Former businessman Myung-Bak Lee took office as South Korea's 17th president on Feb.
25, promising greater prosperity for the country and a better relationship with the United
States.
"We will work to develop and further build on traditional friendly relations with the United
States into a future-oriented partnership. Based on the deep mutual trust that exists between
the two peoples, we will also strengthen our strategic alliance with the United States," Lee
said in his inauguration speech.
The new Korean president also suggested a more close relationship with Asian countries.
"In particular, we will seek peace and mutual prosperity with our close neighbors, including
Japan, China and Russia and promote further exchange and cooperation with them," Lee
said. In addition, he said there would be prosperity both for South Korea and for
impoverished North Korea, if the Stalinist regime abandons its nuclear drive.
"We must move from the age of ideology into the age of pragmatism," the conservative
leader told some 60,000 people as he was inaugurated for a single five-year term following
a decade of left-leaning rule.
"Economic revival is our most urgent task," Lee said, taking a swipe at the past 10 years of
liberal rule during which he said "we found ourselves faltering and confused."
Lee, a former construction CEO nicknamed "The Bulldozer" for his can-do image, took the
oath of office at the National Assembly in the presence of cheering onlookers, foreign
dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a choir singing
Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."
"It is a relationship that has only deepened over the years because we share something very
important. As much as we share strategic efforts, we certainly share common values," Rice
told reporters.
Lee, as the candidate for the conservative Grand National Party, won a land-slide victory in
December 2007 in an election that was largely perceived as a recall on a liberal government
that had been accused of failing at the economic level. Lee, 66, had at the age of 36 led six
affiliates of Hyundai and was once the mayor of Seoul.
His presidency also indicates the first real transfer of power in South Korea in 10 years. In
the mid-1990s, the liberal forces that emphasized social equality and a closer relationship
with North Korea defeated anti-communist industrial forces that have been credited with
rapid economic growth and at the same time associated with corrupt authoritarianism.
But the popularity of the liberals plummeted because economic policies intended to
propagate social equality failed to deliver. Its attempt to have more independence from the
United States created friction. And despite humanitarian assistance, North Korea remains
defiant and tested a nuclear weapon. Lee promised a "747" pledge - 7 percent annual
GDP growth and per capita income of $40,000 a year, and to make Korea the seventh
largest economy in the world.
For the first time in its long history, the U.S. Senate and House unanimously passed a
resolution recently congratulating South Korea's president Lee and wishing him a smooth
transition and inauguration.