The wet, sultry summer is finally over and above us are high, blue skies filled with cool, crisp air. Salaried workers are looking forward to a long Chuseok holiday, which could be the longest ever if the seemingly most generous government ever inserts a onetime holiday into the October calendar.
That gift is expected for the first Monday of the month, which will link the previous weekend to the Oct. 3 National Foundation Day and the official three-day Korean Thanksgiving holiday to then be extended to the Oct. 9 Hangeul Day celebrating the promulgation of the Korean alphabet by King Sejong the Great in 1446. It means the entire nation would enjoy a 10-day vacation with public offices shut down, work halted in most industrial plants and schools closed.
Government authorities expect a boost in consumption, much needed to stimulate the national economy. But I am afraid the media will quickly compare, after the holiday is over, the huge amount of money Korean travelers spent overseas with estimates of revenues from foreign tourists during the given period. And there will appear statistics of the result of the long idling in industrial production.
President Moon Jae-in is shown smiling at public functions every day, such as the “Report to the People” event held at the Blue House on the occasion of the 100th day from his inauguration. The supposedly free conversation session between citizens, chosen for their spontaneous suggestions to the new administration, and senior officials in charge, however, looked awkwardly stage-managed for its one-hour duration.
More than anything, the questions and answers conveniently skipped the most urgent and important subjects, like insecticide-tainted eggs and North Korean nuclear and missile threats. The celebrity talk show-like program could only manage a TV viewership share of below 10 percent, when combining the three terrestrial networks.
Not many viewers would give up their favorite soap opera to watch the government parade itself during prime time on a Sunday. That the Blue House chose that particular time for that kind of event reveals the audacity of the new holders of power. They must have been overly buoyed by the unprecedentedly high approval rate for the president, which has remained above the 70 percent mark these past few weeks.
The Aug. 2 announcement from the Ministry of Land and Transportation to curb skyrocketing apartment prices certainly helped keep the presidential popularity figure high, as respondents of opinion surveys must include more young people without their own apartments than owners of multiple houses. In that case, many Moon supporters must have been a little disappointed when the dossier of personal properties of top administration officials was made public.
The registered assets of senior officials released last week by the Public Servants Ethics Commission revealed that President Moon leads a group of “Gangnam leftists.” Most Blue House aides and Cabinet ministers had two or more apartments and substantial bank deposits that average office workers could not dream of, even in the prime of their careers. Some actually have homes in Gangnam, the symbol of urban affluence in Korea.
President Moon may prefer to be called center-left with emphasis on increased welfare for the needy without radical squeezes on the wealthy. His tax reform plans envision moderately higher rates for the superrich and his fiscal strategy involves cuts in infrastructure investments to secure resources for additional welfare expenditures.
But expectations for new benefits are rapidly rising from the underprivileged. Raising the universal allowance for the elderly from 200,000 won ($180) per month to 250,000 won and the creation of a 100,000 won monthly subsidy for a newborns requires the provision of several trillion won in the 2018 budget. In the private sector, the higher minimum wage threatens to cause the bankruptcies of many struggling businesses and the exit of manufacturers in search of lower wages overseas.
The biggest problem, however, for the Moon administration is no doubt the security quandary. Moon’s steady overtures for dialogue to the North have been completely ignored by Pyongyang, which has targeted its hostile rhetoric chiefly at Washington rather than Seoul. There are faint responses from allies to Moon’s insistence on sitting “in the driver’s seat” in wading through the crisis.
The first Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile battery the US military brought to Korea has not been properly deployed many months after its arrival, still separated in two places -- only two units of the system stand forlornly in the designated Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, hills and the other four remaining in a US Forces Korea installation -- as the Moon government has shown little enthusiasm in clearing residents’ blockade. Concerns may now be raised about Seoul’s commitment to the 63-year-old military alliance rather than Washington’s.
Moon has boldly declared there will be no war on the Korean Peninsula, repeating what former president Kim Dae-jung said upon returning from his summit talks with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in June 2000. Over the past 17 years, North Korean leadership has become more unpredictable, the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities have grown into a global threat and the military balance on the peninsula has turned incalculably asymmetrical. We wonder what ground Moon has for his strong optimism.
It may be his trust in the US’ assurance of “extended deterrence,” as manifested most recently by the three top US military leaders in the Pacific region at the start of the joint Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise; his belief that China would not let Kim Jong-un go it alone with his weapons of mass destruction programs; or his conviction of final success in direct inter-Korean negotiations, the religion of progressive forces here.
After more than 100 days, most South Koreans, whether they voted for Moon or not, are not sure where he is taking us to and where will we be in 2022. We sincerely hope that President Moon and his administration will lead this republic successfully toward economic prosperity, social harmony and peace with the North. The absolute premise for these goals is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The president has shouldered a heavier task than any of his predecessors. Like great leaders in history, he should appeal to the people for their sweat and blood to overcome adversities together, instead of distributing sweets here and there, such as additional holidays.
By Kim Myong-sik
Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. – Ed.
