S. Korean State Visit Highlights Bond Between 2 Leaders

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S. Korean State Visit Highlights Bond Between 2 Leaders

President Obama with President Lee Myung-bak at the Seoul G20 meeting in November 2010

By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — During the state visit of South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, which began on Wednesday, he will be feted at a White House state dinner, invited to speak to a joint session of Congress, and treated to a road trip to Detroit with President Obama, where the two leaders plan to tour a General Motors factory together.

For a visiting head of state, the carpet does not get any redder than that, and it suggests that there may be something mysterious and powerful at play between Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee: Call it a presidential man-crush.

In some respects, South Korea’s leader has had the kind of presidency Mr. Obama would like to have. With less strangling government debt and a society driven to transform itself, Mr. Lee has been able to pursue much of the “win the future” agenda that Mr. Obama has advocated.

South Korea, as Mr. Obama likes to point out, has a high-speed broadband network that reaches more than 90 percent of its people, compared with only 65 percent of Americans. A larger percentage of South Koreans than Americans graduate from college. At a time when financially struggling school districts here are laying off teachers, South Korea is hiring them to satisfy demanding parents.

Indeed, Mr. Obama cites Mr. Lee’s views on education in virtually every speech he gives these days, including one in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, holding up the hard-working Asian country as an example of what the United States needs to do.

The two men have also built a personal bond, with Mr. Lee being among a small number of leaders — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey are two others — who seem to have pierced the president’s reserve. At a lunch in Seoul in November 2009, which aides said left a lasting impression on Mr. Obama, the two spent much of the time discussing education, not least the role of parents in schooling their children.

“They were discussing the place that teachers occupy in society,” said Daniel R. Russel, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser on Asia at the National Security Council, who attended the lunch. “It was very human, and it’s not that common at those rarefied heights of leadership to have a real conversation in which the two people can speak openly about an issue they both care deeply about.”

Mr. Obama, Mr. Russel said, also admires Mr. Lee for his determination to thrust South Korea into the front rank of world powers and his approach to his erratic neighbor, North Korea. While he has taken a tougher line than his predecessors toward the government in Pyongyang, he has also stopped short of military action in response to a string of belligerent acts, including the torpedoing of a Navy ship and the shelling of a South Korean island.

During that tense period, Mr. Obama met Mr. Lee at a Group of 20 meeting in Toronto, and declared afterward, “My personal friendship with President Lee and my admiration for him continues to grow.”

That kind of emoting is rare for the president, who has been criticized in some quarters for not having the chummy relationships with foreign leaders that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did. And the two leaders are not an obvious match: although both rose from modest circumstances, Mr. Lee, 69, spent most of his career running a construction and engineering conglomerate.  

“When Obama deals with foreign leaders, he tends to be very transactional,” said Victor D. Cha, a former Asia adviser in the Bush administration who teaches at Georgetown University. “But there’s absolutely no doubt that he has really connected on a personal level with this leader.”

Mr. Lee has not had an easy time as president, but, of course, that may only serve as more common ground for the two presidents. Elected in late 2007 by a wide margin, with a pledge to revive the economy, he cast himself as a pragmatist — which is perhaps Mr. Obama’s favorite self-description.

Yet Mr. Lee has had an even rockier time in the public-opinion polls than Mr. Obama, first struggling with street protests over imports of American beef and, to this day, fending off criticism of his business ethics. Mr. Lee, however, does not have to worry about re-election; by law, South Korean presidents are limited to a single five-year term.

A long delay by the United States in ratifying a free trade agreement has also frustrated South Korea and prompted a tense exchange between Mr. Lee and Mr. Obama at a Group of 20 meeting in Seoul in 2010. The Senate and House both voted to approve the pact Wednesday. (While the votes were being cast, Mr. Lee and Mr. Obama were dining together at a Korean barbecue restaurant, Woo Lae Oak, in the Virginia suburb of Tysons Corner.)

The Obama administration, however, has steadfastly supported Mr. Lee in his dealings with Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, helping South Korea with an investigation of the sinking of its ship, the Cheonan, and staging naval exercises in the Yellow Sea to deter the North. And the administration took an immediate liking to Mr. Lee’s harder-line approach to the government in Pyongyang, which made offers of aid contingent on Mr. Kim’s abandoning his nuclear ambitions.

“The feeling was, ‘This guy’s approach on North Korea is right on the money, and it’s our approach,’ ” said Jeffrey A. Bader, who was Mr. Obama’s chief adviser on Asia at the National Security Council until April.

American officials said this support has allowed Mr. Lee to respond to North Korea sternly but without risking a deadly confrontation. Indeed, after quiet pressure from American diplomats, Mr. Lee has dropped a demand that North Korea apologize for sinking the Cheonan — which it denies doing — as a condition for any new talks between the North and South.

Now that those talks have resumed, the United States has also reopened contact with North Korea. A second meeting between the administration’s special envoy, Stephen W. Bosworth, and a senior North Korean official is likely to be announced after Mr. Lee’s visit, administration officials said.

Few Americans hold out much hope for a breakthrough with North Korea. But that will have little impact on Mr. Lee’s visit, which, coming on the heels of Congressional approval of the trade pact, will serve as a reminder of the alliance between the United States and South Korea.

“Lee Myung-bak is the most dynamic leader in that region right now,” said Michael Green, a senior Asia adviser in the Bush administration. “There’s a lot to like about him for the White House.”

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comments of above an article from the NY Times's readers.

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How many American jobs are we going give the South Koreans today to keep that bond strong?

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On the bright side of the education issue is that South Korea still must send their students to an American college or university to obtain a quality secondary education. The Koreans like many Asian people instill the value of education in their children as part of their culture.

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Obama has no idea his is being played. I wonder if Obama is aware of Hyundai Heavy Industries and their ownership of Hyundai and Kia. These companies were heavily subsidized by his Cash for Clunkers debacle. US citizens paid to allow Hyundai to become one of the biggest sellers of vehicles in America.

Lee realizes Obama is ignorant about business and is taking full advantage. Hey, Obama, how are GM vehicles selling in Korea?

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I'm sure we'll hear the usual tosh about a "special bond" between these two countries. If I was given 100's of millions dollars a year to host 10's of thousands of troops, then I too would have a "special bond". We can't help our folks, but we can pad the pockets of foreign pols. This sad country is totally broke and broken.

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Yeah, the American textile industry is toast, but it was inevitable. That industry (actually all industries) actually needs to fear China, not Korea.
In return, American beef, insurance, medical-related, pharmaceutical, car, and agriculture export should dramatically increase.

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What else will Obama give away to another foreign leader in his on going effort to apologize for America? Heaven help us for the next 15 months until this disaster of a president is kicked out of office.

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Obama's presidency has been mostly a failure but this is a small bright spot. Strong ties with S. Korea are strategically crucial. Also, the other commentors are forgetting the thousands of jobs created and sustained in the US when Kia built a $1 Billion plant in Georgia (2009). Encouraging direct investment from healthy foreign companies like Kia may be a better strategy than pouring money into domestic companies like GM. As much as I love American and American companies we got here by working hard, not by begging for government handouts

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What occupied country are you talking about? Do you think SKoreans would rather be living under the likes of Kim of North Korea?

With neighbors like China/North Korea, the price of some foreign military on own soil is price Koreans are willing to pay. And I hear the Europeans feel the same way, with the neighbor like Russians (or Soviets).

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Korea, soooo many years since I served...

We need to move on and leave them to become what they will... The United States has too many Military Bases and Embassy Spy Shops in too many nations in the world...

Our Political Leadership has become a warren of liars...

That needs to change.

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I am surely pleased they discussed how to raise their children, both perhaps in private schools rather than how to govern. And most surely the accomplishments in Korea that Mr Obma admires might have been done here had he made an effort. (I get very slow internet here in my house in AK.)

Korea seems strong both in industry and population. Time to bring our troops home and let the Koreans serve as their own saviors from the impoverished North. But will Nobama do anything like?

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Korea has a great culture that is experiencing a shining moment that bodes well for the region. They are an example of modernity, justice, transparency for the region. They are not perfect -- and we are not perfect -- but both countries gain from a stable friendship. They are a tech leader, manufacturing leader, and a great developer of scientists and thinkers of all sorts. Plus, they need our friendship.