Efficiency of ‘resource diplomacy’ hit after presidential aides’ books

Since its inauguration in 2008, President Lee Myung-bak’s administration has focused on securing overseas resources pivotal for sustainable growth.

However, two books ― written by two close aides to Lee and published last year ― have been overtaken by events suggesting that the current administration’s so-called “resource diplomacy” may have been ineffective and shortsighted.

Park Young-june, a protg of the president who until recently served as vice minister of knowledge economy, published a book “Are You Mr. Africa” in November 2011. He originally intended to describe in the book how Korea’s resource diplomacy was successful under the current administration.

Now, Park is under suspicion of playing a major role in the insider stock trading scheme in connection to CNK International’s winning of diamond mining rights in Cameroon.

The Board of Audit and Inspection said suspended senior diplomat Kim Eun-seok, who was in charge of energy and resource diplomacy at the foreign affairs ministry, published a press release in December 2010 intentionally overestimating the Cameroon diamond mine reserves to drive up the CNK stock price.

Park’s off-the-mark resource diplomacy was also found in his drive for an oil block development in Burma during his visit to the country in December 2010. He later told lawmakers in the last session of the National Assembly audit of state affairs that he had asked the Burmese energy minister to cooperate with Korean company KMDC to help it win the oil mining rights there.

However, the oil project is stalled now because the drilling found no oil reserves in the block.

The president’s elder brother, Rep. Lee Sang-deuk, also published a book on resource development, “Manage Resources,” in July 2011.

In the book, Lee described a lithium mine project in Bolivia and a uranium development project in Namibia as going smoothly.

As a special presidential envoy, Lee visited Bolivia five times since August 2009 and signed five memorandums of understanding for the lithium mine project.

“Securing a mine in Namibia, the world’s sixth-largest uranium producer, is a result that ‘breathes air’ into Koreans,” Lee wrote in the book.

However, the Bolivian government said in November 2010 that it would not sell the mining rights to a foreign country. The South Korean government dropped the project and instead sought a lithium battery business in May 2011.

The uranium project in Namibia is also virtually in closure due to a lack of economic benefits in the area.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)