Cheong Wa Dae committed an unprecedented diplomatic faux pas over the weekend by leaking the names of ambassadors-designate to five major posts only minutes after it requested an embargo from the press.
It started with a vernacular daily’s report on Saturday that President Park Geun-hye designated Kwon Young-se, a pro-Park former lawmaker, to become ambassador to China.
Immediately, presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing addressed a press briefing and listed off the names designated as ambassadors to the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and the U.N. and requested them to be placed on embargo until the counterpart governments gave official agreement.
Kim Haing
“There is a diplomatic procedure for diplomat’s appointments such as by receiving counterpart’s agreement. Therefore, even if the media succeeded in learning the news beforehand, it was customary to apply a comprehensive embargo ... We express profound regret,” said Kim, disgruntled.
But little did she know, only some 30 minutes later, the exact content of her briefing was automatically linked to the webpage of Cheong Wa Dae. Although the posting was soon retrieved, the same content was again copy-and-pasted by a rank-and-file administrator to Cheong Wa Dae’s blog, as is done customarily, that is searchable through major portal sites, leaving the appointments exposed for the whole world to see.
The hullabaloo ended in all media reporting them on Sunday as the embargo “could not have been more broken.” Much to the chagrin of the Foreign Ministry, the diplomatic damage was done to its important allies and partners.
Concerns are growing over the presidential aides’ repeated amateurish diplomatic oversights, such as on March 14, when Cheong Wa Dae managed to release only a short congratulatory message in the name of a spokesman upon the election of new Pope Francis, as opposed to immediate, direct and hearty messages by such world leaders as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama.
The latest event may have been an unintentional and highly unfortunate “technical glitch-gone-worse” that backfired in the midst of an uptight riposte by Cheong Wa Dae to the media. Whatever it was, it undoubtedly was an embarrassing play of amateurs for the world’s 15th largest economy, whose president vows to make it “an entrusted model state that contributes to the world.”
By Lee Joo-hee (
jhl@heraldcorp.com)