0401-A new, different war

Korea should be better prepared for cyberattack

Three public broadcasters and two financial institutions have yet to completely recover from the unprecedented paralysis of their computer networks caused by hackers Wednesday.

It is chilling to think of the scale of chaos had the cyberattacks by still unidentified hackers not been for “demonstration,” but for real destruction, and had the targets not been TV stations and banks but the nation’s power grid, waterworks or nuclear plants.

The attackers hinted there would be a second and third round of assaults, against which not just the affected institutions but the entire nation should remain alert. Even if their warnings end as such for now, however, the ongoing troubles are just the precursor of what could happen in the future, far more frequently _ and seriously.

Korea has just entered into an era of cyberwar in earnest, albeit begrudgingly and unprepared.

It is shocking in this regard that the related institutions, including the state TV KBS, had not even recognized the malignant codes embedded in their computer systems for months, let alone taking proper countermeasures. This, coming on top of a similar disruption of the Cheong Wa Dae website a few years ago, demonstrates how pitiably defenseless are the nation’s major institutions, public or private, against cyber threats from hostile forces.

Most urgent now is to discover who carried out the latest attack and why.

One usual suspect is North Korea, although officials are neither denying the possibility nor jumping to a hasty conclusion, rightly, before securing hard evidence. Pyongyang has sufficient motivation and capability, and there are more than just suspicions the communist regime was behind recent hackings of a couple of media outlets and financial firms. The North, claiming its own websites have been attacked by foreigners recently, has also vowed to retaliate.

According to news reports, the reclusive regime operates a unit of about 3,000 well-trained cyber warriors, whose hacking abilities are world-class, similar to China’s Unit 61398. What all this means is Seoul must act quickly, not just in enhancing its thin cyber defense but in establishing its own cyber warfare command as a joint effort of the government, military and business sector. The government ought to foster manpower, and require all major institutions to maintain certain levels of cyber security stance, through relevant legislation if necessary.

Officials here must realize why the United States and China are engaged in a war-of-nerves over hacking allegations. Military experts say there will come a time soon when nations should worry more about cyber attacks than even nuclear bombs.

President Park Geun-hye wasted no time in instructing swift damage control, and saying she would convene a conference to discuss countermeasures at a national level. These are all moves in the right direction, but Park should move forward further to prevent possible attacks from North Korea and other forces, strengthen the nation’s cyber defenses, and develop the ability to immediately strike back when attacked.

If not, Korea’s self-praise as a global IT power couldn’t ring hollower.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Friday, March, 22, 2013.

0329-Inappropriate treats

The story is perfect material for a B-grade adult film; a construction broker uses his luxurious country house to treat government officials and bankers to games of golf, dinner _ and girls. In return, he asks the guests for building orders and other favors, sometimes blackmailing them with video of orgies they had attended.

As always, public attention has turned to who were on the invitation list of the 50-something builder surnamed Yoon. So far, rumors have pointed to the deputy chief of the government’s inspection agency, the director of a large hospital, lawyers and the branch heads of some banks.

However, an additional question arises: What have the police done since the story was first talked about by officials and businesspeople late last year? This is not just another sex scandal but concerns public officials taking bribes in the form of sexual favors.

One also can’t help but wonder why the prosecution didn’t delve into the case when a female victim of Yoon’s rape and extortion crime filed a complaint, but freed him without indictment. It was only after the scandal began to snowball when the victim disclosed there are video disks containing compromising scenes of the guests and the girls that law enforcement officers resumed their investigation.

Chances are the police and prosecutors have watched Cheong Wa Dae, which chose a vice ministerial official without sufficient vetting.

If true, the Park Geun-hye administration will have reaffirmed its complete inability to pick qualified people for key posts, as witnessed so often over the past three months. Equally deplorable are the police, particularly those in the upper echelon, who attempted to play down the suspicions surrounding the vice-ministerial nominee.

The sex-for-influence scandal could be quite embarrassing for Park, who has stressed the need for stricter discipline and a stronger work ethic within officialdom since taking office. Yet the nation’s first woman president should use this as an occasion to tighten both verification of the track records of candidates for major positions and to drive out deep-rooted corruption in government, especially grafts exploiting this society’s weak moral principles and abuses against women.

President Park should order law enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute those involved in thorough and transparent ways, not least because rumors are sometimes more harmful than facts, especially for a fledgling administration.

Korea will be unable to shake off its time-honored bad habit of demanding and providing sex favors as a form of bribery anytime soon. Yet if this society really wants to root out this evil tradition, there can’t be any better time than now while a female president occupies Cheong Wa Dae.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Thursday, March, 21, 2013.

0328-Spy agency in politics

President must repair NIS broken by predecessor

In previous decades, Korea’s top spy agency often pursued the objectives of individual governments and their leaders instead of working for the benefit of the entire nation. Most Koreans thought those days were long gone: sadly they were wrong.

When a female employee of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) was caught waging an online slander campaign against the opposition candidate during last year’s presidential election, the NIS said it was personal activity motivated by the woman’s own judgment.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), based on what NIS Director Won Sei-hoon told intelligence operatives during monthly staff meetings over the past two years, said the spy chief has been significantly involved in domestic politics, violating the law that bans such activities.

Quoting the NIS’s own intranet record, Rep. Jin said Won ordered NIS agents to shape public opinion on major issues in favor of the conservative camp; promote the Lee administration’s key policies, including the four-river restoration works and the cancellation of an administrative capital project; and cope with cyber-propaganda from North Korea and its sympathizers in the South.

Surprisingly, NIS officials acknowledged most of these allegations, saying they were necessary to support national security. They accused the opposition lawmaker of distorting and exaggerating the NIS’s activities for political purposes, and lamented the leakage of internal documents.

In this, citizens see a glaring example of the audacity of thieves. Of Won’s three major instructions, one can only agree to the conduct of a cyber war against North Korea as a relevant task, while finding the other two as egregious intervention in politics by siding with the previous administration. What matters is that NIS agents broke laws en masse and at the instruction of its head, not a belated revelation of facts.

We demand Won or any another NIS official explain what relationship there is between the controversial river-refurbishment works or the relocation of government offices with North Korea’s nuclear programs.

All this shows how Won, a longtime confidant of former President Lee, confused national security with preserving the safety of his boss and the administration he led. Won categorized together people or groups opposing Lee, including opposition lawmakers, labor unionists, environmental groups and even Buddhist monks, as pro-North Korea leftists by painting them all red. When Lee named his right-hand man, who was a total stranger to intelligence work, to lead the top spy agency, there were concerns about the NIS becoming the president’s personal agency, misgivings which were proven true.

While the NIS head’s attention went in the wrong direction, the agency’s espionage operations suffered a serious setback, as evidenced by shameful fiascos at home and abroad.

We hope, and believe, that President Park Geun-hye, who lost her father at the hand of his top spy, will not repeat similar mistakes. Park should go further, by ordering thorough investigations into the female operative’s alleged meddling in the election.

The President must be ready to take legal steps against the NIS chief and, if necessary, even ask her predecessor to take responsibility. This is the least she can to do in order to show her resolve not to allow more of the same wrongs.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Wednesday, March, 20, 2013.

0327-Queen’s return

The queen has finally returned, to the delight of all Koreans as well as figure skating fans.

Reigning Olympic champion Kim Yu-na won the world title Sunday morning (KST) in her first appearance at the World Figure Skating Championships in two years.

What was most jaw-dropping was her score of 218.31 points, the highest ever garnered by a female skater this season, her personal second-best and the world’s second-best following the 228.56 she earned at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The score put Kim more than 20 points ahead of defending world champion Carolina Kostner of Italy and Japan’s Mao Asada.

Her triumph is all the more meaningful in that she overcame what appeared to be an unfavorable judgment of her near-perfect performance in the short program ― she earned a lower-than-expected 69.97 points in the short after having an edge call on her triple flip.

True, there are no proper words to describe her genuine courage to make up her mind to return to the ice rink last July, given the enormous physical and mental endurance needed to prepare for figure skating competition.

Even without this victory, she is qualified enough to get the highest praise merely because of the fact she embarked on a new challenge even after achieving both honor and wealth with her victory in Vancouver. It might not be too much to say that she will set an example for our youngsters who often feel frustrated in the face of harsh realities.

Also notable is that Kim, in taking the world title, gave Korea the maximum three spots in ladies’ figure skating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. It will be the first time three Korean figure skaters will perform at a single Olympics and will certainly pave the way for Korea to improve its figure skating level in the run-up to the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

With her resounding victory, Kim has brightened her chance of back-to-back Olympic triumphs. This possibility is deemed higher, given that in five of the past seven Winter Olympics, the world champions from the previous year have gone on to win Olympic gold. Kim herself proved this true by claiming her first world title in 2009 and then her first Olympic gold in 2010.

With just 11 months to go before the Sochi Olympics, however, there is no room for complacency. Only incessant effort and thorough preparation will guarantee her success.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Monday, March, 18, 2013.

0326-Farm produce marketing

Last autumn, local cabbage farmers plowed in their produce in protest at plunging prices, while at the same time, urban housewives couldn’t make kimchi due to the rocketing price of cabbage. Likewise, pig prices collapsed recently to half last year’s level, but pork prices remain mostly unchanged at supermarkets and restaurants.

A common culprit behind these contrasting scenes is the nation’s extremely distorted distribution system for farm produce. When the supply of certain products increases, their prices should go down. This will in turn push up demand, and consequently, prices too. If this simple market principle doesn’t work, both producers and consumers suffer, with middle merchants becoming the only winners in this vicious circle.

Most previous governments vowed to streamline the nation’s agricultural distribution system but to little avail. President Park Geun-hye made the same pledge when she visited a wholesale produce market in Seoul last week.

Whether the nation’s first female president can win over profiteering middlemen and rectify this absurd system depends on careful and farsighted planning _ and persistence, one of her main strengths.

According to a study by Yonsei University, distribution costs account for 43 percent of the consumer price of fruits, vegetables and meat products here on average because of five to seven distribution phases. A farmer, for instance, gets less than $1 per cabbage, but the same product fetches $5-$6 at urban supermarkets. Some middlemen buy these vegetables in bulk from fields and control their supply and price, in a notorious practice called “garden preemption.”

The merchants are necessary to an extent because of the high risks of agricultural marketing, given that these products take a long time to grow and are hard to store while maintaining their freshness. This notwithstanding, the time is long past to stop allowing the tail to wag the dog.

Park was right in this regard to call for reducing the excessive distribution stages by encouraging more “direct trading” between producers and consumers. For that to happen, the President should instruct her agriculture minister to build large freight stations at production sites and help individual farmers organize themselves into large, more powerful groups.

The government should also improve its ability to forecast supply and demand, in close consultation with producers, to control production and shipment, as are the cases in advanced agricultural countries in Europe, and in Australia.

Park needs to reconsider her plan to complete reform in just six months, and take a more fundamental and long-term approach by envisioning what the nation’s primary industry should be like in 10 to 15 years.

Haste makes waste in this area, too, as her predecessors have shown.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Tuesday, March, 19, 2013.

0325-Stock manipulators

It is no secret Korean stock markets have become like ATMs for cash-laden, unethical investors, local and foreign. Numerous small, individual investors, called the “corps of ants,” have fallen prey to these manipulative forces and gone bankrupt, with some committing suicide.

Yet few had expected President Park Geun-hye would point out this relatively peripheral issue at her first Cabinet meeting Monday, along with North Korea’s threats on national security. One might guess Park’s main thrust of economic policy has shifted from “democratization” to “justice.”

After all, bringing the nation’s huge underground economy into the open was one of Park’s economic pledges. Imposing heavy fines on stock manipulators would also help raise money for her welfare programs.

Whatever the president’s motivations, there can be no denying rampant market manipulation is a serious problem hindering the long-term development of Korea’s financial industry. According to the Korea Exchange, the number of “unfair” transactions it ferreted out jumped nearly 60 percent over the past four years. Individual investors lost 1.55 trillion won ($1.4 billion) a year by putting money on 35 “theme-driven” shares.

The time is long past for Korea to unify the currently dispersed  activities to crack down on stock manipulators into a single agency, and give it stronger authority, ranging from uncovering fraudulent investors to punishing them, including fine imposition. At present, four different agencies divide the job by phase, making it difficult to punish violators swiftly and sternly and allowing fraudsters to slip through numerous loopholes.

Most advanced countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Japan, have unified crackdown agencies, meaning there is no dearth of benchmarking models for Korea. What’s been lacking was only the will of the financial authorities.

The new president’s attention to the stock market is welcome, but it should go beyond market manipulators to a more fundamental reform.

Local course, which had been called a “gambling den” until the 1980s, has since experienced explosive expansion along with the nation’s economic growth. But it has yet to shake off the dishonorable label of a “playground for speculators,” failing to be a place for sound investors. The only difference is the size of the market and the entry of new speculators from abroad. So much so the local capital market has all but lost its function of raising industrial capital and is reduced to being a producer of a larger number of credit delinquents.

The nation should not discriminate against investors, large or small, and local or foreign. But encouraging free investment is one thing, and sorting out speculators and fraudsters is another.

President Park’s interest in the stock market should serve as an occasion to “normalize” the local bourse in more fundamental ways.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Friday, March, 15, 2013.

0322- 1 year of KORUS FTA

Is Seoul ready for changes in global trade regime?

Exactly one year ago Friday, the controversial Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, called the KORUS FTA here, went into effect. Yet government and business officials appear more relieved now, and doomsayers remain barely audible, because a number of much-feared and discussed adverse effects have yet to take their toll on domestic businesses, so far.

In contrast, the U.S. Congress and industry are abuzz with what they see as one-sided negative impacts of the bilateral free trade pact. Little wonder: over the past 11 months, America’s exports to Korea fell 2.67 percent while imports from it jumped 7.35 percent to widen the U.S. loss in two-way trade by a hefty 44 percent. To the dismay of Washington, two major sectors _ auto and beef _ fared quite poorly, too.

Does this mean Korean officials can afford to remain complacent with what they regard as “half success,” then? Hardly, especially at a time when their U.S. counterparts are busy analyzing the smaller-than-expected benefits of free trade and racking their brains for a means of recovery.

It is uncertain in this regard whether Seoul is ready for renewed market-opening pressure from Washington, particularly in the area of intellectual property rights and farm trade.

Nor can one be sure if the Park Geun-hye administration is preparing to supplement the agreement, as it vowed to do during the presidential campaigns last year, by, for instance, revising or abolishing the controversial investor-state dispute (ISD) provision, and persuading U.S. officials to recognize products made by inter-Korean joint venture firms in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex as eligible for reduced import duties. Unfortunately, for now, there appear to be only words, not actions.

The sharply different scenes in Seoul and Washington concerning the FTA’s follow-up steps are feared to turn the table around a year later.

Worse yet, the Barack Obama administration appears set to pursue arguably the most aggressive trade talks in a generation, which will encompass Europe and Asia. Korea, which has concluded FTAs with both the United States and the European Union, may experience less direct impact from Washington’s renewed trade offensive, but needs to brace itself for at least two possibilities: the reduced benefits of free trade because more competitors, such as Japan, will jump in the fray; and a relative shrinkage of its single biggest market _ China. 

If the free trade agreement between the U.S. and EU is aimed at retaking the hegemony of global economy from large emerging economies such as the BRICS, Seoul will have to work out an elaborate strategy to play both ends against the middle instead of becoming a pig in the middle.

Of course, product quality and technological competitiveness will decide final results. Yet shrewd trade diplomacy is as important as solid industrial policy. It’s quite discomforting to think how deftly the restructured Ministry of Industry, Resources and Trade will handle this complicated job. Also hard to know is where are the group of lawmakers, who vowed last year to form an FTA “study group.”

Signing FTAs is not the end, not even the end of beginning, of engaging in a trade war. The real battle has not even started yet. It’s a pity the attention of political and administrative leaders appears directed somewhere else.  

This is The Korea Times editorial for Thursday, March, 14, 2013.

0321-Unfit defense chief

President Park Geun-hye reportedly grew furious during Monday’s Cabinet meeting at the news about military officers who went golfing over the weekend. 

Golf, or most other sports for that matter, is recommended for officers as both a diversion and physical exercise. But there is a time for everything. Last weekend, the inter-Korean propaganda war was reaching its peak on the eve of the annual Korea-U.S. military drills. We are curious how the U.S. troops arriving for the joint exercise have reacted to the leisurely atmosphere among their Korean counterparts.

Park is right to instruct her aides to ferret out all those lax officers and sternly discipline them. Foreigners are often surprised at the South Korean people’s carefree attitude in the face of North Korean threats. Yet it’s chilling if such apathy to security has spread even to the military.

In a way, however, the nation’s first female president can be said to have provided a ground for loosening military discipline further _ with her nomination of the most unqualified candidate for defense minister.

Park’s nominee, former Army general Kim Byung-kwan, is unfit to be the nation’s defense chief in every way _ not just in terms of ethics and character but in capability. 

Kim, involved in scores of scandals including his post-retirement stint as an advisor for a foreign arms broker and various suspicions about real estate speculation during and after active duty, astonished people when he declared he has lived a “life of integrity.” “Of all the investments in properties, I only succeeded in two cases,” he added. We are left to wonder whether he is senselessly candid or has long forgotten such a thing as shame. 

Even more pitiably, Kim played golf a day after the South Korean frigate Cheonan sank off the West Sea with 46 sailors aboard in March 2010, and went on a spa tour of Japan in the wake of the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Kim said there was little he could do as a retired general but then he should have done nothing, instead of seeking pleasure. Once a general should always be a general, whether in uniform or not.

The military is an organization that lives on honor, respect and trust. We doubt Kim can evoke any of these among his men. 

On Tuesday, Kim repeated his request to allow him to serve the nation once again. If his brazen-faced appeals were on cue from his appointer, Koreans have every reason to feel uneasy about the nation’s defense. 

And if the president pushes ahead with her appointment of Kim only because he is loyal to her and her deceased parents, people will find an additional reason for feeling restless not only about security but about overall  state administration in the next five years. 

This is The Korea Times editorial for Wednesday, March, 13, 2013.

0320-Opposition in disarray

Democrats should rebuild party on clearer platforms

If there is a political group more deplorable than the stubborn president and her submissive governing party, it is the disjointed main opposition party.

President Park Geun-hye apparently thinks her election victory gave her a blank check for running state affairs, restructuring the government and nominating Cabinet ministers without consulting even her own party, let alone seeking the opinions of opposition leaders.

The ruling Saenuri Party dares not raise a protest of Park’s arbitrary governance style even when her aides reverse their words on major campaign pledges without showing any signs of regret for voters.

Yet it is the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) that bears the brunt of popular criticism of this administrative logjam by appearing to play the role of obstructionists. We don’t think the DUP is opposing the president’s various agenda for opposition’s sake. If a considerable number of people see the largest opposition party as an unproductive obstructer, however, it should ponder why.

The biggest reason is the factional strife over responsibility for the election loss and party hegemony without genuine reflection on what has gone wrong. It is small surprise then that the DUP is at an utter loss how to deal with Ahn Cheol-soo, an ally-turned-rival who went to the United States on the voting day and returned Monday, nearly three months later.

Ahn, who conceded candidacy in the presidential election to DUP candidate Moon Jae-in just before the poll, said at the airport he would no longer go with the DUP but take an independent political course, probably by forming a new party. The IT guru-turned-college professor-turned-politician, who stirred a whirlwind with his slogan of ``new, clean politics” last year, still enjoys considerable popular support, especially because the existing parties are mired in political gridlock over almost every issue.

We can hardly agree with Ahn’s political opportunism. His concession of the candidacy was hardly spontaneous and he should have stayed in Korea reflecting on the liberal opposition’s defeat and analyzing its reasons instead of flying to the U.S. as an escape. This is not the 1970s and 80s when civilian political leaders went into self-imposed exile to avoid military dictators’ persecution. Ahn is planning to run in a by-election in a Seoul precinct vacated by a progressive lawmaker’s conviction, for an easy comeback.   

Most political analysts say that in the last presidential election, voters, although they were disillusioned with President Lee Myung-bak’s dismal governance of five years, opted for stability instead of the populist demagoguery of liberals in the preceding 10 years.

As this page has repeatedly said, however, the biggest mistake of liberal governments was not their pro-working class policies but their failure to implement them with concrete, and consistent, actions.

As expected, Park and her Saenuri Party are showing most of their welfare policies were not meant for implementation but just vote-getting decoys. What the oppositionists should do is to force the ruling camp to keep their promises, not split into shreds against a united conservative party.

It’s time for the opposition to unite and jointly agonize over what is best for Korea’s political development and the liberals’ most proper contribution to it.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Tuesday, March, 12, 2013.

0319-A beautiful retirement

A former Supreme Court justice is now working at a corner shop run by his wife: “So what?” people in some advanced countries might ask.

But not in Korea, where ex-judges of even lower ranks can earn up to one million dollars a year working for large law firms, which exploit their personal connections with former colleagues to bend trial results.

The so-called “special treatment of ex-officials” is so widespread here that high offices have become like licenses on which to build a fortune.

So the local media’s loud coverage of Kim Neung-hwan, while natural given the journalists’ pursuit of something unusual, and laudable as offering a model for other officials, is a sad reminder of how Korea has become a society that worships money and little else. 

Kim, who also served as the chief of the National Election Commission of Korea, has left many good examples of what a public official should be. He gave part of his salary to fund events for subordinates and even helped to finance a staff member’s court costs. As the top election manager, Kim didn’t hesitate to ferret out ruling Saenuri Party violations, earning the ire of the latter.

A man of high integrity and faith, Kim reportedly received an offer to be President Park Geun-hye’s first prime minister but turned it down, saying, “How can a former justice and ex-election manager work for the executive branch (that I once checked and oversaw)?” 

That such a natural stance makes big news only indicates, yet again, how far this society has moved away from a normal one. A man of extreme humility, Kim, who kept his wife from running stores while he was in office, even rejected teaching jobs at universities, saying, “I don’t want to commit a sin on students with my poor ability.” 

By any standards, Kim is a rare person. Park may try again to recruit him for her administration and he may, or may not, accept the offer, to set another example for other public officials. But we hope Park will leave him alone, as a guiding light for this ever-darkening society as a whole.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Monday, March, 11, 2013.

0318-Reducing temp workers

Retail giant E-mart’s decision to convert 10,000 temporary workers into permanent staff may be the best news that the labor market has heard in years. And it shows how much difference one president can make for so many workers.

The move by the nation’s largest discount chain came right after the labor ministry ruled that the retailer hired and used 1,978 workers dispatched by a referral agency in illegal ways, and threatened to impose fines of 10 million won per worker each month until it rectifies the irregularity.

This is the same labor ministry which looked the other way when the same company oppressed unionists over the past five years under a different President. The conversion is a belated but welcome move but the government’s auditors should investigate allegations that the ministry also knew but ignored the unlawful hiring practices for years.

Also noticeable is that the Shinsegae Group came up with the decision following a similar one taken by Hanwha Group, another family-controlled conglomerate. The two chaebol groups have one thing in common: their owners have either been convicted or are under police probes for financial and labor-related violations. Few Koreans doubt that the tycoons’ troubles are related with President Park Geun-hye’s strong policy to tame chaebol.

We hope President Park will continue to keep her pledge not to allow any exception from fair and equal enforcement of the law. She should not follow in the footsteps of her predecessors, most of whom started with anti-chaebol policies but ended up compromising with the corporate behemoths, which together account for more than half of Korea’s gross domestic product. If only she can make the industrial giants faithfully abide by the law, numerous smaller firms will breathe far more easily.

E-mart’s latest move will incur additional labor cost of 60 billion won a year, or 7.7 percent of its net profits of 776 billion won, while raising its employees’ annual income by 27 percent. This is a worthy investment because the workers are certain to repay with corresponding productivity growth and improved work discipline.

Corporate use of temporary workers and dispatched labor is a universal trend to meet with rapidly changing industrial climate. So the new government’s task is to narrow the excessive income gap between temporary and permanent workers here and tighten the restrictions of this irregular employment practice by drawling a clearer line between acts that are allowable and those that are not.

The ongoing change in the domestic employment market is a move in the right direction, but is only a small beginning toward realizing President Park’s promise to make a ``happy Korea.”

0315-A vegetable government

People are biggest victims of administrative vacuum

The Park Geun-hye administration has struck a rock even before it set to sea. On the surface, current partisan strife is due to a seemingly minor provision in the government restructuring bill. Beneath this, however, is the first skirmish over political hegemony, the result of which could tilt power balance between President Park and her political opponents over the next five years.

It is not certain who will win this initial war of nerves, but in the up-and-down world of politics, today’s victory is often tomorrow’s defeat, and vice versa. What’s certain is who the invariable losers of these political dogfights are: the people.

For now, Koreans are embarrassed by this unprecedented administrative vacuum gripping the new government. When their bewilderment turns to anger, the first target will likely be the unwieldy opposition parties.

And that must be what President Park had in mind when she read her first “statement to the people” at Cheong Wa Dae Monday, only her eighth day in office. “The National Assembly’s failure to pass a bill to retool the government is causing a serious bottleneck in state administration,” a stony-faced Park said in an angry voice. “We cannot start a new growth engine to revive economy, while losing opportunities to create good jobs.”

In theory, there is little wrong with what she said. But should this be the way the new chief executive handle national affairs in her first week in office? Park may, or may not, be able to win a parliamentary okay for the bill but if, and should, she resort to “direct appeals” to the people whenever opposition parties do what they are supposed to do _ “oppose” _ what role will the President and her party be left with? Most Koreans will shake their heads at the mere thought of such extreme partisan wrangling.

It seems as if Park, who spent most of her political career out of power, either as an opposition lawmaker or an “in-house oppositionist” in the Lee Myung-bak administration, has forgotten the natural role and situations of oppositionists as soon as she came to power little more than two months ago.

In her inaugural address, Park uttered the word “people” 50 times and “happiness” 20 times, vowing to do all she can “for” the people. What she never mentioned were such words as “democratic development” and “unity and harmony.”

To sum up, Park’s speech, which she reportedly wrote almost by herself, was asking the whole nation, including political opponents, to let her do her job, and help her, work for the people, instead of raising serious and prolonged objections.

But Koreans are living in a 21st-century democracy where the process and popular participation are as important as leaders’ good intentions and the end results of their policy. In relation to Abraham Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy, President Park seems to only think of “for the people,” while completely forgetting or ignoring “by the people.” But 48 percent of Koreans voted for opposition parties to speak and work on behalf of them in the last election.

Park must learn how to yield some and win more concessions. The sooner, the better.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Wednesday, March 6, 2013.

0314-Sharing defense burden

Despite Korea’s heavy economic reliance on America, the U.S. budget cuts known as the sequester may not affect this country much. 

This is less because the United States has given up its place as Korea’s largest export market to China, but because Seoul still believes in Washington’s ability to prevent the worst from occurring. 

That doesn’t mean, however, Korean exporters can remain complacent. They will have to prepare for any unexpected developments by diversifying shipment destinations further, bracing up for resurgent protectionism, and trying to maintain exchange rates at a proper level.

A more direct and immediate impact will be felt in another area on which the nation depends even more on its biggest ally - defense. The U.S. military spending is not only the biggest victim of the impending spending cuts but also an area subject to mid- to long-term budgetary axing. 

This is small surprise considering the two U.S. wars against terror, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the main culprits behind its snowballing debt. It is even doubtful whether Washington’s much-heralded “pivot to Asia” would be possible financially. The sequester’s effect is expected to ripple over to the operation of existing U.S. troops in Asia, including Korea.   

In a letter sent to his soldiers on Feb. 27, James Thurman, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, said, “If the sequester goes on for a protracted period, the Pentagon will have to give their civilian workers paid vacation.” 

Moreover, all this is coming when the two traditional allies are about to open negotiations soon to readjust their defense burden sharing for the 2014-19 period. Already, the U.S. has asked Korea to expand its share from 42 percent to 50 percent, or about 200 billion
won, meaning Seoul’s total annual burden will exceed 1 trillion won for the first time if it accepts Washington’s request.

Even more burdensome than the increase is the impression that Korea plays the role of advance guard for America’s expanded military presence in Asia, by checking China’s dominance. Especially so if and when Seoul goes on to buy expensive weapons from Washington to expand its arsenal and help ease the latter’s budget constraint.

Adding fuel to such concerns is President Park Geun-hye’s appointment of National Security Council (NSC), most of whose top posts are filled with former four-star generals. The South Korean version of the “military-first” policy could make the NSC an unbalanced organization, which has neither ability nor will to bargain with its U.S. counterparts.

At a time when Seoul has to positively cope with a new political order in Northeast Asia with farsighted and highly-sophisticated diplomacy, the military-only NSC is far more than just a cause for concern. 

This is The Korea Times editorial for Tuesday, March 5, 2013.

0312-Credibility gap

Seoul should practice what it preaches on CO2 emissions

At the 2009 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, former President Lee Myung-bak vowed to reduce Korea’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in 2020.

But the nation’s discharge of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases surged 9.8 percent in 2010, marking the biggest increase in 17 years and exposing its leader’s pledge as an empty words. There are whispers within the international community about the Lee administration’s hollow, even deceitful, promise.

The government attributes the steep increase to an unusually hot summer and cold winter of that year, as well as brisk manufacturing of steel and automobiles. It still falls short of explaining the near 10 percent growth, compared with the average 1.7 percent gain in the preceding four years. 

Even if the officials’ explanations are true, it only reaffirms the need for Korea to step up efforts to turn its words into deeds. For how long should the nation remain trapped in a vicious circle in which emissions of hothouse gases leads to extreme weather, which in turn results in even more emissions to meet the continuously growing demand for warming and cooling fuel until the abnormal climate becomes the new normal?

The manufacturing boom, while not bad for short-term recovery, also shows how far the nation’s industry must go in order to become a truly advanced economy. 

It is, of course, not easy to persuade domestic businesses to take the lead in “green growth” as Lee so confidently boasted. Almost all of Korea’s major competitors, not just the industrialized economies of the U.S. and Japan but also large emerging ones such as China and India, have bowed out of the extended regime of the Kyoto Protocol on mandatory emission cuts. Local firms might as well ask why Korea, an environmentally-developing country with no obligations to reduce emissions, has remained under the agreement.

There are at least three reasons. 

First of all, Korea is no longer an exception from the various disasters of climate change. Currently environmental harm is mostly limited to uncomfortable weather but could soon change to the creation of unlivable conditions. Second, there is a race for new markets. China, which many Koreans regard as home to smokestack industries, is rapidly growing into a clean energy power. If Korea lags behind its giant neighbor even in future industries, the nation’s industrial outlook will be grim. Third, the nation has a credibility gap if it reneges on an international commitment.

It was only months ago that the nation rejoiced over its hosting of the headquarters of the Green Climate Fund, one of the “signature feats” of the former President. How can Korea, the world’s seventh-largest emitter of greenhouse gas and the largest in per capita emissions, persuade skeptical foreigners of an environmental bridge between advanced and developing nations unless it provides an example as a model reducer? 

All this explains why the nation should hasten to introduce emission trading, levy carbon taxes, and forgo the scheduled construction of 18 thermal power plants. 

The businesses need incentives to move on. The best person to provide them is President Park Geun-hye, who preaches on having a “creative” economy.  

This is The Korea Times editorial for Friday, March 1, 2013.

0311-Healthcare reform

There are two ways middle-class Koreans fall into poverty: through losing their jobs or getting serious illnesses. So, during last year’s presidential election, Park Geun-hye vowed to cure four of the most common, and costly, diseases free of charge, while Moon Jae-in promised that the government would take care of all medical bills on portions exceeding 1 million won ($910).

Now President Park is backing away from her pledge amid outcries from families with chronically-ill members and sneering from political opponents. Even if Moon had taken the top job, he might have done largely the same, however, given the fiscal health of the nation’s health insurance system. 

A recent report by the National Health Insurance Corp. (NHIC) shows that the rapidly-aging population and low birthrate would swell its yearly deficit up to 132 trillion won by 2060 in a worst-case scenario.

Korea’s health insurance system has achieved astounding success despite its relatively late debut: the number of its beneficiaries increased from 3.2 million (9.8 percent of population) in 1977 to 49.3 million (96.8 percent) in 2011 to become national insurance both in name and function. But the low-burden, low-coverage and high-deficit system needs to reform itself to be sustainable.

In brief, there are two contrasting systems of health insurance - those in the U.S. and the U.K. The former minimizes government’s burden by taking care of only the old and poor - although Obamacare has sharply expanded the scope of beneficiaries recently - leaving too many people in the dead angle of health services. The latter requires the state to provide healthcare for all people free of charge. This seems to be far better, except that services are sometimes delayed and of poor quality. 

Korea should seek best equilibrium between costs and benefits, and between the state and individual burdens, befitting of its own circumstances.

Most urgent in this regard is to expand its revenue base, which now unduly relies on salaried workers, as the nation’s pension system does. The authorities should ferret out up to 5 million free-riders in the system, wealthy individuals with financial assets and high-income professionals who often disguise themselves as low-wage workers. Officials will need to consult the tax authorities to grasp overall incomes and properties of the insured. Some doctors and patients also show moral laxity, slipping through loopholes to obtain excessive treatment and prescription abuse.

As far as healthcare pledges are concerned, we think Moon’s plan was better because there are numerous types of chronic diseases besides the four major illnesses inflicting needy families. President Park might as well adopt her former rival’s idea, and develop it into “Geun-hye care.”

This is The Korea Times editorial for Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013.

0308-Park’s views on labor

Korea cannot be happy if most workers remain unhappy

During her 20-minute inaugural speech Monday, President Park Geun-hye used the words “people” and “happiness” 54 times. But she mentioned her key campaign slogan of “economic democratization” only twice, and “underprivileged classes,” just once. 

It is difficult then, to know how she intends to make a majority of working-class Koreans happy.
Nowhere is the gap between the new leader’s rhetoric and reality, or the gulf between her good intentions and lack of specific policies, more noticeable than in her views - or lack thereof - on major labor issues. 

Park disappointed unionized workers with her outdated labor agenda when she visited the Federation of Korean Trade Unions on the last leg of her transitional itinerary last week. She emphasized two things - autonomous labor-management relationship and a crackdown on unlawful labor struggles. 

Few can take issue with these principles in theory. In reality, however, doing nothing about the current extreme imbalance between the powers of management and labor is nothing but a regrettable avoidance of the government’s responsibility. And dealing sternly with labor struggles that go to extremes sometimes lacks equity in law enforcement because the government has been blamed for being too tolerant of employers’ egregious legal violations.

Worse yet, in calling for the creation of a new labor-management culture, Park excluded the more progressive umbrella union of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, instantly sparking its denunciation about her labor policy which it said is based on “oppression” and “exclusion.” 

Further illustrating the new President’s relative neglect of unionism are the appointments of her labor minister and chief aide, both of whom are welfare experts and have little, if any, experience of dealing with labor-management disputes. 

Park used to emphasize, while campaigning and after her election, the restoration of the middle class to make a happier nation. Studies in the United States show in this regard the climax of America’s middle class came when its rate of union membership reached a peak of 40 percent in the 1950s and’60s.  Income equality in the world’s largest economy has widened in reverse proportion to its unionization rate, which stands at around 10 percent, similar to Korea’s.

Park is right to move toward a more “democratized” economy, marked by better redistribution and more balanced growth between big and small businesses, by forcing family-run conglomerates to change. But she will soon run into limitations until and unless 88 percent of working-class Koreans are able to freely join unions and conduct brisk activities without fear of dismissal and disadvantages. 

The nation’s first female leader also vowed to make a “second miracle on the Han River.” When her father, late President Park Chung-hee accomplished the first miracle, it was at the expense of countless workers, but the second miracle should not, and cannot, be made through similar ways. The restoration of the labor movement and better protection of workers’ rights are minimal prerequisites for another miracle and a “happy” nation.

When as a presidential candidate Park tried to visit the memorial hall of a famous labor martyr from the 1960s, his bereaved family members urged her to first call on dismissed workers conducting high-altitude sit-ins. Their advice is still valid. 

0307-Policy on N. Korea

President Park Geun-hye starts her tenure in one of the harshest security environments in decades. This is due in considerable part to her predecessor, who reversed the inter-Korean relationship from relative amity to absolute hostility in just five years with his clueless, hard-line policies.

Now it is up to the nation’s first female commander-in-chief to turn this around, yet again. The only consolation for Park is she begins from where it is hard to go down much lower.

North Korea Saturday warned the top American military commander here that if the United States pressed ahead with joint military exercises with South Korea scheduled to begin early next month, it would set off a war in which American forces would “meet a miserable destruction.”

Neither the annual war game of allies nor Pyongyang’s hysterical reaction to this is new. This time around, however, they are coming against the backdrop of heightened tension in the wake of the communist regime’s successful rocket launch and nuclear test. And the consequent tightening of sanctions by the international community is certain to push up the possibility of conflict to another level in the months to come.

Some predict Pyongyang will soon make another provocation in the form of an additional satellite launch, detonation of an atomic device, or limited attacks in part to “test” the new government in Seoul.

President Park was right in this regard by vowing to “sever the vicious circle of provocations with resolute retribution” when she visited the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, last week. There can be no denying Park’s avowed principle that firm security should be the foundation of everything her government does.

We hope the new President will go one step further from there to push ahead with her campaign pledge of trust-based inter-Korean policy despite, or because of, harsh exchanges of rhetoric between the two capitals, whose relationship may not get better before it gets worse for the time being.

North Korea for its part must realize that any reckless attempts to put the new South Korean government to a test will backfire in a self-destructive way.

Victor Cha, a former policy advisor to ex-U.S. President George W. Bush, predicts the overall policy direction on North Korea among the U.S., Japan and South Korea will be “hers (Park’s) to decide.” Whether Park wants to contain or engage Pyongyang, Washington will go along with her, Cha told the Associated Press.

The Barack Obama administration has done so over the past four years, but has seen inter-Korean ties fall to a nadir. Park should make far better use of the U.S. policy in the next four years.

This is The Korea Times editorial for Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013.

0306-Japan’s new provocation

Japan’s central government Friday dispatched a vice-ministerial official to a ceremony aimed at promoting its territorial claims on Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo. More than 10 Japanese lawmakers and right-wing figures also attended the event.

This is the first time that Tokyo has sent a government official to the so-called "Takeshima Day," annually hosted by the Shimane prefectural government. Takeshima is the Japanese name for Dokdo.

The dispatch is another provocation following its creation of an agency exclusively responsible for territorial issues, including Dokdo, under the direct control of the Prime Minister’s Office.

We see the dispatch as an act "going against history," as a Korean foreign ministry spokesman warned, and urged Seoul to take appropriate measures. This incident will certainly aggravate the already-strained Seoul-Tokyo relations.

It’s quite disappointing and frustrating to confirm a two-faced Japan once again, given that the neighboring country will send Taro Aso, its deputy prime minister and minister of finance, as a special envoy to President-elect Park Geun-hye’s inauguration ceremony on Monday.

Even the Japanese press has been skeptical of Japan playing up the Dokdo issue in the middle of Seoul’s power transition. In an editorial, the Asahi Shimbun strongly urged the Japanese administration to reconsider sending Aiko Shimajiri, a parliamentary secretary of the Cabinet Office, to the ceremony, arguing that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "needs to assess this matter in the broader context of Japan’s relations with South Korea."

We concur with this paper’s notion and sincerely hope that Abe will try his best to build a trustful relationship with Seoul’s first female president as soon as possible, as he said earlier. It simply defies our understanding that the Japanese prime minister says one thing and does another.

Still, it’s encouraging that Abe has yet to upgrade the "Takeshima Day" event despite his election pledge to let the central government host the ceremony every year. Considering that both Seoul and Tokyo are in the initial stages of new administrations, Abe and the Japanese government should have been more cautious.

We feel it unnecessary to any longer refute Japan’s absurd claims to Dokdo and want to emphasize that Japan’s wayward provocations are just for internal political purposes and will result in international isolation of the island country running deeper. For both Seoul and Tokyo, now is a crucial time to put their heads together to find a solution to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

0305 - Is Korea becoming paradise of revolving-door symbiosis?

Local law firms have long vied to recruit retired judges and prosecutors to exploit their lingering influence on incumbent former colleagues. This practice, called the “favorable treatment of former officials,” has infiltrated into many other areas of state administration _ the economy, defense and even diplomatic circles _ basically wherever lobbying can affect results.  
  
Nothing shows this better than the list of nominees for President-elect Park Geun-hye’s inaugural Cabinet. 

A case in point is Park’s pick for justice minister, who received 1.6 billion won ($1.45 million) over 16 months from a large law firm, meaning the former prosecutor earned his previous yearly salary every month after retirement. Little wonder then that her nominee for prime minister, who also made 30 million won a month for years, said the amount was below-average for his caliber.

The money involved may be a smaller amount but even more egregious was Park’s designate for defense minister, who worked as a lobbyist for a German arms dealer, and received 200 million won for his services. 

Five years ago, Koreans felt an ominous foreboding regarding the personnel appointments to the administration of then President-elect Lee Myung-bak. This was crammed with cronies from his region, school and church. Many of them also showed ethical lapses in areas such as real estate speculation, academic plagiarism, tax evasion and dodging mandatory military service. Add to these some of the most glaring cases of revolving-door symbiosis and deduct church, and one has Park’s first Cabinet.

The nation’s first female President said she would prioritize job skills in selecting her people, while relatively ignoring other factors such as regional origins. However, it seems as if she placed priority on the candidates’ asset-swelling skills while neglecting their ethical standards.

Former public officials can of course work for private businesses after retirement, and even receive jaw-dropping wages, depending on their abilities. But they must stay there instead of seeking to return to officialdom. They must choose between money and reputation, or people will think their resumption of public office is nothing but another stepping-stone to even higher-paying jobs afterwards. 

Many other nominees have similar problems with the only difference being their scale and degrees of seriousness. Opposition lawmakers say they have found more than 40 suspicions involving Park’s nominees for 17 Cabinet posts. We hope, but are uncertain, that not all of these will be true. The time is long past for Korea to drastically toughen ethical rules for retired officials, and _ implement _ them.  

While campaigning, Park posed herself as the “prepared woman President.” Watching her performance over the past two months or so, Park neither seems to be prepared nor even gender-conscious: there are only two female ministers, or just one beside that for the ministry of gender equality.

All this is certainly a baleful omen. There is talk that Park’s administration will be the one that most unashamedly reneges on its campaign promises. All nominees in question should bow out or Park ought to withdraw her designation. Koreans have endured five years of extremely self-centered leadership _ they can ill afford to stand another.

0304-Law and common sense

The Supreme Court confirmed Thursday a prison term for Rep. Roe Hoe-chan for violating the Communication Privacy Act, stripping the opposition lawmaker of his parliamentary seat.

 

Roh’s crime: releasing a list in 2005 of seven former and incumbent prosecutors who allegedly received bribes from Samsung Group, the nation’s largest family-owned conglomerate. Neither Samsung officials nor the prosecutors were punished in the eight-year-long lawsuit for reasons of little hard evidence or the statute of limitations.

 

In a lamentably narrow interpretation of the law, the top court ruled the progressive lawmaker illegally uploaded the suspects’ names on the Internet, although the public might have not much interest in the bribery case that happened in 1997. 

 

This may conform with legal logic but not with common sense, considering eight years is not such a long time for the people to stop paying attention to this egregious bribery case, which illuminated how the top chaebol controlled the nation’s most influential politicians and ranking law enforcement officers with money. It defies our understanding how the court could rule Roh’s act was not for the public good.

 

We agree with the purport of the law, which is aimed to prevent reckless eavesdropping and wiretapping. But too strict an interpretation of it can produce unintended results by punishing journalists and activists who expose corruption while protecting those who should be punished, thus discouraging whistleblowers. Granted, laws cannot foresee all unexpected loopholes, which should be filled by judges at courts. The top court justices abandoned their role in this regard.

 

Equally problematic were the prosecutors who first handled the case, bent on wrapping it up with a bizarre “fruit of the poisonous tree theory” _ which ignores evidence obtained by the illegal process. These prosecutors, probably to protect their seniors, threw away Roh’s evidence based on unlawful eavesdropping of Samsung officials by National Intelligence Service officers. They didn’t even summon Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, just handing him written questionnaires.

 

Funnier still, prosecutor Hwang Kyo-ahn who closed the case with just a slap on Samsung’s wrist has been nominated as justice minister by President-elect Park Geun-hye.

 

At the end of the day, a politician who tried to expose filthy collusion between the moneyed and powerful has lost his job, while a prosecutor who virtually covered it up has been promoted to the top. Lawmakers should press Hwang at the confirmation hearing while revising the law in ways to protect bona fide whistleblowers.

 

President-elect Park should ask herself how this incident fits her slogan of creating a society governed by “principles and common sense.”