Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Is Sewol Park's 9/11?
Ferry tragedy alters presidential agenda
By Kim Tae-gyu, Jun Ji-hye
President Park Geun-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
The Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks reset former President George W. Bush’s political agenda.
By all means, the April 16, 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewol is changing that of President Park Geun-hye.
Bush opted for a war on terror, putting all kinds of national resources toward revenge against Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the bloodiest attack on the U.S. mainland. “Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly attacks,” Bush told the world.
Park is opting for a “national renovation” from scratch to eliminate all irregularities that contributed to the ferry sinking.
She decided to use an anti-corruption campaign as a primary tool.
Prime Minister nominee Ahn Dae-hee is delegated to wield the “big stick.”
As with the 9/11 aftermath, the prevalent social atmosphere here is one of intolerance, captured by the Bush doctrine of “my way or the highway.”
At the starting point of her cleanup drive, few could express dissension, but the fear is that it may come at the risk of suffocating second opinions and altering the national direction in a unilateral way.
At the top of her list of targets is the “bureaucratic mafia” culture entrenched in officialdom.
“Simply by suggesting an anti-corruption drive could prompt a response from the people amid mounting criticism against public officials,” said Yoon Hee-woong, Min Consulting’s head of public opinion research. “By selecting former star prosecutor Ahn, Park also tried to display her will to fix their bad habits.”
Retired high-ranking officials here are regularly re-employed by related public offices, associations or enterprises, bringing about various forms of corruption.
For the Sewol case, eight of 11 present and former heads of the Korean Register of Shipping (KRS), whose role is setting detailed freight weight limits for individual vessels, were retired senior officials from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs.
The KRS has been under investigation for its improper safety inspection of the ship carrying 476 passengers, mostly high school students on a school trip on April 16.
Yoon cited previous cases in which President Park ordered her aides to monitor unfair activities of conglomerates, or pressured former President Chun Doo-hwan to pay a fine levied against him.
“Both cases brought public support to Park,” he said. “The anti-corruption drive is a comparatively easy way of pushing forward with speed, compared to her series of other drives, such as easing regulations or unification.”
Business and industrial organizations welcomed the effort to weed out corruption.
“President Park is trying to do the right thing at the right time. Although Korea strived to eradicate irregularities, there still remain some deep-rooted ones,” said an official at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
“Through Park’s drives, we hope that they will be also be cleared so that we can have a more clean and transparent society.”
A representative of the Korean Federation of Industries, the lobby for the country’s conglomerates, concurred.
“We still face many problematic conventions. Without scrapping them, we will not be able to chalk up fast developments. Hence, we deem Park’s efforts appropriate,” he said.
On the other hand, some business people are raising concerns that Park’s latest policy stance, which is expected to bring strengthened regulations, could constrict business activities. They say this could result in a slowing of the nation’s economy.
Yoon said, however, that it will be difficult for them to speak openly about their complaints, considering the current atmosphere in society.