[Editorial] U.S. ambassador appointee

The U.S. government is reported to have designated Sung Kim, the special envoy to the six-party denuclearization talks, as new ambassador to Seoul. If the Senate endorses and Seoul accepts him, Kim will become the first U.S. ambassador of Korean descent in the 129-year history of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In Seoul, he will represent the national interest of the United States. But his Korean roots, knowledge of Korea and experience in Korean Peninsular affairs accumulated while serving as a career diplomat specializing in this region will help strengthen understanding and cooperation between the two allies.

Bilateral relations remained generally warm during the current Lee Myung-bak administration after periods of fluctuation under the previous liberal governments. At present, coordinating policies on North Korea will be one of the major tasks for the two governments and Kim’s unique credentials will prove useful in bilateral consultations.

The question of restarting aid to North Korea, about which Washington seems a little more positive than Seoul, for example, may require the U.S. ambassador to play a part in adjusting the positions of the two governments. On the complex security issues, Sung Kim’s easy access to his former colleagues in Washington will also help smooth collaboration between the two allies.

Beyond these specific roles, an ambassador nowadays has more significant tasks in the area of public diplomacy, and here we would expect a particularly worthy service for the ambassador-designate of Korean ancestry. Koreans had similar expectations of the outgoing Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, who has close personal ties with Korea, and they are not disappointed.

Trouble rises occasionally between the two countries, which have been bound by a military alliance for over half a century with the presence of sizeable forces. The latest is the disclosure of the burial of a large quantity of Agent Orange at a U.S. Army camp in Waegwan. Before that, there were the protests over the deaths of young schoolgirls run over by a U.S. military vehicle, the import of supposedly unsafe U.S. beef, the relocation of U.S. bases, and other sensitive issues.

Steady efforts to plant and reinforce a friendly U.S. image are important to prevent and contain unnecessary outbursts of anti-Americanism, and the ambassador can do a lot in this regard through public appearances. Washington must be putting emphasis on such activities, naming a Korean immigrant as its envoy in Seoul to succeed a woman ambassador who speaks Korean, cherishes her days here as a Peace Corps volunteer many years ago and has comfortably mingled with Korean people from all levels of society.

Some complain Washington’s assignment of “light-weight” diplomats to Korea compared to those appointed to Beijing or Tokyo. But we can recognize the Obama administration’s special consideration of Kim’s personal background in addition to his capabilities in selecting its representative in Korea, which shares its democratic ideals and performs an increasingly significant economic and security role.

Sung Kim’s deceased father was a minister at the Korean Embassy in Tokyo who the Japanese authorities fingered as being involved in the abduction of Kim Dae-jung in August 1973 along with Korean Central Intelligence Agency operatives posted at the embassy. Kim Jae-kwon retired after the incident and moved to the United States. The relationship should pose no obstacle to his service in Seoul; it could rather provide motivation to seek deeper access to Korean society.