The former foreign minister to the current Roh Moo-hyun administration had some very interesting things to say in today's Chosun Ilbo about the US-ROK relationship:

Prof. Yoon Young-kwan, who served as the first foreign minister of the current administration, said in a lecture to a Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations affiliate on Monday, "Despite becoming the 10th largest economy in the world, the consciousness of South Korea remains in turn-of-the-19th-century resistant nationalism and passive concepts of independence, desperate to get out from under the influence of the Great Powers. We have to pursue positive independence taking advantage of our relations with these powers to achieve our national interests." Yoon cited the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl as representing a spirit of genuine independence when he achieved German unification through close diplomatic ties with the U.S. Germany achieved unification by overcoming fears of a united Germany in neighboring countries or former enemies like France, the Soviet Union, Britain and Poland through cooperation with Washington.

Make sure you read the whole article because it is a good read, but I think there is a reason why this guy is no longer the foreign minister; because he makes sense compared to people like this.* Also he was brave to say these things in front of the KFTA, one of the most anti-US groups in Korea.

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