The Restoration: More on Lee M.B.’s Cabinet Picks
Lee Sang-hee, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will be the defense minister, sources also said. Lee is known for his hard-line stance toward the North. After the North fired seven missiles on July 5, 2006, the Blue House called it “high level political pressure.” Lee openly criticized the statement, calling the North’s act “an obvious armed provocation.” [Joongang Ilbo]
Lee was also in the middle of the embarrassing muddle about the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” that same month. Before that, he was at the center of the national humiliation that followed North Korea’s 2002 sinking of a South Korean patrol boat. More background on Lee at his Wikipedia page.
Instead, that job will go to Korea’s current Ambassador to Japan, Yu Myung-hwan, a specialist on the United States who served as Vice Foreign Minister in Roh’s government. In November of 2006, Yu predicted, prematurely but accurately, that the United States was about to lift its sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, causing considerable embarrassment:
A Foreign Ministry official in an unofficial press briefing the same evening explained Yu’s remarks were the vice minister’s personal opinion, and there had been no agreement on the issue between Washington and Pyongyang. “North Korea requested that the financial sanction issue be resolved when it returns to the six-party talks, but the U.S. responded it could not guarantee a resolution and would only discuss the issue when the North returns to the talks. And that’s about it. “There were so many questions in relation to BDA, and Yu gave his own personal opinion about the issue,” the official said. “I talked with U.S. chief negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher Hill on the phone for a long time yesterday and met U.S. Ambassador to Seoul [Alexander] Vershbow to listen to what he says about the issue today,” he added. “And the agreement was that a working group would be set up to discuss the BDA issue.
There are conflicting views about the gaffe. “It seems that Yu talked about something that shouldn’t be made public that way, so the Foreign Ministry officially denied what he said,” an official with the Prime Minister’s Office said. “In short, Yu revealed a precious secret that shouldn’t be divulged. But the official added it goes against usual practices for a Foreign Ministry official to make it public in the National Assembly what the U.S. or China told Seoul privately, so the ministry “would have no option but to deny it. But some in the ministry said lawmakers were pressing Yu hard on the matter, so perhaps he became overly optimistic in talking about it. But a ministry official added, “If the six-party talks go well, things may turn out as Yu explained. [Chosun Ilbo]
Another dumb Yu statement, made as Ambassador to Japan, was to fret that North Korea’s nuclear test could prompt Japan to go nuclear. I question the judgment of anyone who sounds more worried about Japan having the bomb than North Korea.
The choice of Yu looks like a grasp at continuity with a policy that has reached an obvious failure point. While that choice is understandable on some levels, Yu himself hasn’t handled his own role in that policy all that skillfully. “Just doing his job” or not, Yu was closely associated with letting North Korea off the hook for criminal activity. He will soon be the next Unification Minister’s boss, and with the designee for the latter already becoming a lightning rod to the left, it suggests that Sunshine Lite might trump what Robert refers to as “John Bolton’s wet dream.”
That would make Nam Joo Hong South Korea’s Jay Lefkowitz.
The Joongang Ilbo has more information on the picks for Education, Culture, and Commerce. It also has pictures of the nominees here.
Not surprisingly, a pissing match has already broken out, which raises our hopes for seeing some fine brawls on the floor of the National Assembly.
(Yu photo: Reuters)