New leader signals a shift in Seoul

SEOUL, South Korea — New South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office Monday with a promise to boost prosperity not only in his own country but in North Korea as well — provided the communist state abandons its nuclear weapons.

"Economic revival is our most urgent task," Lee said in his inaugural speech after taking the oath of office as South Korea's first conservative president in a decade.

South Koreans gave the former high-profile construction executive a landslide victory in December's election on his pledge to revitalize the economy and take a less conciliatory approach to nuclear-armed North Korea.

"We must move from the age of ideology into the age of pragmatism," Lee told some 60,000 people who gathered for his inauguration, 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 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a choir singing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

He wooed voters by promising to reach annual economic growth of 7 percent, double the country's per capita income to $40,000 over a decade and make South Korea one of the world's top seven economies.

South Korea's economy grew 4.9 percent last year and 5 percent the year before, but Lee says it has underperformed. Lee contends that his pet project of linking inland waterways to build a canal through the interior of the country can help kick-start growth.

Though Lee has vowed to broadly continue Seoul's policy of detente with the North, he has said he will approach the country with a more critical eye.

His predecessors — Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung — were accused of showering unconditional aid and concessions as part of reconciliation efforts while getting little in return.

Both Kim and Roh traveled to Pyongyang for summits during their terms. Lee said he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il whenever necessary. North Korea has made no comment on Lee since his election.

Lee, 66, said he would launch massive investment and aid projects in the North to increase its per capita income to $3,000 within a decade "once North Korea abandons its nuclear program and chooses the path to openness."

Yoon Duk-min, a senior analyst at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, said that working relations between the United States and South Korea had already improved greatly since Lee's election two months ago.

"Disagreement over North Korea was always the main obstacle to good relations," said Yoon, who was an adviser on the transition team's committee on foreign affairs. Considered a moderate in his party, Lee, unlike some South Korean conservatives, does not call for regime change in Pyongyang and is not expected to emphasize human-rights violations in the North.

Like his left-leaning predecessors, Lee said that policy toward the North should "prepare the foundation for unification."

"Unification of the two Koreas is the long-cherished desire of the 70 million Korean people," he said.

In his speech, after singling out the United States, Lee mentioned the importance of building closer ties with China, Russia and Japan.

"For the last 10 years, South Korea's foreign-policy goals, whether it was denuclearization or peace, was focused almost exclusively on North Korea, while relations with other countries in the region were underestimated," said Kim Tae-woo, a security expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

"That will change," said Kim, who was also an adviser on the transition team's committee on foreign affairs.

During the transition, he signaled he would take a harder line on the North by eliminating the Ministry of Unification, which critics consider soft on the North, but eventually decided to keep it. However, he nominated hawkish university professor Nam Ju-hong as the next minister.

Lee's speech urged an end to "wasteful political disputes" in the government that are alienating voters. But the two months since he won the presidency were shadowed by an investigation into his business ties to an alleged felon. The inquiry ruled last week that there was no evidence to implicate Lee in financial fraud.

He also assumes office amid a political storm over the wealth of his nominees to the 15-member Cabinet, many of whom are millionaires. Critics have already accused some of getting rich through real-estate speculation. Many South Koreans have become frustrated by growing disparities in wealth and a savage real-estate market that has pushed the goal of home ownership beyond their reach.

Material from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times

is included in this report.