Fear Factor

As South Korea’s Dec. 19 presidential election draws near, Lee Hoi Chang is doing what most candidates do when they slip behind in the polls: he’s changing his message. During a televised question-and-answer session with college students last week, the hawkish conservative told the audience he is “ready to meet” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il in the spirit of reconciliation and cooperation. That’s an unexpected disclosure from a politician who has been advocating that his countrymen take a tough stand against the nuclear ambitions of their northern neighbor. Lee isn’t going soft on North Korea. “It’s a show,” says Lee Tae Jun, author of a critical book on the candidate, “an attempt at camouflage to boost his votes at the last minute.”

It should not have been necessary for Lee to don the colors of his liberal opponents, borrowing from the outgoing Kim Dae Jung administration’s buddy-buddy Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North. A few weeks ago, Lee, a former Supreme Court judge and member of the opposition Grand National Party, was considered the front-runner. But circumstances have conspired against him, and his campaign has taken a hit. On Nov. 24, Chung Mong Joon, the popular head of South Korea’s soccer association, pulled out of the race, winnowing what was largely a three-horse contest down to a field of two: Lee versus Roh Moo Hyun, candidate of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party and would-be heir to Kim, whose five-year term as President ends in February.

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On most issues including education, political corruption and the domestic economy, the two contestants aren’t far apart. But after North Korea’s shock confession in October that it was trying to develop nuclear warheads in violation of international accords, the question of how to deal with the dangerous North has become a key litmus test for voters and a central issue of the campaign. In that regard, the candidates are at opposite ends of the spectrumand Lee, 67, may be on the losing side.

Roh, a 56-year-old former human-rights lawyer, says South Korea’s security can be assured by continuing Kim’s policies. He wants to press Pyongyang to dismantle its atomic weapons program without halting the flow of public and private money from Seoul, which amounts to about $250 million annually. Lee prefers the stick to the carrot, and would halt assistance until the crisis is resolved. “What has (the Sunshine Policy) brought us?” he asks. “It has brought us nuclear weapons.”

Professor Hahm Sung Deuk, a political expert at Korea University, says Kim Jong Il, by demonstrating once again how unpredictable and creepy his regime is, may have given Lee a boost with voters, helping to validate his view of the Sunshine Policy as naive appeasement. Certainly the hard-line stance resonates with older citizens, who still remember the horrors of the Korean War.

But, while Lee’s campaign may have benefited at first, it has faded of late. One survey reported that Lee was favored by 48% of voters in mid-November compared with Roh’s 36% rating. By last week, Roh had surged into the lead at 44%, while Lee slid to 39%. Lee’s plunge in the polls suggests his no-prisoners approach may not be playing well with voters, particularly the young, because it is perceived to be too closely aligned with the foreign policy of U.S. President George W. Bush. The U.S. is expected to eventually apply to North Korea the same heavy pressure it used to force Iraq to accept United Nations weapons inspectors. America has already cut off Kim Jong Il’s oil shipments, and last week the U.N.’s nuclear monitoring agency adopted a resolution urging Kim to abandon his weapons program and allow inspectors in. If the North does not respond by March, the matter could be taken up by the U.N. Security Council.

At the moment, however, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. is not where you want to be if you are running for office in South Korea. The country is currently embroiled in one of its periodic bouts of anti-American fervor, inflamed by the acquittal last month of two U.S. soldiers on trial for negligent homicide for running over two young Korean girls with an armored vehicle. U.S. officials have tried to ease tensions with numerous expressions of regret, including an apology by Bush himself last Wednesday. But the demonstrations show no signs of abating. On Nov. 26, at least 10 firebombs were thrown into a U.S. military compound in Seoul.

The violence expresses a growing belief that the country no longer needs 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as a deterrent to invasion by the North. Roh has taken just such a position in the past. But Leeinstead of scoring political points by emphasizing just how dangerous Kim Jong Il remainsis forced to play the moderate. The cold warriors in his party can only hope that toning down the rhetoric will widen Lee’s appeal and win him the election. Only then will they be able to test the theory that the North Korean question can be answered by a little less sunshine and a lot more stick.