens’ ”candlelight protests” ensued, which ultimately led Lee to change his senior presidential staff as well as revise his reform agenda.
In his defence, he tried to overcome the economic crisis and at the same time pursue a revised national agenda though his typical ”Bulldozer” approach. But the two just did not fit together, as overcoming the economic crisis is a precondition for his national agenda and must thus come first. Lee’s biggest problem is the loss of public confidence in his governance of state affairs.
He is seen as lacking political skills, especially the ability not only to bring about social unity but also to work with those who disagree with him. Even the leading conservative papers point out that Lee tends to trust none but those he personally knows.
His failure in effective governance is viewed by many as derived from his dislike of the inefficiency of politics. But with his persistence he is focused on the future and quoted as saying to his advisers that ”we must not dwell on what happened during the past year because we’ll be judged by how we do throughout our five-year term”. In this sense, his summit with Rudd may provide a new starting point for the two leaders to expand and strengthen bilateral cooperation in tackling current crises as well as meeting regional needs in the 21st century.
Hyung-a Kim is Associate Professor and director of the Australia-Korea Leadership Forum at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. She specialises in Korean politics. This article was originally published in the Canberra Times.