Economy, security to top Park-Moon meeting

President Park Geun-hye and the leaders of the rival parties are set to meet on Tuesday, with controversial economic issues such as the public servants’ pension reform and minimum wage raise likely to top their agenda.

They are also expected to touch upon security and diplomatic matters, namely the intensifying debate over Korea’s position in the tug-of-war between the U.S. and China over Washington’s push to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system in Korea and the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank initiative.

Park invited the ruling Saenuri chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung and the main opposition leader Rep. Moon Jae-in last week to present the achievements she made on a recent trip to the Middle East.

The president is likely to ask the leaders to help her reform package get parliamentary endorsement within this year. Her reform drive is aimed at eliminating corruptive practices and breaking down unnecessary regulations in four sectors ― labor, education, finance and public office.

Observers say that she might also raise the issue of the possible deployment of the THAAD system. Officials at Cheong Wa Dae, however, said the president would only reiterate her earlier position and not elaborate on the issue. Cheong Wa Dae earlier said there had been no request, no consultation and no decision about stationing Washington’s advanced missile defense system in Korea.

The meeting is expected to draw public attention as it will be Park’s first face-to-face meeting with her former presidential election rival Moon since the 2012 election.

Since taking over to the party’s chairmanship last month, Moon has been intensifying his criticism against Park’s economic and welfare policies, vowing he would stage an all-out war with the government.

Moon is expected to request Park to revise her economic policies and consider raising the minimum wage by 10 percent and capping prices in Korea’s long-term leasing system to control the skyrocketing market price. The opposition leader is also expected to urge Park to hold inter-Korean talks this year and withdraw economic sanctions on North Korea.

Park hosting the three-way meeting is viewed as an attempt to cast off her uncommunicative image and request bipartisan support for her reform drive and pending economy-related bills.

The meeting came amid Park slowly recovering the public confidence.

According to a local pollster, Park’s approval rating rose back above the 40 percent mark last week, for the first time in nine weeks.

Realmeter, a Seoul-based polling agency, said Monday that her job rating showed 42.8 percent, the second-highest record this year, in a survey conducted between March 9 and 13. Park’s job rating stood at 43.2 percentage on the first week of January, but continued to spiral downhill for more than two months in the face of political scandal involving Cheong Wa Dae officials as well as inconsistencies in welfare and tax policies.

The sharp increase indicates that conservative supporters have returned to support Park amid an ongoing investigation into the March 5 knife attack against the U.S. ambassador to Korea and its possible connection with pro-North Korean forces, the pollster said.

The percentage of respondents who expressed negative views also dropped 4.4 percentage points from last week to 50.2 percent. The survey asked 2,500 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points with 95 percent of confidence level.

By Cho Chung-un ()