Some Final Thoughts on Roh Moo-Hyun

Even though most indications were pointing to an unhappy ending to the former president’s legacy, I was still shocked to hear the news of Roh’s death. His presidency, beginning with the elections that got him inaugurated, served as a constant backdrop during my time in South Korea, which correlated with his term.

I arrived in Korea just after the conclusion of the World Cup. Tensions were high in relation to the unfortunate tank incident involving the U.S. military and South Korean school girls as presidential candidates were out in full-force, feeding the crowd’s frenzy via an anti-America platform. I was just 24 years old at the time, pretty ignorant and inexperienced about a lot of things – but in retrospect, I consider Korea’s environment at the time of my arrival to be an interesting one and a good introduction to the frustration I would continue to feel in relation to the country’s policies.

Despite Roh’s eventual descent into failure in the eyes of Korean citizens, I still feel that throughout his term, his words and actions succeeded in causing South Koreans to move closer toward North Korea and further away from the United States. The problem with this scenario, in my opinion, was that North Korea wasn’t doing anything to deserve so much South Korean love at the time. While Roh was in a position to really set the tone for North-South relationships, his policy often seemed to be one of North Korean appeasement which did not result in true engagement. With the exception of his support for the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, I found myself disagreeing with a lot of his policies.

Among my network of educated Korean colleagues and friends, it was difficult to find varying opinions about South Korea, North Korea or even U.S. involvement within the region during Roh’s presidency. (By the time public opinion started turning against Roh, I had all but given up talking about Korean politics among my circles.) However, for a good chunk of his term, most people I spoke to had the same opinions about politics under Roh’s leadership. In my experience, many people 40 or under felt he was acting wisely by attempting to form closer ties with China and North Korea while moving further away from the United States. Through thick and thin, several continued to support his efforts of continuing the Sunshine Policy with North Korea – a policy which frustrated me in the context of the Roh administration and how it dealt with North Korea in the name of unconditional open engagement.

I did, however, encounter one man whose comments on Roh’s approach toward North Korea will always stay with me. Unlike most of the people I spoke to, this man came from the 50+ age range. He told me that it was wrong to refer to Roh’s policies as a continuation of the Sunshine Policy because the word “sunshine” would imply that South Korea had a good relationship with North Korea and would thus shine its sun rays upon it. In other words, South Korea was the sun and it gave its warmth and comfort to North Korea so that North Koreans would get comfortable, relations would warm and the DPRK would take their coats off, bask in the sun’s rays and open up to the South. (Much like what Kim Dae Jung said about the policy when he introduced it to the world.)

But according to the man I spoke to, this was not happening under the Roh administration because that would mean that as the sun, South Korea was in charge in the relationship. And according to this man, at the time of our conversation it was more accurate to call Roh’s approach a “Sunflower Policy” rather than a “Sunshine Policy. For South Korea was not in control, rather, North Korea was. Whenever North Korea acted up, South Korean policy under Roh appeased the North. South Korea was more like a sunflower that turned its face toward the sunshine — which was North Korea.

Anyway, I’ll close by saying that as an outside observer to the Roh administration years in South Korea, I will admit there is no doubt in my mind Roh really did want to improve South-North relations. And I think he really felt his approach would work. Unfortunately, he was incredibly naive. I do not feel the peninsula would have ever reunited under his leadership, but I don’t think Roh really wanted that to happen under his watch, either. I think he wanted his legacy to be more along the lines of opening up the lines of communication that would lead to eventual reunification. I believe his intentions were good, but his execution was a failure. When things got bad with North Korea, Roh just didn’t know how to put his foot down. In the end, North Korea learned how to manipulate the “Sunflower Policy” to get what it wanted and the region never got any closer to peaceful co-existence with the DPRK. Even the ever-so-patient South Korean constituency eventually saw his actions toward the North for what they were: an expensive failure.