Counsul General of Korea Kwang–jae Lee

Columbia’s World Affairs Council was the audience at the Summit Club Monday for a speech by Kwang–jae Lee, Counsul General of Korea for the southeastern United States. Lee was introduced by Fred Monk, chairman of the WAC.

Born in Seoul in 1952, Lee graduated Seoul National University in 1976. He began his career in international affairs immediately after graduation. During the 1980s and 1990s, he served various posts for the Korean Embassy, among them: Counsellor to the Korean Permanent Mission of the United Nations and Counsellor at the Korean Embassy in France. From 2003 until 2005, Lee served as director–general for the Middle East and African Affairs Bureau for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has received the Order of Service Merit (Green Stripes) and the Legion d’Honneur.

Columbia City Council Member Hamilton Osborne, WAC Executive Director Haneez Zattam, WAC member Julie Britt Lee described the Korean peninsula as three times the size of SC. South Korea is about the size of Hungary, although it has 48,000,000 people and $200 billion in foreign reserves. Its gross domestic product, $608 billion, is 11th in the world. It is the world’s most wired country with 76% of its homes connected with high–speed Internet service.

Former USCPresident John Palms, Counsul General Lee, and former SC Comptroller Earle Morris In 1866, the armed American merchant ship William Tecumseh Sherman sailed into the peninsula on a river, hoping to open trade with what was then called the Kingdom of the Hermit. After fits and starts, in 1882 a peace treaty was signed with the US, Korea’s first treaty with the West.

World Affairs Council Chairman Fred Monk In October 1953, after 35,000 Americans lost their lives in the Korean War, the Mutual Defense Treaty was signed with the US. Lee’s countrymen stood with the US in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Today they are the third largest allied presence in Iraq, behind the UK.

One–fourth of South Korea’s population still has relatives in North Korea, and the US still has 37,000 uniformed soldiers in South Korea.

Lee sees reunification as a matter of time. Already rails and highways are connected.

Lee was reminded his Atlanta office sat equidistant between Birmingham and Columbia. A Korean concern had recently located an automobile plant in Alabama, and Lee needed to understand that fertile fields of ready labor, government cooperation, and superior transportation lay mostly northeast of Atlanta.

Former SC Comptroller General Earle Morris was also an honorary counsul in Korea, and he reminded the room of the late Dixie Walker of Columbia, former US Ambassador to Korea. Morris added SC and South Korea were both invaded from the north, they both love rice, and they praise their ancestors.