President Roh of South Korea has attempted to improve his dismal popularity ratings by giving his government a face-lift. He recently forced his Prime Minister, Lee Hae-chan, to resign. During moments of national crises, typhoons, widespread forest fires and crippling strikes, the Prime Minister bunkered down at country clubs and played golf. He isn’t the only South Korean politician not tending to business. Representative Choi Yeon-hee was caught fondling a reporter's breast. He later apologized by stating that, "I was drunk and I thought she was the club owner."

Chung Dong-youngWith the forced resignation of the Prime Minister, one official who moves up in influence within the Roh government is Chung Dong-young, the Unification Minister and former Chairman of the Uri ruling party in South Korea.

Not known for his intellectual prowess, Chung Dong-young began his "illustrious" career as a news anchorman for MBC, a popular South Korean TV network. The Uri party, affiliated with President Roh, sought him out for the chairmanship of its Party. It assumed that Chung Dong-young’s fame would be a boost to their electoral prospects in the last election. However, his chairmanship of the party had the opposite effect when Chung Dong-young addressed elderly citizens during the campaign and advised them to stay home and rest on election day. He elaborated on his comments to a group of reporters in Daegu, South Korea on the evening of April 1, 2004. The gist of his statement was that people who are 60 to 70 years of age or older do not need to cast their votes since they will soon exit the political arena anyway. Since older voters tend to side with the conservative party in national elections, the Uri party chairman apparently was trying to diminish their turnout at the polls. Because of the ensuing controversy over his comments, the Uri party leaders forced Chung Dong-young to step down as Chairman because the controversy he caused resulted in the seemingly insurmountable lead vanishing overnight.

Nonetheless, President Roh Moo-hyun won the election, and he subsequently appointed Chung Dong-young Minister of Unification to oversee policies related to North Korea. Conservatives in South Korea have dubbed him "Comrade Chung" for his pro-North Korean sentiments. On behalf of the South Korean government, the Unification Minister oversaw hundreds of millions of tons of food and fertilizer to Communist North Korea without sending proactive monitors to make sure it got to the people in need instead of going to the dictatorship.

When asked why the South Korean government abstained from the U.N. resolution on North Korean human rights abuses, Chung Dong-young’s response was that "human rights problems in communist countries have never been solved by applying pressure." He has discouraged North Koreans from defecting to the South by saying "activists should not help North Koreans to defect since it could harm inter-Korean relations." When the U.S. government first accused North Korea of possessing nuclear weapons, Mr. Chung commented that there would be no definitive proof until there was a "detonation".

The list could go on and on of statements made, and actions taken by South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, which reflect his policy of total appeasement of the Communist regime of North Korea. But, does he have any results to show for all of this groveling towards the North? The North communist regime continues to introduce and circulate millions of counterfeit American dollars into the South Korean economy. The North Koreans repeatedly break up, or walk out of, inter-Korean meetings designed to better relations between the two governments. North Korea continues to build nuclear missiles aimed at the South. The policy of appeasement by the South Korean government is met by an attitude of belligerence on the part of the North Korean dictatorship.

The South Korean government’s appeasement policy not only has little to show for it in terms of results but it also is becoming increasingly unpopular with the South Korean public. Polls show that few South Koreans support the government’s appeasement policy. South Korea’s leading newspaper, Joong Ang Ilbo, has questioned the policies of Chung Dong-young and the Roh government on this issue: "Why do they show such a forgiving attitude toward the North Korea dictatorship?"

Chung Dong-young appears to be positioning himself to succeed President Roh in the next election for President which will be held in December 2007. His repeated failures as Party Chairman and Unification Minister have made Chung Dong-young the butt of jokes by South Korean comedians. But the opposition conservative party in South Korea (the GNP) has had a hard time getting its political act together in recent years. So, it is too early to count Chung Dong-young out in the next election. His victory would continue South Korea down the path of increased anti-Americanism and the ongoing bailout of the economic basket case that is known as the government of North Korea.

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