President Moon Jae-in speaks during a lunch with Korea`s outgoing presidential Cabinet, at Cheong Wa Dae on May 26. (Cheong Wa Dae)

By Sohn JiAe 

Encouragement and listening.

These two words are the key takeaways from a lunch that President Moon Jae-in hosted on May 26 with the Korean presidency`s outgoing Cabinet ministers, who had been appointed by the previous government. 

During the lunch, President Moon offered words of encouragement to the departing Cabinet members, thanking them for having running national affairs in a stable manner amid the political instability that occurred both before and after the presidential impeachment. 

Korea`s new president also had time to seek advice from the former ministers on how his new government should handle state affairs.

“In such tough times, you have governed national affairs quite stably. I ask you all to back me up in running this new administration and in holding Cabinet meetings until I find your replacements,” the president said. 

“Steering the nation’s affairs should in no way be cut off or curtailed. Those things at which the previous government has excelled should carry on in the new government. For areas in which the outgoing government may have been less than ideal in terms of governing, we should make up for those and improve on them together,” he stated. “It’s imperative that you share with the incoming Cabinet members your experience and the lessons you’ve learned while working in the previous government,” he said. 

“Deputy and acting prime minister You Il-ho told the president that he would do his best to help the new government get up to speed, saying that he sees himself as being both part of the previous government’s Cabinet and part of the new government’s Cabinet,” said Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Park Su-hyun during a briefing following the lunch. 

The acting prime minister said that, “There’s a sign of recovery in sight across our economy, judging from increasing exports, but we still face challenges in terms of domestic demand and consumer spending. I will, of course, help the new administration to solve these challenges.” 

According to the spokesperson, outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se said, “As there’s a tendency -- globally -- that nations are trying to solve sensitive pending issues by means of summits and diplomacy, I hope that President Moon, too, will settle issues diplomatically so as to further increase our national power.”

The minister then offered some words of advice, saying, “The new government must take advantage of global cooperative relationships, for example with the U.N. It must also establish firm ties with the European Union and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as with our four main neighboring countries.” 

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