Stanford, Calif. - The visit this week of South Korea's
new president, Lee Myung Bak, offers a rare opportunity to put the
American-Korean relationship back on a more solid footing. President
Lee, who won a decisive victory in last December's election, has
expressed views on the security alliance, a bilateral free trade
agreement, and policy toward North Korea that are thoroughly compatible
with US interests. And Mr. Lee's authority was bolstered by his party's
substantial victory in legislative elections April 9.
The question is whether Washington is poised to take advantage of this convergence of views.
For
the past eight years, a major perception gap between Seoul and
Washington has been painfully evident. Our governments often worked at
cross-purposes in the six-party talks to denuclearize North Korea.
Progressive governments in South Korea encouraged peaceful coexistence
with the North through a pattern of unreciprocated engagement. For much
of that time, the Bush administration sought to isolate and pressure
Pyongyang into relinquishing its nuclear ambitions, and it made little
effort to conceal its hopes for a regime change in Pyongyang.
When Washington decided to move its military
headquarters out of Seoul in 2003, many Korean officials suspected that
the Americans were just eager to get troops out of North Korean
artillery range. President Roh Moo Hyun at times seemed interested in
carving out a role as a balance wheel between the major powers in
Northeast Asia. Meanwhile, the US was preoccupied by problems in the
Middle East, and some American officials wondered if the US-Republic of
Korea (ROK) alliance could long survive when one party dismissed the
North Korean threat while the other viewed it as increasingly menacing.
Now comes Lee, a former mayor of Seoul and Hyundai
construction executive with a reputation for tough-minded, pragmatic
conservatism, eager to correct what he described as the misguided
priorities of past ROK administrations. In a recent meeting with New
Beginnings, a group of American policy experts on Korea, Lee appeared
determined to accord priority to the alliance with the United States,
exact a measure of reciprocity from the North, forestall major economic
concessions to the North until it abandons its nuclear activities, and
design a more ambitious global role for his country.
Surely Washington welcomes Lee's priorities. The tougher question is whether it can work effectively with him to translate
shared aims into concrete results. This will pose three particular challenges.
First,
on the nuclear issue, undeniably, bilateral talks with Pyongyang can
facilitate diplomatic progress. There are dangers as well. Disconnects
with the Japanese have deepened, and their officials occasionally
complain about American "betrayals" in the discussions with Pyongyang.
The North has consistently sought to use the negotiations to split the
US and its allies. Success in the talks requires coordinated diplomacy
between the US and the North's neighbors – especially with South Korea.
In the past it often appeared that South Korean presidents worried less
about Pyongyang's nuclear activities than Washington's possible
reactions to them.
Today, there is the danger that South Korean
conservatives may fear that Washington will ultimately acquiesce in
North Korea's nascent nuclear status. No attempt to contain, let alone
eliminate, the North Korean nuclear program can succeed unless the US
and ROK governments work closely together. This will require a higher
standard of candor and mutual trust in bilateral consultations than has
been typical in recent years.
Second, the ratification of the Korea-US
free-trade agreement (FTA) is a vital piece of unfinished business. Lee
appears prepared to resume imports of US beef (halted due to mad cow
disease concerns), essential to moving the FTA forward in Congress.
Unfortunately, the Democratic presidential contenders are pandering to
special interests on trade issues in a way they will probably later
regret. Both sides have strategic and commercial interests at stake.
The US stands to gain much more in increased exports from the FTA,
while the Koreans hope that liberalizing foreign access to their
economy will make them more competitive. So there is much to gain by
nailing down this deal. A failure to complete it would be a significant
strategic setback for our partnership.
Third, there is the question as to whether our
political cycles will again diverge. For the past eight years, the US
has been led by one of its most conservative administrations, while
South Korea was headed by its most liberal president. Missteps were,
perhaps, inevitable. And they have persisted, even though some
effective work was done behind the scenes to forge cooperative
arrangements on trade and force-deployment issues.
Lee's election signifies a conservative swing in
South Korea's politics, while polls suggest the US may be moving in the
opposite direction. Thus, a felicitous convergence of US and ROK
official perspectives could prove fleeting. Yet the interests we share
in expanded commerce, in modernizing our alliance, and in approaching
the North with a joint strategy for "denuclearization" are compelling.
They transcend partisan politics. They serve our respective national
interests. The time to capitalize on them is now.
