South Korea's Sarkozy.(World Affairs)(Lee Myung-bak)

Byline: B. J. Lee AND Christian Caryl

Lee wants to save his country by nudging it right and toward the U.S.--but his people may not cooperate.

The congregation at Somang Presbyterian, a Seoul megachurch, has very fond memories of the parishioner who became South Korea's president on Monday. Lee Myung-bak, now 66, joined the church back in 1977, when he was the young head of Hyundai's construction company, and he didn't take long to leave his mark. Shortly after he arrived, Lee took charge of a project to build a massive new sanctuary for the fast-growing congregation. Within a year it was completed, and Somang's 70,000 members haven't forgotten.

Many are now pulling for Lee as he takes the country's helm this week and tries to steer its once mighty, now faltering, economy back on track. "We think he can get it done," says church manager Chung Jung Mook. "We'll be praying for him."

That's good news for Lee, who will need all the help he can get--divine intervention included. A cosmopolitan, business-friendly ex-CEO who's an unabashed friend of Washington, Lee will face formidable challenges as he tries to return South Korea to the upper ranks of the world economy. In an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK last week, Lee emphasized his determination to strengthen South Korea's business fundamentals and external ties. After 10 years of leftist rule marked by skyrocketing social spending, weak economic growth and strained relations with the United States, Lee thinks he has the solution: to court foreign investment, make nice with old allies and step up English-language education--a plan he bills as "Global Korea"--while dramatically cutting taxes, spending and regulation.

But is South Korea really ready for a Sarkozy-style pragmatist who embraces Washington, the English language and big business while opposing what Park Myung Ho, a political scientist at Seoul's Dongguk University, calls the "liberal idealism" of his predecessors? For one thing, the country has a profoundly ambivalent attitude toward the rest of the world. Its export-driven economic miracle ensured the country's fate was inextricably linked to other nations'. Koreans, moreover, think nothing of sending their kids to summer camp in the U.S. or college in France. But there's also a deeply ingrained historical sense of humiliation by the foreign powers that repeatedly invaded and colonized Korea throughout its history. Small wonder, then, that the national psyche tends to swing violently between cosmopolitanism and xenophobia.

Sure enough, Lee's agenda ran into trouble before he was even inaugurated. Environmentalists and the powerful Korea Confederation of Trade Unions have blasted his pro-globalization proposals, which they see as a threat to national pride and an attempt to push a U.S.-style neoliberalism that emphasizes development over all else. To underscore his commitment to Global Korea, Lee has gone so far as to offer to bring foreigners into his cabinet--but this move, too, has drawn fire from nationalists. Recent turbulence in world financial markets hasn't helped, either, forcing Lee to back off campaign pledges to deliver growth levels not seen here for years. Still, in the interview last week, the then president-elect stressed that he hasn't lost the faith. "We achieved [economic] development through globalization," he said, and further internationalizing remains the country's best shot at recovery.