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Can South Korea's Success Be Sustained?
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17548 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
1,749 Words |
| Author
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Young Whan Kihl
Young Whan Kihl, a professor of political science at Iowa
State University, Ames, specializes in international
relations and comparative Asian politics. His latest book is
Security, Strategy, and Policy Responses in the Pacific Rim
(coedited with Lawrence Grinter, 1989). |
South Korea's "economic miracle" rests on shaky ground due to a series of policy blunders and violent events in 1990. In one incident, thousands of riot police stormed the Hyundai shipyard at Ulsan, South Korea, in late April to disperse an unauthorized labor strike. This triggered a nationwide workers' protest and sympathy strikes.
Tens of thousands of citizens and workers joined the university students on May 8 in staging an antigovernment demonstration in Seoul and other cities. The U.S. cultural center in downtown Seoul was also attacked; demonstrators set the lower floors of the building on fire. This was the day when the newly created ruling Democratic Liberal Party was holding its first convention. They were protesting President Roh Tae Woo's consolidation power by the merger of his Democratic Justice Party with the two opposition parties, Kim Young Sam's Reunification Democracy Party and Kim Jong Pil's New Democratic Republican Party, announced in January 1990.
What will become of South Korea in the 1990s? Will it continue the economic dynamism and growth shown in the 1980s, thereby transforming South Korea into another Japan? Or will South Korean economy stagnate as a result of over expansion and labor unrest?
Industrial Politics and Social Unrest
The year 1990 offered high hopes for political stability, social progress, and economic prosperity through democratic reforms. Those expectations, born out of the success of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, are unlikely to be met due to economic reversals and policy failures.
South Korea's backward financial system could damage its industrial competitiveness. For instance, a bill mandating the disclosure of the real identity of bank deposits for taxation purposes, was abandoned in 1990.
The state-run Korean Broadcasting System was engulfed in a labor dispute, with the Roh government unable to pacify disgruntled workers. The public is also unhappy over the social unrest triggered by inflationary pressures and skyrocketing housing costs. Land price increases of more than 30 percent in 1989 alone resulted in speculation by some business conglomerates. In April, the Korean stock market added another sour twist to the economy when it twice dropped to new lows. This perturbed the middle class who had invested in the market at the government's urging. All the aforementioned offer radical
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