Posted on : Dec.28,2018 12:34 KST

President Moon Jae-in responds to the questions of Blue House beat reporters on his presidential aircraft en route to his next stop in New Zealand after the G20 Summit concluded in Argentina Dec.1

The administration needs to reevaluate its current path and cut out leeching advisors

He usually answered his own phone. Even as one of the top heavyweights in the Roh Moo-hyun administration, he took calls from reporters and gave thorough, measured explanations of his duties. If he could not respond while working, he would sometimes return the call personally later on that night. Conversations would last for well over ten minutes.

It’s a memory that now leaves me feeling quite pained. I often encounter people who tell me, “That was the old Moon Jae-in.” If I stand up for his sincerity, they retort, “Haven’t you seen it for yourself?” A few acquaintances recall in frustration the circumstances that led to the administration’s election. “At this rate, the end is in sight. It’s heartbreaking,” they tell me. Some will ask me to “tell him a thing or two.” All of them took part in the candlelight revolution; all of them voted for Moon Jae-in.

The defense of Moon rings even more hollow in the wake of his Dec. 1 talk with reporters on board the presidential aircraft during his overseas tour. The sense of urgency in his attempts to use a reciprocal visit by Kim Jong-un within the year to inject some momentum into the floundering progress on the North Korean nuclear issue is understandable. But it came as quite a shock when he began cutting reporters off and telling them he would not answer questions about domestic issues.

In the past, his humble approach to communication was seen as something truly striking, his greatest asset and source of appeal: his frank dialogues with irregular workers, for example, or the Gwangju Uprising commemorative ceremony where he embraced tearful family members of the victims. For a South Korean public that had suffered through the uncommunicativeness of his predecessor Park Geun-hye, it was overwhelming. Even his political opponents were moved by it. There was a shared feeling that society as a whole was being healed. All of that seems like quite long ago.

Somewhere along the way, the Moon administration began acquiring its own “uncommunicative” image. Much of that has to do with clever framing by the conservative media and attacks from the political opposition. Blue House officials have been moved to complain of “unfairness,” arguing that Moon had met with more people than any of his predecessors and was constantly communicating through meetings and events. The claims of unfairness are not entirely unwarranted. They’re also something the administration brought upon itself in some ways. Moon has issued a flood of messages at his Cabinet and Blue House senior secretary and aide meetings. Yet it’s tough to erase the sense that a lot of them consist of the things he wants to say and orders for others to follow. Cases in point are his remarks about the effects of the minimum wage hike being “90% positive,” or his comments about how “automobile production is rising again, and we’ve reclaimed the top spot in shipbuilding” – adding, “They say that when the water starts coming in, you should start rowing.”

The unfamiliar Moon Jae-in we saw on the presidential aircraft could represent a slow transformation in the humble Moon Jae-in we once knew.

Another factor has to do with perceived marginal utility. It’s difficult to enough to continue coming up with moving events, but even those turn over time into “just another presidential event.” When Tak Hyun-min finally announced his intent to resign on Dec. 6 after holding out under pressure to give up his position as a senior administrative officer in the office of the protocol secretary, a Blue House official attributed it to “the stress of feeling like there was nothing new to come up with.” Indeed, apart from the inter-Korean summits, this year has been more or less devoid of memorably moving moments like the ones we saw last year.

It’s normal for administrations in their second year to make up for that with actual results. Yet the administration claims that nothing is working. The jobs aren’t growing, they complain. After all the administration’s talk about “housing stability,” soaring home prices have left many despairing. Cho Kuk, senior secretary to the president for civil affairs, was ostensibly kept on for the sake of reforms, but little progress has yet been made in changes to the police or prosecutors. Reforms to the National Intelligence Service Act are also at sea. If anything, we have seen once incident after another involving Blue House advisors causing problems.

Fastest way to win the public over is via rediscovery of the beginner’s mindset

The sun is setting. The administration is entering its third year in office. Moon’s support ratings continue to hit new lows. When these kinds of warning messages are ringing out, the fastest way to win the public over is by rediscovering the beginner’s mindset. The administration needs to find out which advisors entered faulty statistics and livelihood data or developed the president’s embarrassing tour schedule, and why this kind of thing is happening. It needs to figure out which advisors are coasting on the president’s support ratings while failing to do their job, and ring in the New Year with some reshuffling. Hopefully, the administration will bring on people who are willing to share hard truths – and keep those people up close.

Shin Seung-keun, editorial writer
Another thing it should do is to recall the pledge Moon made at the time of his inauguration, when he promised to communicate from time to time. Instead of simply saying what he wants to, he needs to provide answers on the issues that South Koreans want to know about. He needs to give opportunities to ask questions, be it through dialogues with the public or his New Year’s press conference. We have to wonder just how long we will have to keep transcribing his interviews with the foreign press. It would be good to see our president holding interviews with the domestic press too.

By Shin Seung-keun, editorial writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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