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[Editorial] High Expectations for Summit With U.S., Japan

[Editorial] High Expectations for Summit With U.S., Japan

Posted April. 14, 2008 06:11,   

한국어

President Lee Myung-bak leaves Seoul Tuesday to visit the United States and Japan. It is only natural to choose the two countries as the first destination of his state visits, given South Korea’s geographical position and the political landscape surrounding it. We hope his visits will serve as an opportunity to “strengthen ties with traditional allies and have in-depth discussions about peace and co-prosperity in Northeast Asia,” as Lee put it during Sunday’s press conference.

This round of visits should be a chance to ensure the status of South Korea in the international community and make practical progress in diplomatic issues. South Korea is the world’s 13th largest economy and has been a close ally of the United States, the world’s superpower, for over half a century. South Korea deserves to be treated up to its status. We should overcome the peripheral sense of being and fatalism of a peninsula country surrounded by superpowers.

Unfortunately, we saw the alliance with the United States, which is one of the fundamentals of our nation’s status, damaged. Some former presidents, obsessed with the closed argument of self-reliance, took lightly the U.S.-ROK alliance, one of the most successful diplomatic relations in the post-war world. Discords have arisen in many issues. The opportunity cost we had to pay was enormous. The case in point is that the vacuum created by the damaged alliance is filled with North Korean nuclear crisis.

Lee should set the relationship right through his visit to Washington. Fortunately, the U.S.-ROK alliance is making a comeback since the inauguration of Lee Myung-bak administration. It is a telling sign that Lee is the first Korean president that President George W. Bush invited to Camp David, not to the White House.

What damaged the alliance was the lack of reliability. Former President Kim Dae-jung lost credibility when he obstinately tried to use his meetings with Bush to sell his sunshine policy. Former President Roh Moo-hyun took the worst toll on the alliance by taking the lead in anti-Americanism. The examples of the two former presidents should give Lee a good lesson.

The two countries should make a single voice in their stance toward North Korea. Lee clearly stated during the press conference Sunday that North Korea’s strategy to ignore South Korea and work with the United States cannot be successful. He should share his view with Bush to prevent any discords with the United States that could be caused by North Korea. It should be clearly understood between them that the new South Korean administration, unlike the past ones, will not accept a compromise about the North Korea’s nuclear renunciation.

But unbalanced sacrifice cannot restore the alliance, either. There are already talks within the United States prior to the summit slated for April 19 that the United States should demand South Korea send their troops back to Afghanistan, take more share of the cost of relocation of the U.S. Forces in Korea, take part in the PSI, and lift the import restrictions on American beef. These are not acceptable demands. The two countries should accept the fact that they cannot get everything their way for a mature alliance.

Lee also needs to learn how to say no. Practical diplomacy is to give up certain things to get what we really need. South Korea has accommodated many difficult requests by the United States, such as the dispatch of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, relocation of the USFK bases, and early return of the war-time operational control, despite many opposing voices. It is now their turn to do something in return. President Lee asked for an extraordinary parliamentary session in May to ratify the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. The FTA is a promise made by the two governments. The U.S. government should show its willingness to live up to its promise.

Lee’s meeting with his Japanese counterpart should be a practical one with tangible results. We hope the meeting is more about how to expand Japan’s investment in South Korea to offset some of the chronic trade imbalance between the two countries, rather than the history issues that have hindered the relationship for so long. Whenever a new administration took office, it energetically emphasized collaboration, only to relapse into discords over time. It should be different this time.

In the past, presidents, upon their inauguration, did not have diplomatic deftness and they learned it throughout their terms of office, but those times are gone. We hope Lee’s visits would reap practical achievements.