South Korean President Kim Dae-jung voiced dismay yesterday at setbacks in ties with Communist North Korea and former colonial master Japan and called on his country to brace itself for deeper reform of a struggling economy.
In a Liberation Day speech to mark 56 years of independence, Kim also urged squabbling South Korean politicians to get their act together and promised a fairer deal for the poor who have been hit hard by wrenching economic change.
South Korean pride on its national day was tinged with "pain in a corner of our heart" at the stubborn Cold-War division of the Korean peninsula and the unfulfilled promises of his historic summit last year with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the president said.
PHOTO: AP
"Right now we are faced with a stalemate; since the beginning of the year, North Korea and the United States have failed to hold a meeting and North-South talks have not been progressing," the president said. Washington and Pyongyang should resume talks frozen since late last year, Kim said. He vowed to pursue "by all means" his "sunshine policy" of reconciliation with the communist North.
A day after the streets of Seoul churned with anti-Japanese protests over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a shrine to Japan's war dead, Kim had sharp words for Tokyo.
"How can we make good friends with people who try to forget and ignore the many pains they inflicted on us? How can we deal with them in the future with any degree of trust?" he said.
But the 75-year-old Kim devoted most of his address to domestic woes, including political gridlock and half-finished corporate reforms.
"Both the ruling and opposition parties should wake up to the fact that public mistrust in politics has reached a dangerous level," he said, calling for sweeping reforms and a summit with the head of the opposition Grand National Party.
On the economy, Kim boasted that the nation had dug itself out from the 1997/1998 financial crisis and paid back a humiliating US$19.5 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund three years early.
But he acknowledged that South Koreans felt "painful and disappointed" with an economy losing steam with slowdowns in its key export markets in the US, Europe and Japan. The economy is facing its second-slowest year in two decades.
Turning attention to the bright side, Kim pointed to the great potential from South Korea's position as one of the most Internet-wired societies in the world and boasted of a spreading "Korea boom" as much of Asia embraced Korean pop singers and films.
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