Mr. President — A Kingpin in Nation Building

By Park Chang-seok

Kyung Hee University Professor

Ethiopia helped South Korea during the Korean War. The African country sent 6,037 soldiers to South Korea to fight the Communist invasion during the bloody 1950-53 war during which the peninsula was reduced to ashes. Korea ranked below Ethiopia and Ghana six decades ago. Korea was synonymous with poverty.

Now, Korea provides aid to Ethiopia. It is a stunning reversal. A recent news photo of Ethiopian students smiling in a school built by Koreans tells well of the change of the two comparable countries. Ethiopia is now the poorer nation with its per capita income standing at around a mere $280 in 2008, compared with Korea's $19,136 for the corresponding period.

Unlike the other countries on the list of rich nations, Korea has emerged from obscurity, or to be more exact, poverty, to take its place among the economic powers. Korea is globally applauded as a country that has successfully joined the ranks of the world's top traders with its trade volume slipping in at 10th place after a steady climb during the decades after the Korean War.

Korea's nation-building efforts have succeeded in the midst of abject poverty and scarce resources. Korea's success is unimaginable considering the ensuing adversities which have haunted it. Much talked about were the remnants of the forcible 35-year Japanese occupation, diehard ideological conflicts, national division, the Korean War, the never-ending Communist invasion threats and two rounds of global financial crises.

Korea is often mentioned as a model country which has successfully caught two birds in one shot ― a thriving economy and dynamic democracy. The essential elements of success were goal-oriented executive leadership, a highly-educated bureaucracy and a hardworking labor force. The glue binding them together was a can-do spirit inveterate among people along with an ethic that calls for parental efforts for child education and workers' sacrifice.

In particular, efficient but strong executive leadership has enabled primary national undertakings to have been solved promptly and boldly. Extraordinary circumstances, typified by the twin menaces of Communist invasion and poverty, needed extraordinary measures to surmount the obstacles. South Korean leadership has been president-centric with the presidency always at the apex of the executive establishment, which has often called for popular unity in the face of numerous trials and adversities.

Founder of the Republic

Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) was a crusader for independence. He was a warrior against Japan's occupation and Communism. He was the first president of the modern Republic of Korea born upon the end of hundreds of years of the kingly rule. His life was kaleidoscopic, living through turbulent decades, from the fall of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), through the Japanese occupation, division of the Korean Peninsula, and the Korean War.

He played a decisive role in Korea's independence from Japan and in founding the Republic in the midst of social confusion caused by ideological conflicts, defending the country from continuing external threats, and rebuilding the nation. Rhee was born in a rural village in the western central province of Hwanghae on March 26, 1875, to a devout Buddhist family which had an aristocratic heritage but little wealth. Through his teenage education at Baejae Methodist School in Seoul and academic achievements at higher learning institutions overseas, Rhee absorbed Western ideas on freedom, justice and equality. He earned a B.A. degree from George Washington University, an M.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Princeton.

Rhee's top priority was placed on keeping liberal democracy and a market economy and beefing up security postures through consolidating defense ties with the United States, a primary ally to Korea. Korea's continued economic prosperity was made possible under the U.S.' unswerving defense commitment to the Republic of Korea through the presence of American troops in the South. Security negotiations between the superpower, the U.S., and a war-torn weak country, Korea, were not easy in the face of strong objections from Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, and Secretary of State Acheson. The historic Mutual Defense Treaty with the U.S. was concluded after the armistice with the North in 1953. Highlighting the pact was the expansion of the South Korean army to twenty divisions and the offer of American aid to the war-devastated Korea. The Korea-U.S. security arrangement was surely a diplomatic coup for Rhee who employed his unique strategy of "bluffing and brinkmanship or absolute submission." (Kim Choong-nam, ``The Korean Presidents'')

For his uncompromising bargaining stance, Rhee was rapped as being "self-egoistic," "highly emotional," "unpredictable," and "obstinate." The presence of American troops in South Korea under the bilateral defense treaty was the main pillar in deterring North Korean invasion, which has ultimately guaranteed the stability needed for rapid economic growth and democratic development. Another salient achievement under Rhee's governance was the proclamation of the so-called "Peace Line" (also known as the "Rhee Line") on Jan. 18, 1952, which extended the marine sovereignty of the Republic of Korea to 200 miles off the Korean coast. The goal of the Peace Line aimed to protect marine resources off Korean waters and gain an upper hand in the fishery talks with its neighbor, Japan.

Rhee conducted the land reform which made it possible for peasants to own the farmland they tilled. Land reform, based on the enactment of Land Redistribution Law promulgated on June 22, 1949 before the onset of the Korean War, entirely reshaped the farmland ownership system. The land distribution prompted a free market system.

An impressive change came in the schooling system, which called, above all, for a unified structure connecting the different levels. Korea still maintains a single-track system that insures that every citizen can receive elementary, secondary and tertiary education without discrimination and according to his or her ability. The backbone of the school education system was the compulsory implementation of six free years of education for all elementary school students. The practice of mandatory elementary schooling contributed a lot to reducing the illiteracy rate among Koreans. All in all, without Rhee's strong anti-Communist and indomitable diplomacy, Korea's survival would be questionable. His charismatic leadership glittered in crisis.

Architect of Modern Korea

Park Chung-hee (1917-1979) was a standard-bearer for Korea's industrialization. He was the builder of modern Korea. He had an unusually strong sense of history. He had a great vision called the "modernization of the fatherland" and promoted the exported-oriented industrialization of Korea, which lacks in natural resources.

Park Chung-hee was born on Nov. 14, 1917, in a small village, 60 miles northwest of Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province. He was the youngest child among five boys and two girls of an impoverished farming family. After graduation from Daegu Normal School in 1937, he became a teacher at a small primary school near Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang Province.

His military career began in Manchuria and continued in the Korean Army, being promoted to major general at the time of the coup in 1961, which made him the ruler of Korea. Korea became an economic powerhouse and a dynamic democracy in a single generation under never-ending social disturbances.

President Park launched an ambitious "New Village Movement (Saemaul Undong)" to develop the countryside areas which had remained the lands of poverty. Park himself mingled with farmers in the rice paddies and drank Korean rice wine (makgeolli) with them, wearing a straw hat. Visible first and foremost in the Saemaul Undong was the elimination of centuries-old thatched roofs that dotted the rural areas and had been the symbol of Korea's poverty and their replacement with concrete tiles and metal structures.

Saemaul Undong is based on the spirit of "self-reliance," "self-help" and "mutual cooperation" which Park hoped would lead to a popular "spiritual revolution" for advancing industrialization. A massive facelift was under way for bridges, roads, dikes, wells, reservoirs and irrigation facilities. As a result of Saemaul Undong, farming households were mostly electrified and televisions were installed for seven years (1972-1979). A most valuable lesson learned from Saemaul Undong was the cultivating of the "can-do" spirit and restoration of self-confidence, which has remained a driving force for uplifting Korea to a prosperous state. Saemaul Undong was surely a milestone in the modernization of Korea.

Another stimulus which prompted the industrialization was the construction of the Seoul-Busan Expressway, a symbol of Park's long-dreamed-of modernization aimed at achieving "A Miracle on the Han River." Park got the idea for the cross-country highway from German Chancellor Erhard during his 1964 visit to West Germany. Park traveled from Bonn to Cologne on the autobahn. During his 160-kilometer per hour drive, Park twice stopped the car and asked about details related to its civil engineering works.

The 428-km route, linking Seoul, the capital of Korea, with the largest port city of Busan, was opened to traffic on June 27, 1970. The construction which took two years and five months is seen as the largest civil engineering project ever launched in Korean history. The successful construction of the expressway gave the Korean people a new confidence they could do whatever they wanted. (Park Chung-hee, ``To Build a Nation''). The route, often called "the bloodline of the Korean transportation system," transformed Korea's entire socio-economic structure and was a tangible product of the so-called ``Korean Miracle'' which accelerated the advancement of its heavy industries such as steel and automobiles.

Korea and Japan signed a Treaty on Basic Relations on June 22, 1965, normalizing diplomatic relations between the neighboring countries. The bilateral normalization injected fresh air into promoting economic cooperation and exchanges in all sectors. A tangible change was the activation of Korea's takeover of Japan's advanced technologies and management skills through increased Japanese training of Korean workers. The bilateral normalization remains a great boon to the Korean development.

Under Park's governance, the Korean economy made phenomenal progress, growing at an annual rate of 9.6 percent, with heavy industry accounting for 70 percent of total output. Korea became an industrial power and a model for third world countries. Korea's gross national product (GNP) grew 27 times from $2.3 billion in 1962 to $62.7 billion by 1979 when he died, pushing up the average personal income from $87 to $1,640 during this period.

The South's economic superiority over the North helped the South gain an upper hand in the inter-Korean relations, which in turn led to the declaration of a historic South-North Joint Communique on July 4, 1972, under which the two Koreas agreed on a package of epochal measures to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and work for peaceful reunification. The July 4 South-North Communique still remains a basis for inter-Korean relations.

By the end of the 1970s, South Korea had become the number one third-world exporter of manufactured goods to developed countries. The rapid industrialization brought about an advancement of the nation's self-defense capability which enabled Korea to produce such military hardware as rifles, machine guns, tanks, helicopters and other tactical weapons.

During Park's presidency, Korea nearly topped the world's growth charts. Park's nation-building strategy has become a textbook for development among other developing nations. South Korea and Japan are listed as two Asian countries which have succeeded in achieving political democratization and economic prosperity from war devastation. In surveys conducted over the last decades, Park Chung-hee was listed as the "greatest president" since the birth of the Republic, receiving the votes of more than two-thirds of those polled across age and generation. For Park Chung-hee, politics was not the art of the possible but the art of will.

Peaceful Power Transfer

Park's successor Chun Doo-hwan (1931-) paved a solid groundwork for a stable transition of government. Graduating from Daegu Technical High School, he was admitted into the Korean Military Academy which had been the basis for his decades-long military career. Chun rose to power after the assassination of Park Chung-hee on Oct. 26, 1979. While Chun was in office, Korea achieved its first-ever surplus in the balance of international payment for three successive years from 1986.

Korea won the bid to host the Olympic Games in 1988. The 1988 Seoul Olympics provided an occasion to upgrade Korea's standing in the international community, contributing to expanding trade and exchanges in all sectors. The Seoul Olympics stood out as a benchmark event in upping economic growth and improving relations with socialist nations.

Chun attached great importance to utilizing economic technocrats and think tanks. Kim Jae-ik and Sakong Il, then senior presidential secretaries for economy, were among noted mentors. Chun instituted a newly-revised constitution which limited the presidency to a single-term, an attempt to keep the prolonged rule by a single man at bay.

The single-term principle is still in effect, with the term reduced to five years from the initially-proposed seven years in the course of constitutional modifications.

Northern Policy

Northern Policy blossomed after Roh Tae-woo (born in 1932) took office in succession to his military peer Chun. Roh had a similar military career to his predecessor Chun's. He entered the military academy and spent the whole of his career in the military before becoming president. The successful hosting of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games was a major accomplishment for Roh. After the Olympics, Roh boldly pursued the Northern Policy, normalizing diplomatic relations with most of the then-socialist countries.

Forerunners in Democratization

Kim Young-sam (born 1927) was a fighter for democratization. Kim spent his entire political career as a National Assemblyman and a democratic fighter against the military rule before being elected the country's first civilian president in 1993. One of the noticeable things Kim had done was the implementation of the real-name financial transaction system, requiring all financial dealers to use their real names. The use of real-name transactions has contributed to making economic activities transparent. Kim depoliticized the military through massive purges of politically-oriented officers and intelligence agents.

At the end of his presidency, Kim's administration suffered a serious shortage of foreign exchange in 1997-98 during which the Korean economy was on the brink of collapse. Korea was forced to seek bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Kim turned the debt-ridden country over to his successor Kim Dae-jung.

Kim Dae-jung (1926-2008) was a champion of inter-Korean reconciliation. The word "first" is often used to describe former President Kim Dae-jung. Kim was the first Korean president elected from the opposition party in 50 years of modern Korean politics. Kim Dae-jung, survivor of assassination attempts, imprisonment, a death sentence and exile, was the first Korean to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kim's "Sunshine Policy," a policy of reconciliation, is regarded as a bold initiative to ameliorate relations with the stubborn North which has posed a serious threat to South Korea. Kim assumed the presidency in the whirlwind of a financial crisis. Taking over the foreign debt-ridden country, Kim succeeded in leading Korea out of IMF management.

Kim's appeasement policy culminated in the first-ever inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in June, 2000. Kim was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his life-long democratization drive and inter-Korean peace efforts.

Kim Dae-jung's successor Roh Moo-hyun (1946~2008) was an advocate of popular participation. Roh was a self-taught labor activist and human rights lawyer before becoming a National Assemblyman and subsequently, the president. Born on the basis of popular participation, the Roh administration endeavored to dismantle the old authoritarian structure dominated by bureaucratic elites, corporate power and the rich.

Among attempts made along his policy line was the decentralization of administrative mechanisms, balanced regional development, alleviation of the gap between the rich and the poor and expansion of welfare for those in the low-income bracket. A large portion of Roh's unfinished radical programs have been halted or handed over to his successor Lee Myung-bak, whose administration has been seeking a pragmatic line entirely based on efficiency.

CEO of Korea Inc.

Lee Myung-bak (born 1941) is not a politician. He is not a career military man. He has neither a political nor a military background. He is a company worker. He is a salesman. He is now becoming the CEO of Korea Inc. who "sells Korea" overseas. Lee's marketing activities reached a peak when Korea was picked to host a G-20 (Group of 20 economies) summit.

Seoul's hosting of a G-20 will be a crucial opportunity to promote its potential of becoming an advanced country. The significance of Seoul's G-20 hosting is much more in the view that Korea is the first country from outside the ranks of the G-8 group of advanced economies to chair the event. President Lee said in a 2010 World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos that "Korea is well-placed to share its experiences and expertise with emerging and developing countries on strategies for development and on policies for successful recovery from financial crises." The G-20 summit will be the largest global forum ever to be held in Seoul, drawing more than 10,000 participants, including the leaders of more than 20 countries and heads of major international organizations.

Another surprise in Lee's sales efforts was Korea's winning of a $20 billion contract to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates in a fierce competition among the world's most advanced countries such as the United States, France, and Japan. The contract is the largest energy deal awarded in the Middle East, marking Korea's first nuclear technology export since its first commercial nuclear plant construction in 1978. The lucrative deal is considered as Lee's diplomatic triumph which was made possible through his sophisticated behind-the-scenes contacts with UAE's royal leadership. The untold large-scale project will no doubt lay the firm foundation for Korea's speedy advance into the profitable atomic market.

Lee's rise to power was made possible on the rising popularity of the citizens who gave much of their backing for the successful restoration of Cheonggye Stream, which runs through the central streets of Seoul. The Cheonggyecheon project, conducted while Lee was in Seoul's mayoral office, is an icon of the businessman-turned-president who has spent the whole of his life with Hyundai Group's construction unit, a builder of the Seoul-Busan Express Highway.

The Cheonggyecheon project, which initially faced strong objections from tens of thousands of street shop owners, has become a textbook for foreign countries that have tried to refurbish their metropolitan streets and rivers. The street restoration, which has made Seoul cleaner and greener, has served to set off what is called the "Green Revolution," now emerging as a new growth engine. The restoration of the 5.84-km Cheonggye Stream is a man-made marvel. Lee has done marvels in the face of a sea of adversities.

The Cheonggyecheon restoration is regarded as one of the exemplars of urban river development. The smooth settlement of bargaining with the owners of small shops along the stream is seen as a success story of tortuous negotiations between the government and recalcitrant merchants. After graduating from Korea University with a degree in business administration, Lee joined Hyundai Engineering and Construction as an entry-level employee. His hard-working style, his determination and limitless creativity all led him to be promoted through the ranks and he became CEO of the company after only 12 years, making him one of the youngest CEOs at that time. His pioneering manner and adventurism led him to become the "CEO of Korea Inc." His legacy as CEO is still ongoing.