루리웹펌 ) 문프 수상 번역글

Few incoming leaders h에이브이e been dealt a tougher hand than Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, who took office in May. To begin with, there was the problem of restoring public trust after the corruption scandals that wrecked the administration of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Meanwhile, the country’s biggest neighbor, China, had imposed an economic and diplomatic freeze in February, following Seoul’s decision to deploy the U.S.-made THAAD missile defense system. And if that wasn’t enough, in April North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had begun to accelerate his reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, spurring a global crisis.

Yet Moon immediately became a unifying figure in a politically scarred country, reaching — if only for a while — unprecedented heights of popularity; although he won just over 40 percent of the vote, his approval rate hit 75 percent in his first month. His soft-spoken approach and openness were in stark contrast to Park’s secretiveness, corruption, and creeping authoritarianism. In light of the journalistic activism that brought down his predecessor, Moon has pledged to run an open government and moved to shrink the power of the country’s overweening corporate conglomerates, known as chaebol, through greater transparency and harsher punishments for financial crimes. “I will be a president that can share a glass of soju [rice liquor] with the public after work,” he toldreporters, emphasizing the difference between his attitude and the paranoid closeness of Park’s inner circle. His political flexibility has already paid dividends: Though he had previously publicly opposed THAAD, he nevertheless managed to bridge the rift with Beijing without sacrificing the country’s defense options by patient diplomatic efforts.

But Moon’s handling of North Korea is what has put him in the spotlight — and even though no easy solution is in sight, his forceful push for peace has offered a welcome alternative to the saber rattling in Pyongyang and Washington.

Before his election, many critics thought Moon would go wobbly in the face of threats from the North. His previous stint in a ruling government was as chief of staff for Roh Moo-hyun, who was president from 2003 to 2008 and who pushed the “Sunshine Policy,” which sought to open up Pyongyang through a combination of engagement and inducements. That policy was widely, if perhaps unfairly, deemed a failure by both the South Korean public and international experts.

A lesser leader might h에이브이e tried to allay such fears with tough rhetoric, but since taking office, Moon has stuck to his positions on dialogue. Despite Pyongyang’s provocations, Moon hasn’t w에이브이ered in his position that talks with the North are vital. That has meant ignoring or countering both the hawkish rumblings from Donald Trump and the complaints of South Korean conservatives. Moon claims total opposition to another war on the Korean Peninsula and veto power over any potential U.S. interventions — a suggestion the White House has disputed. As a growing number of South Koreans call for the country to acquire its own nuclear weapons, he has declared that while a nuclear North couldn’t be “accepted or tolerated,” the South would never acquire its own weapons either.

Moon laid out his own road map to peace on the peninsula in July as part of a wide-ranging policy agenda. His vision of denuclearization by 2020 may seem utopian as Pyongyang screws miniaturized warheads to intercontinental ballistic missiles. “It’s a long shot, but North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal is a tough problem that requires a big, bold solution,” says nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis. “It’s not like ‘being realistic’ has worked out much better.”

Moon’s pacifist leanings are the product of both faith and experience. He began his career as a democracy activist when South Korea was still a dictatorship and, like many in the movement, is a practicing Christian. His determination to seek peace echoes his beliefs as a devout Catholic, as does his commitment to public service and his social conservatism. As a young lawyer in the 1970s, he risked giving up one of the most powerful and prestigious career paths then 에이브이ailable in the country — fewer than 100 people were admitted to the bar every year at the time — in order to fight for human rights and democracy.

When it comes to talking with Kim Jong Un, Moon certainly knows more about dealing with a dictatorship than his counterpart in the United States. His parents fled from the North as refugees. As he wrote in his book published in January: “When peaceful reunification comes, the first thing I want to do is to take my 90-year-old mother and go to her hometown.”

James Palmer is Asia editor at Foreign Policy.

문재인

한국에서 괜찮은 민주적 지도력을 재건하려는 시도

제임스 팔머

5월에 취임한 문재인 한국대통령보다 더 힘든 상황을 다뤄온 새로운 지도자는 거의 없다. 우선 문대통령은 전임자인 박근혜 행정부가 부패스캔들로 무너뜨린 대중의 신뢰를 회복해야했다. 그리고, 가장 큰 이웃나라인 중국은 한국이 2월에 미국의 THAAD 미사일 방어체제구축을 결정하자 경제와 외교에 압박을 가했다. 설상가상으로, 4월에 북한의 김정일 국방위원장은 무모한 핵무기추구를 가속화하기 시작하며 세계적인 위협이 되었다.

그러나 문대통령은 즉시 통합의 상징적인물이 되며, 정치적으로 상처받은 국민들에게 전례없는 높은인기를 얻고있다. 대선때 문대통령의 투표율이 40 %를 약간 넘었지만, 대통령이 된 첫달에 75 %의 지지율을 보였다. 그의 온화한 화법과 열린 자세는 전임자 박대통령의의 비밀, 부패, 그리고 권위주의와는 정반대였다. 문대통령은 열린정부를 지향하고, 투명한 일처리와 금융범죄에 대한 엄한 처벌로 재벌의 힘을 줄일 것을 약속했다. 그는 기자들과의 인터뷰에서 "일과 후 시민들과 소주 한잔 나눌수 있는 대통령이 될 것"이라고 말하며 박근혜 대통령 측근의 폐쇄성과 차별을 두었다. 그의 정치적 유연성은 이미 효과를 보고 있다. 그는 이전에 공개적으로 THAAD에 반대했지만 외교적인 노력으로 대한민국의 군사방위를 희생하지 않고도 베이징과의 입장차를 해소했다.

문대통령의 대북대응은 항상 주목을 받아왔다. 쉬운 해결책이 없긴 하지만, 평화를 향한 그의 집념은 이리저리 시끄러운 평양과 워싱턴에 대한 대안으로 호평을 받았다.

선거가 있기 전에 많은 비평가들은 북한의 위협 때문에 문대통령이 흔들릴 것이라고 생각했다. 2003 년부터 2008 년까지 노무현 대통령의 참모였던 그는 교섭과 대화를 통해 평양을 개방하려는 "햇볕정책"을 추진했다. 이 정책은 부당하게도 한국의 대중 및 국제전문가 모두에게 실패한 것으로 여겨졌다.

훌륭하지 않은 지도자였다면, 자신을 공격하는 반대세력에 대한 두려움에 거친 대응을 했겠지만, 취임한 이래 문대통령은 대화에 대한 자신의