WSJ는 이날 '더듬거리는 박근혜 당선인의 무역정책'(Park's Trade Fumble)이라는 제목의 사설에서 "이번 개편안은 시장 개방과 경쟁 강화가 새 정부의 우선순위가 아니라는 메시지를 던져준다"고 지적했다.
WSJ는 한국이 지난 10년간 자유무역 협정(FTA)에 열정을 가지고 임해왔다는 점에 비춰볼 때 외교부에서 통상교섭 기능을 떼어내겠다는 구상은 크게 후퇴한 조치라고 비판했다.
한국의 산업 담당 부처는 전통적으로 대기업, 즉 '재벌'의 이해관계와 맞아 떨어지는 보호 위주의 정책을 펴왔다는 것이 WSJ의 지적이다.
특히 이번 개편안이 박근혜 당선인의 아버지인 박정희 전 대통령 시절 확립된 재벌 위주의 경제 모델이 더는 통하지 않는다는 대중 인식이 커지는 시기에 나왔다는 점에서 우려스럽다고 WSJ는 평가했다.
'경제 민주화'라는 이슈가 지난 대선 기간을 지배할 수 있었던 것도 이런 인식 변화 덕분이었고 정치권에서도 재벌 지배구조를 억제해야 한다는 목소리들이 터져 나왔다고 설명했다.
박근혜 당선인 스스로도 그런 수요에 부합하는 지원책들을 약속했지만 이번 개편안으로 한국의 무역정책을 오히려 재벌이 지배하던 시절로 되돌리려 한다고 WSJ는 꼬집었다.
WSJ는 경제 민주화 요구에 대한 답은 자유 무역을 더욱 촉진하는 것에 초점이 맞춰져야 한다면서 무역 장벽을 더 낮춰 재벌이 외국 기업과 경쟁하게 하고, 소비자 물가를 낮추는 정책을 펴야 한다고 강조했다.
이런 지적에도 개편안을 고수하려 한다면 미 무역대표부(USTR)와 같은 별도의 무역협상 전담 조직을 만드는 것이 낫다고 WSJ는 언급했다.
무역정책 관련 온라인 신문을 운영하는 저널리스트 그레그 러시퍼드도 이날 WSJ 기고문에서 "박근혜 당선인의 개편안은 지난 10년간 한국이 이룬 경제적 성공의 기반을 약화시키는 심각한 결과를 낳을 것"이라며 비슷한 주장을 폈다.
러시퍼드는 한국의 산업 담당 부처가 과거 재벌을 보호하고 자유 무역을 해치는 정책을 시행했다고 지적하면서 김대중 대통령이 취임한 1998년 통상교섭 기능이 외교부로 이관된 뒤 무역협정이 하나 둘 체결되기 시작했다고 말했다.
다음은 월스리트저널의 실린 사설 전문.
Park's Trade Fumble
A new president endangers Korea's market-opening.
New Korean Presidents typically reshuffle the bureaucracy, and Park Geun-hye is no exception. But as she prepares for her inauguration later this month, Ms. Park's government reorganization plan is sending the message that market opening and enhanced competition will be low priorities in her administration.
At issue is the home of Seoul's trade negotiators, as Greg Rushford reports on a nearby page. Ms. Park proposes to strip the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of its responsibility for reaching trade deals and giving this function to the newly renamed Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy?the commerce ministry. This would be a big step backward for Seoul, which during the past decade has thrown itself into free-trade negotiations with passion. The National Assembly could vote on the plan as early as next week.
Traditionally the ministry in charge of industry has been attuned to the interests of large domestic conglomerates, or chaebol, and thus has favored protectionist policies. Putting that fox in charge of the trade henhouse might stall, if not reverse, progress made by the professional diplomats who understand the strategic and economic benefits of free trade.
Ms. Park's plan is especially worrying because it comes at a sensitive political moment for South Korea. There is a growing sense that the chaebol-dominated economic model pioneered by Ms. Park's father, military dictator Park Chung-hee, is no longer working. Growth rates are slowing to developed-country levels, but per capita income hasn't matched the U.S. or Japan. Consumers increasingly chafe under the high prices resulting from Seoul's longstanding trade protectionism, which blocked foreign products to guarantee the chaebol steep profits in the domestic market.
Thanks to these pressures, the issue of "economic democratization" dominated last year's presidential campaign. Politicians on the left argue for regulatory curbs on chaebol ownership structures and other strong measures. Ms. Park, herself a center-right leader, promised various social-spending handouts to meet the demand for economic change.
Any move to de-emphasize free trade represents a major missed opportunity for Ms. Park. A free-market answer to calls for economic democratization has to include a heavy emphasis on further trade liberalization. Lower tariffs and other barriers would force the chaebol to compete with foreigners to win over Korean consumers and would help bring down prices and eliminate the implicit subsidy that protectionism has extended to domestic firms.
At the same time, freer trade can spur innovation and productivity, jump-starting growth that has slowed as the old economic model runs out of steam. Instead, she proposes to take Korea's trade policy back to the chaebol-dominated days about which a growing proportion of the public is skeptical.
The motive behind Ms. Park's proposal remains obscure. Officially, her transition team argues that commerce-oriented bureaucrats would be better able to understand the economic nuances of trade deals.
As Mr. Rushford notes, history belies this claim. Trade liberalization was nonexistent during the time the commerce ministry presided over trade policy up to 1998, but since trade authority shifted to the Foreign Ministry in that year Korea has signed one major trade deal after another. If Ms. Park insists on removing trade from the Foreign Ministry, she would do better to create a separate office of trade negotiators accountable directly to her, akin to the U.S. Trade Representative.
Whatever the reason, this seemingly small bureaucratic shuffle could come back to haunt Ms. Park and her New Frontier Party. If politicians of Ms. Park's right-leaning orientation fail to offer voters a pro-market, pro-growth way forward?such as expanding the free-trade agenda that already has benefited Korea so much?they risk ceding the "economic democratization" issue to politicians pushing more interventionist policies.
