Two weird peas in a pod

The public mind on how the powers that be should behave haven’t changed.

Kim Hyun-kiThe author is the Tokyo bureau chief and rotating correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo. The World Baseball Classic (WBC) semifinal was at the ninth inning at 11:45 a.m. on March 21. Japanese Triple Crown winner Munetaka Murakami was due at the plate with two runners occupying first and second base while Japan trailed Mexico by a run. At that critical moment — just before Murakami hit a fastball 400 feet to straightway centerfield, which brought the two runners home to give Japan the 6-5 walk-off victory into a championship showdown against Team USA — a big caption reading “PM Kishida makes a surprise visit to Ukraine” covered the TV screen.

The Japanese audience glued to the TV with sweaty palms went furious. Calls demanding not to interrupt the exciting moment bombarded TV stations. Social media platforms went wild over the sudden mention of Ukraine. “Doesn’t Kishida watch the WBC?” they wondered. The historic visit to Ukraine by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as the first Japanese leader to visit a war-torn country since World War II was overshadowed by Japan’s WBC semifinal match.

President Yoon Suk Yeol also became the first South Korean leader to go to the battlefield. Such opportunities are rare. But the timing was not good for him either. Korea was struggling with deadly torrential downpours. Regardless of the intent and meaning of his visit to Ukraine, questions arose of whether the head of the state really had to make the trip. The photo of the president holding a meeting on the train to discuss response actions to the flood disaster back home overrode the photos showing his stops at battered areas of Ukraine. Both Korean and Japanese leaders had little luck in their hard-made visits to the country in Europe.

The Democratic Party (DP) back home lambasted President Yoon for his thoughtlessness given Korea’s relationship with Russia. The majority party said that he should have come straight home to command his administration’s response to the deadly flood. But such accusations came from a critical lack of understanding of the cruel world of diplomacy. G7 leaders who had been to Ukraine were closely watching to see if the Korean head of state would visit Ukraine just as they did. In other words, they were checking whether Korea would be a trustworthy partner to NATO.

The stake in the astronomical cost that could top 2,000 trillion won ($1.58 trillion) to rebuild Ukraine also has to be considered. Ukraine certainly would prefer a country whose state leader took the risk to visit the country at troubled times to help rebuild the devastated country.

The DP worried about 160,000 Koreans and 160 Korean enterprises in Russia. But if the party had cared for overseas Koreans and companies, it should not have gone so blatantly anti-Japan as the governing party considering the 4 million Koreans and over 1,000 Korean companies in Japan. The DP stressed that the Japanese prime minister delayed his departure for the UN General Assembly to orchestrate Tokyo’s response to the typhoon; the Canadian prime minister waived his scheduled attendance to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s funeral to cope with the hurricane; and the Italian prime minister cut short his attendance at the G7 meeting to return home to deal with a flood disaster — all to criticize President Yoon’s inattention to the misfortune back home.

But such an argument is quite misleading. The Japanese prime minister did not miss any of his schedules for the UN assembly, and none of the G7 leaders attended Abe’s funeral. Moreover, leaving the G7 summit, which takes place often, early cannot be compared to a difficult visit to the battlefields of Ukraine.

Still, Yoon’s presidential office was pitiful in responding to the criticism. One of his aides said the president could not have made any difference even if he had flown straight to Seoul. Such a comment should have been made privately. To the people, the presidential aide should have sought a public understanding by saying that his boss made the decision to visit Ukraine after much deliberation. It is regrettable that a person with such bad common sense and communication skills serves as a key aide to the president. The slip-ups of the presidential office have become a norm. Yoon’s aides must think twice if they really think they won’t lose the president’s confidence no matter what.

The presidential office’s response to criticism on the first lady’s alleged luxury shopping in Lithuania was also poor. Regardless of what the process had been, its explanation that she was just courted to visit a luxury shop during the visit to Lithuania is simply childish. Let me introduce a better example. Under former president Roh Tae-woo, the first lady attended a ceremony of the Children’s Day in Seoul wearing glamorous earrings. Roh’s aides advised to him that the first lady should look more modest during public occasions. Roh took the advice and talked to his wife. She called up the aides and said she would do so from then on. But she asked them to talk to her directly on affairs concerning her. Times and the role of the first lady have changed much. But the public mind on the powers that be haven’t changed, and won’t.

0721-COL-A

President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, and first lady Kim Keon-hee tour a devastated neighborhood of Irpin, close to Ukraine, on July 15 after his visit to Poland for a summit. [YONHAP]