Summit packaged with a ‘Sell Korea’ mission

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Summit packaged with a ‘Sell Korea’ mission

Pragmatic diplomacy is the objective of President Roh Moo-hyun’s visit to the United States. Mr. Roh departed yesterday, and he will have opportunities throughout his seven-day trip to devote his formidable intellectual and persuasive skills to such urgent issues as the resolution of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the damage that resulting uncertainties have done to the economy.
“President Roh’s visit will be an important step for developing South Korea-U.S. relations,” Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club. “What makes this visit more significant is that it will be realized in the year marking the 50th anniversary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and the centennial of Korean immigration to the United States.”
Those symbolic touches contrast with the substantive tasks that face the Roh government, which will require close consultation and cooperation between Seoul and Washington.
“My government has three basic goals for the president’s visit,” Mr. Yoon said. First is reaffirming the mutual will to further strengthen and develop the alliance. Second is consulting on a common approach to the peaceful resolution of North Korea’s nuclear issue. Third is promoting Korea’s economic stability by allaying concern over the current situation on the Korean Peninsula and bringing the world to a better understanding of the Roh administration’s economic policy, including some of its reform measures.
The three issues are equally important for Seoul, but it is clear that economic concerns are regarded as most immediate, while coping with an overtly nuclear-armed North Korea and redefining the 50-year alliance between South Korea and the United States are seen as longer-term tasks. Seoul and Washington have agreed to seek verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of Pyeongyang’s nuclear programs, a task that will require time, consent of the international community and North Korea’s willingness to cooperate. Discussions about reconceptualization of the military alliance will also require time and budget; the Pentagon and Seoul’s Defense Ministry have begun talking about their future direction.
In contrast, the looming economic crisis triggered by the uncertainties of the North Korea problem is staring Mr. Roh in the face. At his side in the United States will be an unusually large delegation of businessmen, an indication that economic diplomacy is at least as important as anything else the president will undertake this week.
“It is obvious that North Korean nuclear issues and economic concerns are intertwined,” Professor Yoon Duk-min of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said. “They are almost inseparable. Because of the North Korean nuclear crisis, concerns about the Korean economy are growing. Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s have begun reassessing Korea’s credit ratings. It is natural for Mr. Roh to focus his efforts during the visit to convince Americans that Korea is a place where they can invest without anxiety.”
Indeed, the New York Stock Exchange is on Mr. Roh’s agenda today, the first working day of the visit. He will also pay his respects at Ground Zero, where the World Trade Towers were attacked in 2001, and meet influential New York financial figures and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Mr. Roh’s schedules in Washington are a combination of political and economic events. Tuesday, he will speak before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and visit Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. He will meet with Korean War veterans and retired General William Livsey, the former USFK commander in chief.
Wednesday will be devoted to politics. Mr. Roh will meet leaders of the U.S. Congress and have lunch with Vice President Dick Cheney. The highlight of the week will be Wednesday afternoon when Mr. Roh meets President George W. Bush. A dinner will follow.
Most summits are pre-packaged, and the Blue House and the White House have already scripted much of the meeting, which will take up the three issues Foreign Minister Yoon highlighted: North Korea, the U.S.-South Korean military alliance and economic and trade cooperation.
“They will not have a joint press briefing, but after the meeting they will release a South Korea-U.S. joint statement,” said Mr. Ban, President Roh’s foreign affairs adviser in charge of organizing the visit. “Building a more mature and strong alliance, resolving North Korean nuclear issues peacefully and reinforcing economic cooperation between the two countries will be included in the joint statement.”
Economic concerns return to center stage Thursday, when Mr. Roh and his entourage fly to San Francisco. Chin Dae-je, minister of information and communication and former president of Samsung Electronics, will be a key participant in Mr. Roh’s meetings in Silicon Valley Friday, where he will visit Intel. He will also meet former Secretary of State George Shultz.
More than two dozen CEOs and chairmen of Korea’s largest business groups, along with government officials handling economic affairs, are in the party. When President Kim Dae-jung visited the United States in 1998, no business leader accompanied him.
Also along for the journey are two executives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea ― another first.
“The purpose of our traveling with President Roh is to meet with many American business leaders and government officials to stress that we are very optimistic and supportive of the Roh government,” said Tami Overby, executive vice president of the U.S. chamber. “We are accompanying Mr. Roh to increase Americans’ confidence in Korea and to increase Korea’s credibility to Americans. There have been concerns among Americans about anti-American sentiment here and about the North Korean nuclear situation, but we would like to encourage Americans to reconsider Korea.”
“We organized the schedules to make the visit a fruitful economic diplomacy,” Ban Ki-moon, presidential adviser for foreign policy, acknowledged last week. “We particularly paid attention to heighten the Korean economy’s credibility.”
A meeting has been arranged for Mr. Roh with Riley Bechtel, chairman and CEO of Bechtel Corporation. Mr. Ban said the purpose was to discuss Korea’s participation in projects for rebuilding Iraq. Bechtel is to be a lead contractor for the program. “Mr. Roh will seek Mr. Bush’s cooperation to participate in the project,” Mr. Ban added. “The United States probably will respond favorably to a country that dispatched troops to the Iraq war.”
The government spent 400 million won ($330,000) to place full-page advertisements touting Korean business prospects in major U.S. newspapers. Five business advocacy troups and the government designed the ads.
“The advertisements are to promote Mr. Roh’s diplomatic and economic policies to opinion leaders of the United States,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Consulate General in New York explained. “The intention is to heighten trust in Korea.”
Under a photo of Mr. Roh, the ad features the slogan, “America’s most dynamic partner in Asia.” It goes on to stress Korea’s development, the importance of the South Korea-U.S. alliance for the peace of the Korean Peninsula and the Roh-Bush summit.
The ad will appear in the New York Times Monday, the Washington Post Tuesday and USA Today Thursday. Internet banners will be placed throughout Mr. Roh’s visit on the homepages of the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Forbes.
“It is evident that economic concerns are as important as North Korean nuclear issues,” said Dong Yong-sueng, a North Korea researcher at the Samsung Economic Research Institute. “The civilian economic delegation accompanying Mr. Roh is clearly giving a signal to Americans that Korean entrepreneurs support the president. This visit is to reinforce economic and trade exchanges and to alleviate U.S. concerns. Mr. Roh is trying to show that South Korea is not completely overwhelmed by North Korean nuclear issues.”


by Ser Myo-ja
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