Park Geun Hye was inaugurated today, launching the 18th presidency of the Republic of Korea. Park is both Korea’s first female president and the first child of a former president to be elected president herself. Carrying the lessons of former President Park Chung Hee as she entered the Blue House for the first time in 34 years must have felt significant, and yet so surreal, to her. Just as her father opened up an era of great modernization for South Korea, so Park Geun Hye now hopes to lay the groundwork for an era of “happiness” for the people.
Prior to the formal inauguration ceremony, Park went to the National Cemetery in the Dongjak area of Seoul to pay her respects to those who fought and died for their country. She wrote in the guest book, “I will open a new era, with hope for economic revival, national happiness and cultural strength. February 25th, 2013. President Park Geun Hye.” Though a great deal of criticism is rightly leveled at elements of his rule, Park’s father is still highly respected in South Korea for having lain the foundations for national economic development, and it may be partially for this reason that there is such hope for economic revival and national happiness now, hope recorded in the guest book by Park herself.
But North Korea looms large in the new president’s future. The South Korean people are sure to demand job creation, an answer to problems of household debt, expanded welfare provision and reduced economic and social polarization, yet on top of this mass of domestic difficulties she is also going to have to deal with the North Korean missile and nuclear threat. North Korea’s third nuclear test shook the Korean Peninsula to its very core, and since Chinese and Russian leaders have vowed closer relations, it is now the ‘North Korea problem’ that is the greatest threat to security in Northeast Asia today.
Facing this situation, President Park has explained that her proposed ‘trust process’ on the peninsula means a heady mix of sound national security along with cooperation and exchanges, the better to normalize inter-Korean relations and bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. However, after the third nuclear test she also said that if North Korea insists on pouring cold water one the plan then she’ll have no choice but to prioritize security concerns.
The presidential transition team also took one step back from its former bullish stance following the test, saying that Park’s planned cooperation policies, including tentatively titled ‘inter-Korean exchange and cooperation offices,’ one based in Seoul and another in Pyongyang, the internationalization of the Kaesong Industrial Complex and expanded exchanges in the cultural realm, will all need to be assessed in accordance with the post-nuclear test atmosphere. President Park’s trust process faces a rocky road.
Just as former President Lee Myung Bak had to face a nuclear test in the year after his inauguration, so President Park now has to face the same at the dawn of her term. Like Lee, Park must clearly place the responsibility for this act on North Korea, as befits not only the reality but also the atmosphere at home and abroad. But we must accept that if sanctions had ever been the key to this problem then it would not be a problem any more, for North Korea has been under sanctions for as long as most people can remember.
But while the key to solving this issue is not sanctions, nor is it a moment of grand political theater or stepping back on the diplomatic tightrope: rather, South Korea must lead the world, with a sense of clear ownership and the simple wisdom needed to seek a resolution to the broad mass of difficulties created by its northern neighbor.
President Park is taking power just a year after Kim Jong Eun did the same thing. However, she is in her 60s: conversely, while Kim Jong Eun’s supreme status is rhetorically justified by his bloodline, he is still a young, inexperienced leader barely into his 30s. He has focused for a year on projects to embed his power and generate loyalty: nuclear and missile tests, yet more Kim family idolization, military purges and social controls. All have been moderately effective, but all also show how impatient and insecure he is.
The only way to solve the problems facing the Korean Peninsula today is to ensure the young man’s rule is short-lived. Focusing all our resources on this goal is surely the most realistic and economically sound plan available, not to mention the one that will involve the least human sacrifice. We are hopeful that President Park will leave her mark in history, going down as the president who made the ultimate contribution to peace not only in South Korea, but in Northeast Asia as well.
