이명박 정부의 한미관계와 남북관계 : 선순환 구조를 위한 제언

Abstract

Lee Myung-bak government’s North Korea policy is based on the negative evaluation of the Sunshine Policy of the last decade. Lee Myung-bak government has came in with a new paradigm in the South’s North Korea policy. Considering the internal and external environments, it’s tome to take a paradigm shift. North Korea has raised tension on the Korean Peninsula since President Lee Myung-bak was inaugurated on February 25. North Korea has demanded Lee show respect toward the inter-Korean agreements signed by former presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Progress in inter-Korean relations does not happen by one side dragging the other along. It is because Lee knows this that he has now laid out a North Korea policy of “coexistence and prosperity.” The problem is that his words and actions are different, his goals and means conflict, and his ideas are lacking in realistic feasibility. If he really wants coexistence and prosperity, he should declare that he is going to carry out the October 4 Declaration. On the one hand, the ROK-U.S. relationship is undergoing great changes: The change of the South Korean government, the coming change of the U.S. government, and rapidly changing global political situations. The speed at which the bilateral relationship has been adjusting, however, has been rather slow, sometimes raising doubts about the durability of future good relations. The summit meeting between President Lee Myung-bak and President Bush has drawn a lot of attention, to meet the expectation that the meeting will make more explicit the basic policy lines of Lee administration. The more dependent Seoul is on Washington in the area of foreign policy and security, the more demands Washington will make of Seoul. It is for that reason that the Lee administration’s idea of a “strategic alliance” is dangerous. Depending on the United States even for things like Seoul’s relations with Pyongyang is of no help to either North or South Korea and, for that matter, is not even helpful to the United States.