A letter to new President

Dear Mr. President, Congratulations! You are beginning your term as the 19th president of the Republic of Korea Wednesday, a day after the vote.

For the first time in the nation’s political history, you have become the president upon election, as the situation facing this country allows you no time for transition as the president-elect.

In your mind must be the vivid memories of the hard campaigning of the past several months, from winning the party primaries to crisscrossing the country until midnight Monday. But you have little time for reflection or rejoicing — you’ll soon find yourself in one of the toughest spots on this planet.

Former President Kim Dae-jung also came into power when this country was in the middle of an unparalleled crisis two decades ago. But the hardships of 1997 were mainly economic with the fundamentals of the national economy remaining mostly unhurt and the International Monetary Fund was on Korea’s side to help.

Not only has the economy’s growth potential shrank to less than half of the 1990s but the current crisis is one of multiple problems. Reviving the impoverished livelihoods of workingclass families is of course crucial. Far more urgent, however, is how to ensure national security by restraining North Korea’s play with nuclear fire and curbing the consequent escalation of regional tension, especially between Pyongyang and Washington.

Formidable are foreign leaders you’ll have to deal with in this process — ranging from crazy Kim Jong-un to tricky Donald Trump, and from inscrutable Xi Jinping to shrewd Shinzo Abe. It will be an uphill battle for you not just because your nation’s power is no match for theirs but because Seoul has no weapons of mass destruction, unlike its rogue neighbor in the northern half of this peninsula. Your only weapon should be passion, tenacity and the moral high ground in seeking peace and co-prosperity in this part of the world.

Come to think of it, South Korea is not so small a country as to be pushed around by others. It is the world’s 13th-largest economy and trader, with an economy 40 times larger than North Korea’s. Among countries that escaped from colonial rule in 1945, none but South Korea has attained both industrialization and democratization in just half a century. Your job is to awaken in the people and reignite their spirits by uniting them into one and making the most of their integrated support in negotiating with your foreign counterparts. This is why you and all other candidates called for the “grand union” of the nation that had been torn to shreds.

Like it or not, Seoul has to start by reaffirming an airtight alliance with Washington, the only non-regional but the most influential player, to guarantee its security and take a more advantageous position in dealing with regional powers. Take the Ter- minal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the controversial U.S. antimissile system being deployed here. You should neither accept it as an established fact nor push back too hard but propose a meeting to discuss all related issues, ranging from who should shoulder the cost to whether and when you can change the situation and under which conditions. You can then persuade Beijing to stop economic retaliation pending such bargaining with Washington.

Likewise, you can stimulate the U.S. president’s business instincts to induce him to regard North Korea as the potential supplier of mineral resources rather than as an evil target that should be obliterated with military means. You also need to remind Trump of South Korea’s strategic importance, especially compared with Japan’s. In the post-WWII period when the former Soviet Union was the U.S.’ main adversary, Tokyo was Washington’s most important Asian partner. Now that America’s primary rival is China, Korea could be the U.S.’ No. 1 ally. No less easy are domestic issues — how to revive the two pillars of economy and democracy that used to bolster this country but have gone out of shape under two conservative governments.

It will take nothing short of another “miracle on the Han River” to drive the nation’s economy — beset with low growth, snowballing debt, sluggish innovation and widening income inequality — back to a boom. At stake is how to reform the corporate behemoths called chaebol, or family-controlled conglomerates, through making them fairer and more transparent economic players without hurting their biggest advantage, namely the economy of scale. Balancing between developing new growth engines through massive investment and expanding social safety nets to quench the popular thirst for essential wellbeing will be another task requiring ultimate finesse.

Restoring democratic rule should be your third goal. Former President Lee Myung-bak administered state affairs like a wayward CEO who exploited his company by deceiving shareholders, or voters in his case. Your ousted immediate predecessor was even worse, letting a handful of unqualified confidants monopolize national governance, knowingly and unknowingly. Your job is to pick out the few bad apples and embrace as many of your political opponents as possible for national unity, which in turn is a prerequisite for tackling long-term national tasks with least resistance.

So make your Cabinet a dream team, filling the posts with capable people regardless of differences in their political beliefs. A red line might be necessary — exclude the core followers of Park Geun-hye, who opposed her impeachment until the last minute. Otherwise, it would be the glaring denial of calls from people who gathered at Gwanghwamun Square throughout last winter, making them wonder what all this was about after all. You need to be humble and move toward your rivals at the National Assembly to ask for their cooperation.

I, along with most other Koreans, wish you good luck — and lots of it — to see the first successful president in our modern history.

With best regards