Posted on 23-12-2002

South Korea Loosens US Grip
By Howard W. French, NYT, 20 Dec02

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 19 — Roh Moo Hyun, who favors continued engagement
with North Korea and greater autonomy from the United States, triumphed
today in a tight presidential election. The outcome, after a campaign
marked by huge anti-American demonstrations, sets South Korea and the
United States on the most divergent diplomatic paths in half a century of
close alliance. The Bush administration has spent the last three months
pressing traditional `friends' like Japan and newer ones, like Russia and
China, to put heavy pressure on North Korea to force that country to
abandon a once secret nuclear weapons program and to end its missile sales
to the Middle East and Pakistan.

Mr. Roh, a lawyer, was the candidate of the governing Millennium Democratic
Party. He staked his campaign on continued engagement with North Korea,
despite its threatening nuclear program and quirky, often impenetrable
diplomacy. He has forcefully ruled out deadlines for compliance or economic
sanctions to force his country's impoverished Communist neighbor to respect
its international engagements, suggesting that those differences might have
been unfairly magnified during the heat of the campaign.

Mr. Roh's main rival, Lee Hoi Chang, a staunchly conservative former
Supreme Court justice, said during the campaign that South Korea should
suspend its assistance to North Korea until it cooperated on a host of
issues, from arms control to the reunion of families separated since the
Korean War. Mr. Lee's defeat today was his second; he lost even more
narrowly to the departing president, Kim Dae Jung, five years ago. Mr. Kim
was barred by the Constitution from seeking a second term.

Mr. Roh's commitment to engagement with North Korea, the most important
legacy of his political mentor, President Kim, has been so pronounced at
times that it produced a stunning last-minute turn of events that many here
thought could have cost him the election. In the final day of campaigning
on Wednesday, Mr. Roh's comments about North Korea shocked a former rival
candidate and 11th-hour supporter, Chung Mong Joon, scion of the Hyundai
empire, causing him to drop their painstakingly arranged alliance. With Mr.
Chung standing nearby, Mr. Roh said that "if the U.S. and North Korea start
a war, we will stop it," a comment read by some as implying that South
Korea would take a neutral position.

This afternoon, with his triumph not yet assured, Mr. Roh restated the
assertive diplomatic position he had taken throughout the campaign. "We
must have dialogue with the North and with the U.S.," Mr. Roh, 56, told a
crowd in downtown Seoul. "In this way we must make sure that the North-U.S.
dispute does not escalate into a war. Now the Republic of Korea must take a
central role. We cannot have a war."
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