LMB Summons his Inner Lord Palmerston

Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests:

President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday called for a pragmatic diplomacy to maximize the national interest, adding, “I don’t agree with such concepts as pro-American or pro-Chinese policy.”

Lee made the remarks to Foreign Ministry officials at a ministry policy briefing. “If their national interests are matched, both nations can become allies. But if there is a clash of national interests, there is no alliance,” he said. “Of course, we should maintain a solid alliance with the U.S. But the U.S. would not want to maintain an alliance with South Korea if the alliance clashes with its own national interest.”

LMB also took time to crush Foreign Ministry morale:

Lee criticized the way ties with the U.S. and Japan have been handled. “If we look back on what our country has done in regional and multilateral cooperation, we can see that we have conducted diplomacy that is incompatible with the trends of the 21st century,” he said. “The Foreign Ministry has played a central role in doing that.” He added that “I am not merely dissatisfied with the ministry’s performance; it is worse than that. Let me make it clear that I have complaints about what the ministry has done so far.”

In addition, Lee called for the resumption of shuttle diplomacy with Japan and, more interestingly, the start of shuttle diplomacy with North Korea.