In order to quicken the unification, the two leaders of the North and
the South should meet each other. However, unlike North Korea, South
Korean politicians have a wide range of opinions on how to approach the
summit talks between the North and the South. During the previous two
administrations, President Kim and President Roh, left-wingers with
liberal thoughts, argued that unconditional summit talks must take
place. Right-wingers with conservative thoughts claimed that only after
North Korea agrees to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, to solve human
rights problems and to send back to South Korea all those who were
kidnapped during the Korean War and the Cold War, a summit talk would be
possible. Of course, this discrepancy of opinions is possible and
should be respected because South Korea is based on solid democracy. The
only concern here is how current President Lee Myoung-bak would
persuade people with conservative views.
President Lee no doubt bases his view on the platform of the
conservative party, the Grand National Party in South Korea. This party
garners the largest support from the conservatives in Korea. The
conservatives tend to be more suspicious of North Korea, and President
Lee might be justifiably worried about losing support among the
conservatives when he talks about the possible third summit talks.
Nevertheless, President Lee should not waste time worrying about this
possibility. Politics is always about gains and losses. You cannot win
everything; you need to lose something in order to gain something. If
you can gain more than what you lose, you should act on that.
Doing as Richard Nixon did, President Lee should calculate the political
gains and losses wisely. President Nixon was representative of
anti-communists, conservatives and right-wingers in the 1960s and 70s.
Yet, he made his mark on world history by visiting communist China in
February 1972. With the help of Henry Kissinger, Nixon opened a new gate
to fight off the Soviet Union and ultimately succeeded in separating
the two giants of communist nations. This visit might have been
political suicide during the Cold War. However, his visit was possible
because he was a conservative and hard-liners wouldn’t go after him.