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Bell Labs Chief Pulls Out of Seoul Cabinet Dispute
American Won’t Join S. Korea Cabinet
(about 9 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean-born American entrepreneur, nominated by President Park Geun-hye to be minister of education, science and technology, withdrew on Monday, blaming political gridlock that delayed his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly.
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean-born American business executive who was nominated by President Park Geun-hye to be the minister of future creation and science withdrew on Monday, blaming political gridlock that has delayed his confirmation hearing in the National Assembly.
The choice of Jeong H. Kim, the president of New Jersey-based Bell Labs whose success story in the United States has been widely reported here, as South Korea’s newly created “minister of creative future and science” had been the highlight of Ms. Park’s reorganization of the government.
The choice of Jeong H. Kim, a former president of Bell Labs in New Jersey, to fill South Korea’s newly created post of minister of future creation and science had been the highlight of Ms. Park’s government reorganization. Bell Labs is the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, the telecommunications equipment maker.
Mr. Kim, 52, was not only the first non-Korean citizen appointed to a cabinet post in South Korea but also was asked to head a powerful new government agency that Ms. Park considered a key to inciting a new economic boom through innovations in information and communications industries in one of the world’s most wired countries.
Mr. Kim, 52, was the first noncitizen appointed to a cabinet post in South Korea, and the ministry he was asked to lead is a powerful new agency that Ms. Park considers crucial to re-energizing the economy.
“I left behind what I have built in the United States and returned home so I could devote the rest of my life to the country where I was born,” Mr. Kim said at a news conference on Monday. “But as I watched the confusion over the government reorganization bill, my dreams were also shattered.”
“I left behind what I have built in the United States and returned home so I could devote the rest of my life to the country where I was born,” Mr. Kim said Monday at a news conference. “But as I watched the confusion over the government reorganization bill, my dreams were also shattered.”
Mr. Kim’s announcement came as a monthlong political negotiation on Ms. Park’s government reorganization bill remained bogged down at the National Assembly over the portfolio of the new ministry, a mammoth agency that would absorb science, technology and other key innovation-related operations from other ministries.
The bill remained bogged down as lawmakers argued over the scope of the new ministry, which would absorb responsibilities for science, technology and other innovation-related matters from other ministries.
The main opposition Democratic United Party accused Ms. Park of trying to use the new ministry as a political tool to control the broadcasting sector in a society where allegations of government influence on broadcast journalism have been a volatile political issue, causing prolonged strikes by unionized reporters and producers.
The main opposition group, the Democratic United Party, accused Ms. Park of trying to use the ministry as a political tool to control broadcasting. Allegations of government influence over broadcast journalism have been a volatile issue in South Korea.
Opposition lawmakers have also raised questions about Mr. Kim’s suitability as a cabinet member, noting that Mr. Kim had once served on the External Advisory Board at the C.I.A., as well as a director at In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm set up with C.I.A. funding.
In South Korea, where the political arena and blogosphere can be viciously divided and fervently nationalistic, critics of Ms. Park raised fears that Mr. Kim might even work as an American spy in the South Korean cabinet. They also raised questions about whether a Korean-American who took an oath of allegiance to the United States and served on a nuclear submarine as a navy officer could be trusted to be a patriotic public servant in South Korea. Others however, argued that the country must move beyond myopic nationalism to recruit talents among Korean expatriates.
“It’s deeply regrettable that he was frustrated by the political reality in our country and had to resign,” Ms. Park said Monday during a nationally televised speech. “We must recruit Korean talents aboard for our national development. To do so, we must create a political environment where such talents return home and do their best.”
Mr. Kim emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was 14. Although he was not as widely known here as Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean who serves as the United Nations secretary general, his life story has been widely praised in South Korea. He founded Yurie Systems, a technology company named after one of his two daughters, and sold it to Lucent Technologies for $1 billion in 1998.
With his nomination to the cabinet last month, Mr. Kim resigned as president of Bell Labs and regained South Korean citizenship. As the debate grew over his background, he even offered to renounce his American citizenship to prove his dedication to South Korea.
In her speech, Ms. Park invited the opposition leadership to her office to break the deadlock on her government reorganization bill, which left many of the cabinet posts in her week-old government unapproved. She denied that she intended to control the news media by transferring some of the regulatory policies on cable, satellite and Internet television from the Korea Communications Commission, where some of the commissioners are appointed by the opposition, to the new ministry.
In South Korea, where “people watch television on their mobile phone,” she said that to promote a “creative economy,” which is her favorite policy catchphrase, it was essential to integrate policies on telecommunications and broadcasting by bringing them together in one government agency.
The opposition rejected her invitation, calling Ms. Park highhanded and uncompromising.
“She won’t move back one step. She is arrogant and deaf,” said Moon Hee-sang, the head of the opposition party, in a news conference. “Her invitation reminds me of the fox in Aesop’s fables who invites the stork to eat with her and provides soup in a bowl, which she can lap up easily but which the stork cannot drink with its beak.”
