The Song Min-Soon Dossier (The Death of an Alliance, Part 59)
[ ]Mr Song, 58, is a 30-year career diplomat who served as ambassador to Poland while Christopher Hill was US ambassador there.
The two then became their respective countries’ chief negotiators in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, which Pyongyang on Tuesday agreed to rejoin. Their closeness was partly credited with forging the consensus that led to last year’s September 19 statement in which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons programmes.
While [outgoing Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon] is famous for his mild manners, Mr Song ““ referred to as “Colonel Song” within the foreign ministry ““ is renowned for his outspokenness as well as his penchant for peppering conversations with Nietzsche and Proust quotes.
A fierce advocate of engagement with North Korea, Mr Song caused a diplomatic stir last month when he said that the US needed to pay more attention to South Korea’s unique security situation. He added that the US “has fought more wars than any other nation in the history of its establishment and survival,” remarks that the US asked to be clarified.
Song the Survivor
The Chosun Ilbo Has much more on Song’s background. They suggest that Song originally had a pro-U.S. reputation and was viewed with suspicion by Roh.
Song found himself in deep trouble in the early days of the Roh Moo-hyun administration when he allegedly shook his head and cursed when President Roh Moo-hyun made remarks to the effect that diplomats still have the black-and-white mindset of the Cold War era. Cheong Wa Dae investigated the case as the scene was captured on CCTV. It turns out Song shook his head a little but did not curse, and not in defiance of the president but because he was tired.
Song appears to be an accomplished survivor. He managed to burnish his anti-American credentials sufficiently to secure his job, and his ambitions.
His first overseas posting was as vice consul in the Korean Consulate in West Berlin. Then he went to India. He was first secretary at the Korean Embassy in the U.S. for three years from 1986. As director of the North America division at the Foreign Ministry’s American Affairs Bureau in 2000, he was in charge of extending Korea’s permitted missile range to 300 km from the previous 180 km and the second negotiations regarding the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the U.S. He also played a role in persuading a passive U.S. during the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear problems in 2005 to adopt the statement of principles where the North agreed dismantle its nuclear program in return for economic aid.
Later, he added table-pounding to his list of persuasive techniques.
Diplomatic Temperament
In fact, Song sounds like a major league asshole.
An amateur boxer during his school days, Song is a hot-tempered man. He narrowly avoided a fistfight with a reporter after heated discussion in 2000, when he was at the foreign ministry’s American Affairs Bureau. He often taunts reporters, “You need to study more. How can you not know such a thing?” In his spare time he exercises on the bars at the gym of the government building, and he swims every morning.
Metaphors have become Song’s trademark, both hits and misses. For example, during negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program he said, “You can’t just take a taxi because get tired of walking”, “Icicles melt and sometimes they suddenly drop off, too,” and “When the mate doesn’t know which port to go to, a tail wind can’t help him.” No one quite figured out what he meant.
Among the Taliban
In the past, the Roh Administration has been the scene of conflict between the Foreign Ministry and the Unification Ministry over foreign policy, with UniFiction tending to get the best of it. Readers will recall that in 2004, the Foreign Ministry was purged of many of its career diplomats who “were unable to shed the past foreign policy and failed to adequately understand the basic spirit of the new independent foreign policy advocated by the People’s Participatory Government.” In English, that means Roh’s radical supporters, nicknamed “Taliban,” viewed them as too pro-American. Song’s elevation to the Foreign Ministry may be good news and bad news for any survivors of that purge. The good news is that Foreign Ministry will reassert itself. The bad news it that it will be reasserting the UniFiction:
From the viewpoint of policy consistency, Song is expected to widen his influence over the nation’s foreign and security policies.
“With almost all leading members of Roh’s foreign and security policy team replaced, Song’s influence will inevitably be expanded,” said a lawmaker of the ruling Uri Party.
“President Roh does not seem to heed public criticism that Song should be forced to assume full responsibility for the country’s faltering North Korea policy, as proven in the North’s nuclear bomb test last month,” said the lawmaker, requesting anonymity.
Effect on Relations with the U.S.
Will Song’s connection to Chris Hill be sufficient to mend relations with Washington? Never mind that we don’t really know whether the men like each other. Our survey says … no:
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department even called reports of Song’s rise to the post of foreign minister a “serious and high-profile” issue, indirectly displaying a negative view of Song.
“We’re worried that the U.S. and Japan will show negative responses to Song’s nomination as the foreign minister,” lawmaker Moon Byung-ho said.
In other words, Seoul’s top diplomat has left the hate-America closet, and his nomination can be interpreted as a deliberate slap in America’s face. When Song said what he said, surely he knew that Ban Ki-Moon was headed off to other things. Officials of Roh’s government and party have too long a history of exploitive anti-American rhetoric for them to plausibly deny an intentional, calculated effort to fan that sentiment among Roh’s base. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that Song’s comments were just the latest iteration of this. That bodes ill for relations between the two governments and the two peoples who elect them.
Pic: Reuters.