World Country Fact-book 2022

By Lee Sun-ho

A dictionary-like annual publication I perused last year is entitled “World Country Fact-book (WCF).” The 521-page handbook was published on Dec. 24, 2021 by the Export-Import Bank of Korea. It helps interested readers review their knowledge and outlooks for comprehensive country studies, with respect to the bygone, current and perspective vicissitudes of ever-transforming human communities at-large. The WCF let me count the number of different countries around the world, whether united or divided, that have formed while I have been alive, estimated roughly at 83.

The WCF data covers 215 countries with general features and socio-economic changes by continent, and common figures for 206 countries are comparatively shown for GDP ranking purposes. The number of countries on the globe depends on versatile computing standards. The latest world map covers 237 nations, while the World Bank publishes data for 229 countries. The United Nations has 193 member nations, whereas South Korea has diplomatic ties with 191 countries at the moment. Statistics Korea counts 234 trading partners for exports, while Korea's National Intelligence Service deals with 235 counterparts.

Looking through the pages of the WCF, I realized that there exist 30 absolute monarchies in the present world. However, there are others, as the example of Great Britain reveals, where the political system is a constitutional monarchy, the queen's throne is largely ceremonial and formal, and where actual political power is exercised by others. Among them, Brunei, Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, and additionally Myanmar, are the officially declared four non-democratic countries.

Through the publication I came to know that there exist around 86 democratic nations among the 113 countries in which the population is over one million, which advocate for “freedom” or “democracy.” Among the population-rich countries, India (1,390 million, 2nd), the United States (330 million, 3rd) and Indonesia (270 million, 4th) belong to the democratic nations. China (1.420 million, 1st), Pakistan (225 million, 6th), Nigeria (210 million, 7th) and Russia (150 million, 9th) are classified as partially freedom-seeking countries. South Korea records 70.6 points out of 100, by ranking 34th of the selected 86 free-democracy countries. My attention goes to the fact that among those free democratic well-to-do nations, of which the per capita GNI exceeds $30,000, South Korea ($33.790) belongs to the G7, following the United States ($65,990), Germany ($48,580), France ($42,450), Great Britain ($42,220), Japan ($41,710) and Italy ($34,530).

Even though North Korea is excluded from the WCF list, and the Korean Peninsula has, for over seven decades immediately after the ceasefire of World War II, been divided into two armistice-confronted hostile regimes, it is notable for me to confirm that three long-separated countries other than the Koreas were reunited over a decade and a half during the late 20th century. They are, chronologically, the Vietnam reunification on July 2, 1976, after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 (the South merged into the North), Yemeni unification on May 22, 1990 (the South united with the North), and finally German reunification on October 3, 1990 (the East was incorporated into the West).

The WCF indexes some encouraging aspects of South Korea's path toward the sustainable advancement of a nation able to overcome many difficulties as a freedom-seeking democratic country. With the world's greatest number of export-market counterparts, totaling 234 countries, I earnestly hope South Korea retains its top-ranking status in diverse spheres of social and economic achievement, with globally popular K-pop groups like BTS, international tournament-sweeping LPGA winners, oil refineries, electronics, IT, cars, shipbuilding and thoroughgoing technology-intensive industrial output ― all under its competitive political and economic system that aims simultaneously at a market economy and a free democracy.

The writer (kexim2@unitel.co.kr) is a freelance columnist living in Seoul.