Reason to be
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By Shin Hyun-goo
“Making a start means the job is already half done.” In Korea, this adage is frequently quoted to discourage procrastination. Action is more important than words. One month has elapsed since the inauguration of President Park Geun-hye. The entire nation expected the new administration to start by faithfully executing the campaign pledges and promises made by the new president. However, there was no sign of anything being done for almost a month after the president was inaugurated.
Forty seven days of political wrangling up until this past week over the “government reorganization plan” hindered the appointment of key Cabinet members. Inactivity and ineptitude from both the ruling and opposition parties has resulted in a South Korean beginning and remaining in a vegetative state government for nearly one month while there were mountains of tasks to fulfill that were promised to the Korean people. President Park vowed to bring happiness to the people and the nation. Her inaugural speech is still vivid. “I will usher in a new era of hope whereby the happiness of each citizen becomes the bedrock of our nation’s strength which in turn is shared by and will benefit all Koreans.”
While South Korea was hamstrung by a stalemated political environment, there were important and serious developments in and around the Korean Peninsula. In January, U.S. President Barrack Obama was inaugurated for his second term and reaffirmed American commitment in Asia. In China, General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping became president on March 14 after a confirmation vote in the National People’s Congress. In his first speech as the head of state, Xi said he would fight for a great renaissance of the Chinese nation. He also indicated that he would pursue a more assertive foreign policy during his decade in power.
Recently, the New York Times reported, “China’s new foreign policy team, announced at a news conference last week, included officials whose records suggest the government will concentrate on consolidating what it considers the country’s rightful place at the center of Asia, even as the Obama administration says it will deploy more military power in the region.”
In the meantime, for the last few weeks, our neighboring country North Korea has been mounting threats against South Korea and the United States in reaction to the joint military exercise, Key Resolve.
Hostile rhetoric by North Korean leaders was ever more vulgar. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has also recently made highly publicized military inspections of artillery units near the western border islands and ordered his soldiers to be ready for war, further escalating military tensions.
The North’s latest threat comes as March 26 approaches, marking the third anniversary of the sinking of a South Korean naval warship near the western border island of Baengnyeong, in which 46 South Korean sailors lost their lives. Eight months later, the North launched a deadly artillery attack on another Korean western border island, killing two marines and two civilians.
Has the South Korean government effectively dealt with this new escalating situation around the peninsula? Was there a national security team put into action at Cheong Wa Dae with a legal mandate to effectively cope with these volatile developments? The new defense minister is yet to be inaugurated and the outgoing minister is still handling duties. New foreign policy Cabinet members in the U.S. and China were already in action. Yet in stark contrast, in the last month, there have been no detailed news accounts on active Korean foreign policy maneuvers.
Nonetheless, the government is still functioning. The Korean people still manage to go on with their lives. Words of disappointment are expressed in various forms, but hope for a better life still lingers. Professor Mukunda of Harvard University eloquently stated that leaders have little or no real impact on the organizations they lead. He said external environments force leaders to act in response to pressures, leaving individual leaders little control or influence on policy and implementation. Internally, leaders respond to the bureaucratic politics and interests of constituencies within their organization, making the identity of the leader unimportant as long as the internal dynamics of the organization remain constant.
Now the leaders of the Korean social establishment, whether they are in government, parliament, or business conglomerates, are urged to ruminate the meaning of
d’etre: “
to exist” or “reason to be”.
The writer is a chair professor of the Catholic University of Daegu. He previously headed the Foreign News Division of the Korea Overseas Information Service. His email address is shinhyungook@hotmail.com.