FORMER FM FRETS: MB'S TEAM UP TO THE TASK?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 000737 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/11/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KS KN SUBJECT: FORMER FM FRETS: MB'S TEAM UP TO THE TASK? Classified By: POL Joseph Y. Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: In a frank April 11 lunch meeting, former Foreign Minister Yoo Chong-ha gave poloffs his view of Lee Myung-bak and said he hoped Lee would play it safe during the April 18-19 summit with President Bush. Yoo said he would continue to advise President Lee whenever called, as he was April 9 to prepare for the summit. Yoo expressed doubts about Lee's foreign policy team and vision and noted Lee needed to focus less on the economy and more on North Korea. END SUMMARY. -------------- ROK-U.S. Summit: Don't Screw it Up! -------------- ¶2. (C) Yoo said he met with President Lee Myung-bak for two hours on election day (April 9) and gave him some advice about the upcoming April 18-19 summit. His most important directive to Lee, which he included in a one-page briefer, was that President Lee should not say the alliance is in Korea's national interest. Everybody knows that, Yoo said. He reminded him that the U.S. had made the "ultimate sacrifice" for Korea and would again if needed. Instead, Yoo suggested that Lee frame the relationship the way Ambassador Vershbow had -- an alliance and relationship based on a "common destiny." Yoo also said he told the president to "just not screw up." Every summit has a "headline" that defines the summit, and Lee just has to make sure he does not make a mistake that could end up as the headline. -------------- Learning Curve -------------- ¶3. (C) Yoo said the information that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) provided to President Lee Myung-bak is like foodstuff. They provide the ingredients, but the Blue House, specifically the National Security Advisor, decides what to make and how to "cook" it. ¶4. (C) Yoo said he told the president to stop worrying so much about the economy and pay more attention to South Korea's relations with the North and with the outside world. History will judge you, Yoo told the president, on your foreign policy not on your economic policy. Part of the problem is the inexperience of Lee's foreign policy team -- particularly National Security Advisor Kim Byung-kook. When asked if this was just part of the administration's learning curve, Yoo said experience was one thing you could not gain in a short amount of time. ¶5. (C) Yoo, who advised Lee Myung-bak throughout his campaign, said President Lee does not like him very much. The reason is that Lee is surrounded by sycophants, whereas Yoo just tells him the truth. In this case, he said with a smile, Korea's seniority system worked in Yoo's favor. Yoo said Lee Myung-bak's older brother, the recently re-elected lawmaker and Vice-Speaker Lee Sang-deuk, would probably continue to advise the president throughout his term in office. Yoo said he counseled President Lee to listen to his brother, who he -- and most others -- thought was a reasonable man. The elder Lee's recommendations on domestic politics had all turned out to be sound so Yoo hoped President Lee would take his brother's counsel. -------------- Need to Engage on Policy -------------- ¶6. (C) On North Korea policy, Yoo told Lee that he had to get more involved -- foreign policy could not be delegated even to the Foreign Minister -- and that U.S.-DPRK meetings like the recent Geneva and Singapore negotiations should never happen again. The North Koreans already had the attitude that they were talking to Seoul's "boss" (i.e., the U.S.) so South Korea did not need to be at the table. South Korean tax payers would inevitably pay for whatever proposals the U.S. and North Korea agreed to, and they would get very angry if their president was not advocating their interests. Talks should occur in parallel, Yoo said. They should complement each other, but South Korea had to be more actively engaged in the process. This could mean more trilateral negotiations and/or better coordination with the U.S. He also told the president that South Korean officials had to stop provoking the North with harsh statements; this was not constructive especially when sensitive discussions were ongoing. -------------- Good Old Days -------------- ¶7. (C) Yoo recalled a time when he was foreign minister and a North Korean submarine ran aground on the East shore in South Korean territory. South Korea wanted an apology, but the initial agreement the DPRK would apologize was negotiated between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea finally agreed to issue an apology to the United States in English. Yoo said he stepped in at that point and said South Korea would only accept a public apology from the foreign ministry spokesman in Korean. Then U.S. Ambassador Laney became very angry, but North Korea eventually backed down and issued the apology to the South's specifications. Only then did South Korea return the bodies of the North Koreans who were killed during the incident. Yoo said he had told South Korean officials to take very good care of the bodies, because he wanted the families to get them back in good condition; South Korea had to be humanitarian. -------------- MOFAT Personnel -------------- ¶8. (C) Yoo said he thought it was positive that Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Lee Tae-shik had been reappointed and speculated Lee would continue in that position until the end of the Bush administration. Yoo said Lee had been very active in promoting the KORUS FTA, which argued strongly for his continued posting in Washington -- it was wrong he said to "change horses in the middle of the race." Yoo was relieved that a career diplomat had been named as Ambassador to Beijing. That was too tricky a relationship, especially with the Six Party Talks, to appoint someone unfamiliar with negotiations and without significant China experience. Yoo said the Chinese had been expressing concern through many channels about the lack of China specialists in the Blue House, which had led in part to China expert Kim Ha-joong's appointment as Minister of Unification. -------------- You Scratch My Back... -------------- ¶9. (C) Yoo said that former President Kim Young-sam, Yoo's old boss, is very angry at President Lee. Kim is well aware that his support for Lee Myung-bak in the primary gave him about a five percentage point boost, enabling Lee to beat out Park Geun-hye. Kim could accept the fact, Yoo said, that the Grand National Party (GNP) refused his son a nomination for the general election because of his son's past corruption charges. What really made Kim mad was that three of his closest advisers were also refused nominations -- one because the party claimed he had not submitted his application in time. Kim was still angry about the nomination process, but President Lee had promised to "fix" it -- probably, Yoo speculated, by giving them party jobs. -------------- Canal Characterization -------------- ¶10. (C) Yoo said he thought the canal was a good idea but thought it might not be built because of significant opposition to the plan. The problem, Yoo said, was in characterizing it as a "canal" when Lee should have just said it was a project to connect Korea's rivers and increase Korea's water reservoir capacity. Yoo said in his hometown of Andong the river was now dry except in the two months of the rainy season, because too many people siphon the water off. As it is, most of the overflow runs into the Han River, which just drains into the Sea of Japan. The canal would have been an important project to try to conserve more of the rainfall. -------------- Teach Me! -------------- ¶11. (C) Yoo said one of the most important contributions the two countries could make to the alliance is to increase interaction between the young people of Korea and the U.S. The youth, Yoo said, have forgotten history and forgotten the true nature of the U.S.-ROK alliance. ¶12. (C) In describing what is clearly his new pet project, Yoo became very animated about the need to bring more Americans to Korea to teach English. The government needs to take over English education, because, as it stands now, only the wealthy can afford the extra schooling necessary to gain a command of the language, thus giving those kids an important advantage in getting into good schools and getting good jobs. In this way, Yoo said, both wealth and poverty are inherited. Yoo pointed out that both parties agreed to address the problem during the presidential campaign late last year. Yoo proposed bringing 5,000 to 10,000 Americans to Korea to teach English. He said the ROKG would bear most of the costs; he pointed out that the Lee government was ready to spend US 1 billion dollars per annum on funding English education. All the U.S. would have to do is give these teachers some sort of English-language teaching certificate -- through an institution like the Institute for International Education -- to ensure that the teachers were properly trained. In return, Yoo suggested, the Korean government could set a program that would pay for Koreans to go work in local governments in the U.S. for a year. This would help them with their English, provide free employment in government offices throughout the U.S. and also give the Koreans involved better insight into American culture and governance practices. -------------- I Hear You... -------------- ¶13. (C) When asked about the president's English capability, Yoo said that he could understand quite well, but Lee's spoken English is "not refined." Lee hoped to listen, in informal settings, without an interpreter, but would probably rely on the interpreter in responding. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶14. (C) Yoo has no position in the current administration, but as the Foreign Minister from 1996-8 and a friend of Lee Sang-deuk, it is likely that his advice will be solicited and used by the President for at least the early part of Lee's term. A career diplomat, Yoo's passionate interest remains foreign policy. He is related by marriage to Ambassador Lee Tae-shik. STANTON