South Korea today inaugurates its first businessman as president who promises to fire up the world's 13th largest economy, open up to foreign investors and be much less tolerant of North Korea.
Lee Myung-bak, a prominent ex-construction company boss whose move into politics included a popular stint as Seoul mayor, won December's election by a landslide to end a decade of liberal rule increasingly seen as failing to manage the economy.
Lee, 66, whose campaign focused largely on promises to nearly double the country's economic growth, has also pledged to make South Korea more welcoming to foreign investors and to improve ties with major trading partners.
The inauguration ceremony of South Korea's 10th president will include traditional music and a nod to more modern tastes with a performance by a group of breakdancers.
An estimated 60,000 people will attend, with foreign guests including Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Lee has made the focus of his charm offensive the United States, which maintains close to 30,000 troops in the South but with whom relations in recent years have at times been prickly.
But his likely biggest diplomatic challenge will be communist North Korea which has been dragging its feet on an international accord to ditch its nuclear weapons ambitions and whose ruined economy depends heavily on aid from its capitalist neighbor to the south.
Lee underscored his no-nonsense approach to the secretive state by nominating as unification minister an outspoken critic of the outgoing government's soft line with the North.
But Lee has promised to reward the impoverished state handsomely with aid and investment if it abandons atomic weapons.