[USFK Forums] Leaks plugged, but U.S. policy fight continues [JoongAng]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Monday, March 13, 2006

Leaks plugged, but U.S. policy fight continues

Pragmatists versus nationalists in views of Korea’s military ties

March 13, 2006 ㅡ The recent leak of sensitive documents by a Foreign Ministry official has left the ministry with some scars. Those scars, in turn, are a symptom of the adolescent energy and missteps of a country that is struggling to get out of the shadow of its allied “big brother,” the United States.

In what the ministry itself calls a “transitional period” in the alliance, the media here have described the leaks as a struggle that involves, on the one hand, elements in the ministry looking for a more independent approach to national security. With dubious taste, the media have dubbed those activists as the “Taleban faction.”

Pitted against them, in this scenario, is the faction that sees the status quo, more or less, as a practical way to continue to reap the benefits of an alliance that has unquestionably served Korean basic interests well in the past.

After an investigation by the Blue House showed that Lee Jong-heon, a foreign service officer working at the National Security Council, was the source of the leak, the ministry is now struggling with how he should be disciplined. One official said yesterday that Mr. Lee’s fate will not be decided before the end of this month; another said that Ban Ki-moon, the foreign minister, had already ordered that because the matter was so sensitive, the punishment must be stern.

The leaked documents suggested that the ministry had been conducting negotiations with the United States independently, without the knowledge of the president, concerning the use of U.S. troops here in other regional hot spots.

Another official involved in the case is Lee Seong-hwan, President Roh Moo-hyun’s interpreter and the son of Lee Tae-sik, Korea’s ambassador to Washington. Also a foreign service officer, he received only a verbal reprimand from the Blue House after the investigation showed that he gave the document to Lee Jong-heon with no intention or knowledge that the latter man would pass it on to the media and a legislator.

Some officials with a more cynical bent, however, suggested that the administration did not want to punish the son of the U.S. ambassador, especially in light of other recent embarrassments involving the previous ambassador, who became embroiled in a nasty controversy over a bugged conversation about alleged illegal campaign contributions.

Many foreign ministry officials asked to comment about the leaked documents denied that there was any factional struggle in the ministry. Rather, they interpreted the matter as one of a handful of people pushing matters to the extreme. One diplomat at the ministry suggested that it was that commonest of bureaucratic games, a turf battle over policy control.

He said the ministry’s American affairs bureau is responsible for negotiations with the United States in the first instance, while the treaties bureau, which reviews the results of negotiations for consistency with Korean policies in other areas, took a different view of some matters. Whichever interpretation is correct, there has been a scramble to close the books and move on.

“At least those publicly known to be involved in this case are not here any more. This was a thing with roots in the past,” said one ministry official, also speaking off the record. Two other people were involved in the case; one left the ministry last year and is now working for a Korean conglomerate; the other is with the ministry but has been posted to an embassy abroad.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy here say on the record that they have no comment on the internal affairs of their host country, but have privately noted their serious concern about the leaks. “Naturally, you take interest in this case because it tells you what’s going on and it shows you what could happen,” said one official who declined to be named.

Another Western diplomatic source said last week that the incident cast Seoul in a bad light. “In diplomacy, there are things that need to be kept under the table as with any negotiation. Whatever the intentions, Seoul was the one left hurt,” this source said.

Perhaps the complaints of the unification minister, Lee Jong-seok, that he had been criticized by both the right and the left over the agreement with the United States over U.S. troops’ “strategic flexibility” are an indicator of where Seoul’s diplomacy is heading.

The Roh administration has insisted that it wants to be a “balancer” in regional issues, but the problems of being a third force while being part of a military alliance with one of the two contenders has meant that little has been developed to flesh out that policy. Officials have cited Korea’s “soft power” - its cultural influence on other countries in the region - as one of the concepts that could let Seoul play the role of peacemaker. That concept was articulated earlier by Foreign Minister Ban, but geopolitical realities have made it difficult to implement.

The concept is not a new one; Joseph S. Nye, Jr. notes in his book “Soft Power” that the Vatican, for example, is still influential despite Stalin’s mocking question, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” But in that book he also notes its limits. He says, for example, “The North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is alleged to like pizza and American videos, but that does not affect his nuclear programs.”

Before he took up his current position as unification minister, Lee Jong-seok flew to Washington to explain the concept of the balancing role that Seoul envisions. It remains murky, however, perhaps even to those in Washington who heard it. There has been no visible plan of action flowing from the idea or anything to follow up on the original plan since it was first made public at the beginning of last year.

But since then, despite the bland assurances of officials both in Washington and in Seoul, the two allies continue to eye each other warily, U.S. troops are slowly pulled out and rearranged in rear positions, and documents are smuggled out to support a feeling of restiveness in the striped-pants ranks.


by Brian Lee



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