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At a briefing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Tuesday, President Lee Myung-bak said he was neither pro-American nor pro-Chinese. He stressed Korea can become an ally of another nation as long as the two countries can maximize their national interests, while there can be no alliance if such interests are violated. Korea must therefore pursue a pragmatic diplomacy.
It is only natural to place a country¡¯s national interest at the center of diplomacy. But Korea is not the only country that does that. That¡¯s why countries compete on the diplomatic arena by showering each other with flowery rhetoric, while coldly calculating their own benefits behind the scenes.
The president is correct in saying that national interests must be at the center of a bilateral alliance. But his comments were not exactly diplomatic, especially when he pointed out specific countries. How would we have felt if the U.S. president or the Japanese prime minister said they were neither pro-North Korean nor pro-South Korean, as long as their national interests were met?
When he called for pragmatic diplomacy, the president was trying to point out the fact that Korea¡¯s diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Japan had been distorted by a left-leaning ideology which he said was unwise and unfit from a diplomatic perspective. The Foreign Ministry¡¯s briefing stressed the restoration of ties with Korea¡¯s traditional allies. This was what the president had intended to say, and it would have been better if he had been more careful with his words. The proper words to use among allies are ¡°shared values¡±, rather than ¡°calculating¡± benefits.
When the president went to a graduation ceremony at a military academy and promised to create a strong military and a country that respects its men and women in uniform, those words lifted the morale of the military, which had been crushed by the former president¡¯s comments that young Korean men ¡°rotted away¡± while serving their military duties. But the public remembered more the image of young cadets, who are supposed to be full of energy, sitting quietly in their chairs. It was a case study of what happens on the scene when ¡°pragmatism¡± becomes one-sided. In a debate with the president shortly after the Foreign Ministry¡¯s briefing, energy diplomacy was said to have been the main topic, while no measures to deal with North Korea were discussed at all. We hope this wasn¡¯t the result of excessive ¡°pragmatism.¡± Pragmatic diplomacy is important, but principles are important too.
The president must not comment on diplomacy and national security spontaneously. The country on the receiving end may perceive comments as being spontaneous, but they should be the result of long hours of finessing by experts that the president has familiarized himself with. The president¡¯s area of expertise is the economy. That¡¯s why the presidential office must realize that whenever controversy erupts in diplomatic affairs, the criticism will go to the president¡¯s staff for failing to compensate for his shortcomings.
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