Foreign Minister Yun survives in recent cabinet reshuffle

Foreign Minister Yun survives in recent cabinet reshuffle. August. 17, 2016 07:14. by 조숭호기자 shcho@donga.com.

With the latest reshuffle conducted on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se has become the only Cabinet member who remains in office since the inauguration of the Park Geun-hye administration. He became the only survivor in the Cabinet, as Food, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Lee Dong-pil and Environment Mister Yoon Seong-gyu, who served from the beginning of the Park administration along with Yun, have been replaced. Minister Yun now stands a higher chance to serve the post throughout the five-year term of Park’s presidency as his nickname Oh (means five in Korean) Byung-se suggests.

Minister Yun has become the longest serving foreign minister since the Constitutional amendment in 1987. Yun, who was inaugurated on March 11, 2013, has already exceeded the previous record of duration of service (1,028 days) set by former Foreign Affairs Minister Ban Ki-moon (current UN Secretary-General), as the former has stayed as the top diplomat for 1,255 days. Since the establishment of the first Korean administration, Park Dong-jin (4 years and 8 months) and Byun Yeong-tae (4 years and 3 months) are the only ones who served longer periods as foreign minister than Yun.

Rumors circulated that Yun would be replaced just ahead of Tuesday’s reshuffle, but they have proved to be groundless. Yun was under fire for taking personal time to have his trousers fixed ahead of the Asia-Europe Summit in Mongolia, but the incident has not affected his term in office. However, watchers around the Foreign Affairs Ministry said that “It is true that Minister Yun carries out his duty without his own agendas, but it is ill-advised even to construe his continued stay as indicating that ‘foreign policy is going okay.’” He has been widely criticized for failing to take the process to adequately persuade people concerned in the course of deciding on the planned deployment of the terminal high-altitude area defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, and the Seoul-Tokyo agreement on Korean victims of Japanese military sexual slavery, and for unconditionally pushing for unilateral North Korea policy only "focused on isolation and pressure" without having an exit strategy.

Others say that if Minister Yun is replaced, it could be effectively perceived by pundits as the Park government admitting to its failures in North Korea policy and its foreign policy, which has effectively become the administration’s hallmark, while eligible successors were also hard to find. Cho Tae-yong, first vice chief of the national security office, Kim Kyu-hyun, senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security, Lim Sung-nam, first vice foreign minister, and Cho Tae-yeol, second vice foreign minister have all been deeply involved in policy-making and execution of foreign policy by the incumbent administration, and thus are jointly responsible. As such, appointment of one of these officials would have limited effect in restructuring of the foreign affairs and national security line. In addition, a flurry of major diplomacy events are in store including Park’s first visit to Russia, and the G20 summit, and the East Asia Summit, while preparation is underway for Seoul to take part in the South Korea-China-Japan foreign ministerial meeting, which will take place in Tokyo late this month, which reportedly prompted President Park to keep Yun.