While the world was focused on the economic miracle
occurring on the Japanese islands, another miracle of
sorts was taking place across the Sea of Japan on the
Asian mainland. In 1953, the Korean peninsula was exhausted
from three years of bitter fraternal war, a conflict
that took the lives of an estimated four million Koreans
on both sides of the 38th parallel and turned as much as
one-quarter of the population into refugees. Although a
cease-fire was signed at Panmunjom in July 1953, it was a
fragile peace that left two heavily armed and mutually
hostile countries facing each other suspiciously.
North of the truce line was the People’s Republic of
Korea (PRK), a police state under the dictatorial rule of
Communist leader Kim Il Sung (1912–1994). To the
south was the Republic of Korea, under the equally autocratic
President Syngman Rhee (1875–1965), a fierce
anti-Communist who had led the resistance to the northern
invasion and now placed his country under U.S. military
protection. But U.S. troops could not protect Rhee
from his own people, many of whom resented his reliance
on the political power of the wealthy landlord class.
After several years of harsh rule, marked by government
corruption, fraudulent elections, and police brutality,
demonstrations broke out in the capital city of Seoul in
the spring of 1960 and forced him into retirement.
The Rhee era was followed by a brief period of multiparty
democratic government, but in 1961, a coup d’état
placed General Chung Hee Park (1917–1979) in power.
The new regime promulgated a new constitution, and in
1963, Park was elected president of a civilian government.
He set out to foster recovery of the economy from
decades of foreign occupation and civil war. Adopting
the nineteenth-century Japanese slogan “Rich Country
and Strong State,” Park built up a strong military while
relying on U.S. and later Japanese assistance to help build
a strong manufacturing base in what had been a predominantly
agricultural society. Because the private sector
had been relatively weak under Japanese rule, the government
played an active role in the process by instituting
a series of five-year plans that targeted specific industries
for development, promoted exports, and funded
infrastructure development. Under a land reform program,
large landowners were required to sell all their
farmland above 7.4 acres to their tenants at low prices.
The program was a solid success. Benefiting from the
Confucian principles of thrift, respect for education, and
hard work (during the 1960s and 1970s, South Korean
workers spent an average of sixty hours a week at their
jobs), as well as from Japanese capital and technology, Korea
gradually emerged as a major industrial power in East
Asia. The economic growth rate rose from less than 5 percent
annually in the 1950s to an average of 9 percent under
Park. The largest corporations—including Samsung,
Daewoo, and Hyundai—were transformed into massive
conglomerates called chaebol, the Korean equivalent of
the zaibatsu of prewar Japan. Taking advantage of relatively
low wages and a stunningly high rate of saving, Korean
businesses began to compete actively with the Japanese
for export markets in Asia and throughout the world.
The Japanese became concerned about
their “hungry spirit” and began refusing
to share technology with the South
Koreans. Per capita income also increased
dramatically, from less than
$90 (in U.S. dollars) annually in 1960
to $1,560 (twice that of Communist
North Korea) twenty years later.
But like many other countries in the
region, South Korea was slow to develop
democratic principles. Although
his government functioned with the
trappings of democracy, Park continued
to rule by autocratic means and
suppressed all forms of dissidence. In
1979, Park was assassinated, and after a
brief interregnum of democratic rule, a
new military government under General
Chun Doo Hwan (b. 1931) seized
power. The new regime was as authoritarian
as its predecessors, but opposition
to autocratic rule had now spread from the ranks of
college and high school students, who had led the early
resistance, to much of the urban population. Protest
against government policies became increasingly frequent.
In 1987, massive demonstrations drove government
troops out of the southern city of Kwangju, but the
troops returned in force and killed an estimated two thousand
demonstrators.
With Chun under increasing pressure
from the United States to moderate
the oppressive character of his rule,
national elections were finally held in
1989. The government nominee, Roh
Tae Woo, won the election with less
than 40 percent of the vote. New elections
in 1992 brought Kim Young Sam
to the presidency. Kim selected several
women for his cabinet and promised to
make South Korea “a freer and more
mature democracy.” He also attempted
to crack down on the rising influence
of the giant chaebols, accused of giving
massive bribes in return for favors from
government officials. In the meantime,
representatives of South Korea had
made tentative contacts with the
Communist regime in North Korea
on possible steps toward eventual reunification
of the peninsula.
But the problems of South Korea were more serious
than the endemic problem of corruption. A growing trade
deficit, combined with a declining growth rate, led to a
rising incidence of unemployment and bankruptcy. Ironically,
a second problem resulted from the economic collapse
of Seoul’s bitter rival, the PRK. Under the rule of
Kim Il Sung’s son Kim Jong Il, the North Korean economy
was in a state of free fall, raising the specter of an
outflow of refugees that could swamp neighboring countries.
To relieve the immediate effects of a food shortage,
the Communist government in Pyongyang relaxed its restrictions
on private farming, while Seoul agreed to provide
food aid to alleviate the famine.
In the fall of 1997, a sudden drop in the value of the
Korean currency, the won, led to bank failures and a decision
to seek assistance from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF). In December, an angry electorate voted Kim
Young Sam (whose administration was tarnished by reports
of corruption) out of office and elected his rival Kim
Dae Jung to the presidency. But although the new chief
executive promised drastic reforms, his regime too was
charged with corruption and incompetence, while relations
with North Korea, now on the verge of becoming a
nuclear power, remained tense.
World History
