[Reporter’s Notebook] Why Few Remember Former President Lee Myung-bak’s Visit to Greenland

Former President Lee Myung-bak recently lamented to those around him, saying, "The importance of Greenland has increased so much that even U.S. President Donald Trump covets it," and recalled, "That is why I risked danger to visit Greenland during my term."

In 2012, former President Lee was the first world leader to visit Greenland, a Danish territory. Many leaders cannot visit Greenland directly due to security concerns. At that time, former President Lee headed to Greenland with expectations for the development of the Arctic route and rare earth elements. After the visit, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) related to rare earth elements was signed, and these efforts led to South Korea being promoted to a formal observer of the Arctic Council in 2013, alongside Japan, China, India, Singapore, and Italy.

Despite these achievements, many citizens do not clearly remember former President Lee’s visit to Greenland. A similar experience occurred while covering the annual political festival "Folkemødet" held in Denmark in 2023. Although Denmark’s electoral system is regarded as a model of democracy, while preparing related articles, parliamentary officials often asked, "Why are you interested in European, especially Northern European, politics?"

Former President Lee Myung-bak (second from the left) inspecting Ilulissat, Greenland, on September 9, 2012. Lee Myung-bak Presidential Foundation.

The shift in government led to unstable policy directions. In 2021, the government enacted the "Polar Activities Promotion Act" to promote policies for sustainable development and economic activities in the Arctic. However, the Yoon Seok-youl administration cut the budget for polar research and development (R&D) by about 70% in the 2024 budget proposal. The government cited insufficient results from polar activity R&D as the reason, but suspicions arose that an R&D cartel was behind the budget cuts. For example, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ project "Research and Development of Polar Genetic Resource Utilization Technology" saw its budget reduced from 6.1 billion won to 400 million won because the Polar Research Institute was the sole bidder for the project.

Other observer countries such as Japan, China, and India designate their governments as the control towers for Arctic policy and lead national-level policies. China has selected polar research as one of its seven major national strategic science and technology areas and increases its investment by more than 7% annually. Korea, hampered by budget constraints, has a mixed group of policy-leading entities including government agencies, national research institutes, and academic organizations, making it difficult to pursue consistent policies whenever administrations change.

It is necessary to refocus efforts on the polar regions. As demonstrated by President Trump’s territorial ambitions, the polar regions are fiercely contested by countries worldwide for technological supremacy due to their potential future value. National-level investment and effort are required to secure a foothold. This was the reason former President Lee visited Greenland despite opposition from the security office at the time. Stable allocation of budgets supporting polar activities and consistent national-level support for specialized technology and human resource development are essential.