New occupant in the Blue House

South Korea has a new president. Mr. Lee Myung Bak has vowed to take the same "bulldozing" approach to running his country as he did when he was the head of a construction company and the mayor of Seoul. His first priority is economic revival, but he also hopes to forge new relationships with his neighbors, North Korea and Japan, as well as the United States, an ally across the Pacific.

As he assumes office as South Korea's 10th president, the real question, however, is whether Mr. Lee is the master of his own destiny. As a developed economy, South Korea may not be able to relive the go-go years that South Koreans yearn to repeat. And North Korea's supreme leader Mr. Kim Jong Il may prefer a different North-South relationship. In fact, the one certainty is that Mr. Kim will do his best to derail Mr. Lee's bold plans and try to force the new president to abandon his harder-line policies toward the North and embrace those of his predecessors.

Mr. Lee won election by pledging to achieve annual growth of 7 percent, to double South Korea's per capita income to $40,000 over a decade, and to vault South Korea into the world's top seven economies. Even though South Korea enjoyed 4.5 percent growth throughout his predecessor Roh Moo Hyun's tenure, most Koreans were not satisfied and felt the economy underperformed. In his inauguration speech Monday in Seoul, Mr. Lee promised to do that by eliminating or reforming unnecessary regulations, privatizing jobs and lowering taxes; during his campaign he proposed to stimulate investment through housing loans and the construction of a "Great Waterway" that cuts across the Korean Peninsula.

Eventually, that waterway would reach into North Korea, but that would require the creation of a fundamentally new relationship between the two Koreas. Mr. Lee has said he will take a tougher line against the North. Calling his a "pragmatic" rather than an ideological approach, the new president urged Pyongyang to live up to its commitments in the six party talks and give up its nuclear-weapons program. "Once North Korea abandons its nuclear program and chooses the path to openness, we can expect to see a new horizon in inter-Korean cooperation."

That tougher stance was music to the ears of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, both of whom attended Mr. Lee's inauguration. The gaps between Seoul's approach to the North and those of Tokyo and Washington have given Pyongyang valuable leverage in the multilateral negotiations over its nuclear-weapons program. In an important symbol of his intention to set a new direction for South Korean foreign policy, Mr. Lee's first meeting with a foreign dignitary after his inauguration was with Mr. Fukuda. We look forward to our two countries working together to promote mutual peace and prosperity. The resumption of bilateral economic talks, stalled since November 2004, would be an important sign of a renewed commitment to this partnership.

Equally important was his pledge to "develop and further strengthen traditional friendly relations with the United States into a future-oriented partnership." As was the case with relations with Japan, ties between these two allies have been strained during the past five years as Mr. Roh played the nationalist card to boost his flagging popularity. There are great expectations in both countries that the new leadership in Seoul — and a new administration in Washington — will permit the two governments to revitalize a relationship that has at times appeared to be at the breaking point.

But the prospect of greater alignment between South Korea and the U.S. sounds ominous to North Korean ears. Geography, history, and kinship have all contributed to a disparity in views between Seoul and Washington and given North Korea's Mr. Kim leverage over the U.S.-South Korea relationship. He will do his very best to confound Mr. Lee's plans.

History has shown Mr. Kim to be very skillful at exploiting the seams of that relationship. While Mr. Roh may have been more sympathetic to the North than his conservative predecessors when he took office five years ago, he too wanted to focus on domestic issues, not foreign policy or inter-Korean relations. Mr. Kim intervened. Mr. Lee may find his own ambitions similarly upended.

South Korea needs a peaceful regional environment to realize 7 percent growth. Tensions with the North make that impossible. And that is Mr. Kim's ultimate card. Mr. Lee said that he is prepared to meet with his North Korean counterpart at any time to "contemplate what they can do to make the lives of all 70 million Koreans happy and how each side can respect each other and open the door to unification." We hope he can deliver on that promise — along with all the others. He will need to be creative, patient and to persevere. We wish him luck.