The World's Most Expensive Photo-op

I haven't been as down on Kim Dae Jung as some K-bloggers, but if we attach Roh and Uri as part of his legacy, which I think is something that has to be considered seriously if you are judging history, then the Kim presidency must be considered a rather bad failure.

The 2000 SK-NK Summit has pretty much lost all the luster it shone brightly with at the start for 2 highly fundamental reasons:

1. We know he paid Kim Jong Il for it at a time when NK was struggling for survival. And that has to mean that Kim Dae Jung basically subsidized the worst regime on earth's tyranny over its own people.

2. All the goodwill (and money) generated (at least on the SK side) thanks to the 2000 summit and continuation of the Sunshine policy —- has failed miserably to produce any significant changes in North Korea.

Since the 2000 summit, it has become clear that the policies began by Kim Dae Jung have become nothing more than a process of propping Pyongyang up.

I believe that is how history (at least outside of South Korea) will judge this period in Korean history some 20 years from now.

If we look beyond the Summit and changes it did or did not bring, what do we have since 1998?

I'm drawing a blank.

South Korea's relations with other nations has not particularly strengthened in benefit to SK. Meaning – there have been no clear cut, significant foreign policy gains.

In fact, the relationships with the two most important nations in relation to South Korea's future have become considerably worse: Japan and the US. You can safely say that the ties between both nations are at pretty much the lowest ebb in decades – especially on the US side.

And again, a Uri and Kim and Roh-led government could have still come away with positive gains for itself if it had accomplished something to counter the negatives:

If SK had been able to successfully pull China into a closer relationship, hacking away at the US and Japan relationship would not have stung as much. But, China is no closer to being a staunch ally of SK today than it was in 1998.

On the economic front, I don't know if you can lay the majority of the blame on the Kim and Roh administrations or not, but the best you can say about the success of SK economic policies is that the economy recovered from the 1998 IMF bailout.

If the FTA with Chile and deals with China had made a dent in South Korean society's "hermit kingdom" mentality on trade issues, we could give post-1998 Korean leadership a big Kudo.

But, if you go back and look at how the government and society handled these big economic stories, you will see the FTA and other agreements were done in such a manner that next to no changes have come in the hermit kingdom mentality.

And the government is directly to blame: the way the ROK government handled the Chile FTA was particularly glaring as a lack of leadership. SK's gains in its trade with Chile were one-sided in Korea's favor, but the government still tried to keep the terms of the agreement secret — and worse by far — when the terms became public knowledge, what did the government do? — immediately ran out and said that the deal would be renegociated because it was too harmful to Korea's interests —– basically echoing the hermit kingdom theory.

The Kim Dae Jung presidency was a watershed moment in Korean history. It and Roh's election could have been a major turning point for the better in South Korea's history. Both were a clear sign that democracy has flowered in South Korea, but rather than using the momentum to spring board SK into a better future, these two presidencies have done little more positive than towing the line while at the same time undermining the future.

At least we can probably conclude that saving a better future is not too late.

The damage and lack of movement forward have not become irreversible.

And the reason I went off on this tangent was to say:

the fact Uri and crew are desperately trying to arrange a 2nd summit just shows they have really lost touch with anything that can be considered sound leadership.

A 2nd summit is NOT likely to produce any thing remotely close to the momentum Kim Dae Jung's 2000 deal gave to South Korea's love affair with the North.

Meaning: the 2nd summit isn't likely to really wow South Koreans.

And it will surely be looked at with cynical, disbelieving eyes in the US, Japan and elsewhere after the North has done nothing but screw Seoul up the rear since the 2000 summit.

Hmmm. I see no mathematical possibility that it can backfire significantly.

You wouldn't normally make a blanket statement like that about politics in Korea or anywhere else, but you can when the prez's approval rating is 5.8% (note statistical significance of the decimal point).