A History of Korea (103 page)

On 23 May 2009 Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide by jumping off a cliff near his retirement home in Kimhae, South Ky
ŏ
ngsang province, apparently driven to the desperate act by humiliating bribery allegations. Being the first former president to end his life at his own hands, Roh’s death was a shock and tragedy to the country. The subject of Roh’s culpability was put aside and overwhelmed by the sadness over his dramatic death. Immediately after his death, the prosecution decided to end investigations into the corruption case. His supporters directed much of their ire at the prosecution and pro-government conservative media who had relentlessly pursued accusations of corruption against Roh and his family. Many accused the incumbent president of having orchestrated the investigation, an allegation that could become a political liability for him. On the other hand, Roh’s opponents criticized him for his irresponsibility in taking the bribery scandal to his grave or even committing suicide as a tactical maneuver.

Roh’s suicide plunged South Korean politics into deep uncertainty and aroused strong resistance to President Lee. His suicide reignited the fight between two competing political visions. On 10 June 2009, in commemoration of the 1987 pro-democracy movement, tens of thousands of people, defying a police ban, joined a massive rally in central Seoul, criticizing the incumbent administration of backtracking on democracy and demanding an apology over Roh’s death.

Meanwhile President Lee’s approval ratings soared, mainly thanks to his centrist, worker-friendly policies, a faster than expected economic recovery, and South Korea’s hosting of the G20 Summit to be held in 2010. In June 2009 Lee decided to strengthen the ranks of centrists. His centrist policies stressed welfare for low-income people, thereby enhancing the country’s social stability. South Korea has probably been the only country among the G20 nations where the outdated left-right standoff continued. Moreover, the “progressives” and “conservatives” did not clash over modern-day policies but over how to view the country’s history, most seriously the question of how to deal with North Korea.

Despite Lee’s increasing popularity, however, the legislative by-elections, on 28 October 2009, ended in the Grand National Party’s defeat. The ruling party won in two electoral districts out of the five that were open. The opposition
Democratic Party took three constituencies, including two fiercely contested constituencies close to Seoul, which attested to voters’ desire to keep the powerful ruling party in check. The
GNP
controlled 169 seats in the 299-seat National Assembly against the Democratic Party’s 86 seats. The election results emboldened the opposition to step up its fight against the Lee administration.

Just one day after the by-elections, on 29 October, the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Media Reform Bill was welcomed by the ruling camp. Judges declared as legally valid the National Assembly’s passage on 22 July 2009 of a series of bills aimed at providing easier access to broadcast markets by conglomerates and newspaper publishers. The court ruling gave the green light for one of the major reform drives of President Lee and his Grand National Party. But the ruling camp met with much stronger opposition to its remaining key policies, including the revision of the “Sejong administrative city plan” and the refurbishment of four major rivers.

Initiated by former president Roh Moo-hyun as an election campaign pledge in 2002, the Sejong City project, named after the Chos
ŏ
n king Sejong (1418– 1450), called for moving nine ministries and four government agencies to the newly built administrative town of Sejong, South Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng province, some 160 kilometers south of Seoul. The project was designed outwardly to promote balanced regional development, but in reality it resulted from Roh’s political calculation that it would be of great appeal to the Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng people. The National Assembly passed a special bill on the construction of Sejong City in 2005, with the then opposition Grand National Party voting for the bill in a political gesture so as not to lose the support of the “neutral” Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng region.

Since its inauguration in February 2008, however, the Lee administration looked to downsize the relocation project on the grounds that a regional division of the government was inefficient. Lee sought to revise the bill to keep the offices in Seoul and, as an alternative, to transform the envisioned town into a self-sufficient, multifunctional industrial city. On 27 November 2009, in a nationally televised town hall meeting, President Lee apologized for breaking his promise made during the 2007 presidential campaign to support the administrative city project, and he said that he would seek an alternative development plan for the sake of the country’s future.

But here Lee faced a crucial test of his leadership. Opposition parties, as well as the Park Geun-hye faction within the ruling party, vowed to block his plan to revise the Sejong City project, and the opposition mounted street demonstrations to block Lee’s revision plan. Park had already raised opposition to Lee’s
proposal, declaring that a revision would hurt public trust in the
GNP
. Her real intention, however, was to hold onto the support of the Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng region in the next presidential election to be held in 2012. It was practically impossible for the
GNP
-controlled National Assembly to approve a revision bill without Park’s support.

In January 2010 the Lee government officially scrapped the original plan to move government agencies to Sejong City and announced that instead it would turn the new city into a business, science, and education hub in close partnership with the country’s leading conglomerates. It planned to submit a bill on the revision for parliamentary approval. Finally, after the ruling party suffered a huge defeat in local elections held on 2 June 2010, in which the Sejong City development was a major issue, President Lee asked the National Assembly to decide on the fate of his alternative plan for Sejong City. In the elections, residents of the Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng provinces, where Sejong City is located, voted against
GNP
candidates, and, as expected, on 29 June 2010 the legislature voted down the revision bill by a vote of 164 to 105, with 6 abstentions, dealing Lee a major blow. Some 50 Park Geun-hye followers in the governing party cast nay votes, deepening the factional feud within the ruling party. This legislative action ended months of exhausting political wrangling and a serious division of public opinion over Sejong City. The result was a major setback for the Lee government’s push for other major projects, such as the four-river refurbishment project; a key item on President Lee’s policy agenda, the river plan was expected to become the next big issue on the political scene.

Opposition parties and civic groups regarded the project to clean up the four major rivers—the Han, Y
ŏ
ngsan, K
ŭ
m, and Naktong—and develop their basin areas as a disguised prelude to President Lee’s main campaign pledge to build a cross-country canal, which he had surrendered following objections by a majority of the people. Lee’s opponents urged the government to channel the project’s budget to other urgent tasks to create jobs and help poor households. Nevertheless, in late November 2009, as part of its green growth campaign, the Lee administration started the contentious project, at an estimated cost of 22.2 trillion w
ŏ
n (U.S.$19.1 billion), with plans to complete it in 2012 .

Just before the fate of Sejong City was to come to a vote, local elections were held on 2 June 2010. In the elections, the main opposition Democratic Party defeated the ruling Grand National Party, winning seven metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial posts while the
GNP
secured six. The splinter Liberty Forward Party captured one metropolitan mayoral post, and two pro–Democratic
Party independents seized two provincial governorships. Democratic Party dominance was also clear in the elections for 228 chiefs of smaller administrative districts; the opposition party won 92 seats, and the
GNP
secured 82. The independents and candidates from minor parties took 38; the Liberty Forward Party, 13; and the Democratic Labor Party, 3.

Conducted in the second half of the Lee administration, the local elections were seen as a midterm referendum on the performance of the incumbent government. Because the vote in the local elections was largely a warning to Lee to rethink his future policies, he had no choice but to reconsider his agenda and pledge to review his policy priorities and make a fresh start.

Amid President Lee increasingly losing the public’s confidence, by-elections were held throughout the country on 26 October 2011. In the Seoul mayoral by-election, pan-opposition candidate, a civic activist, comfortably defeated the ruling party contender. This election for Seoul mayor carried two significant political implications. First, it was the first major poll that the electorate cast ballots by their “economic class.” The voters in their 20s to 40s, the nation’s demographic pillar, wanted more stable, if not affluent, lives. Bound by anger and angst, they overwhelmingly supported the opposition bloc’s sole candidate. Second, the election of the civic activist brought civic groups into the political arena, raising both expectations and concerns. All in all, the by-election reflected the electorate’s frustration with the political establishment and hunger for broad political reforms. It also could signal a paradigm shift in South Korean politics, with generational rift tearing down ideological confrontation and regional rivalry.

After the Seoul mayoral by-election, the ruling Grand National Party was put to the test as to whether it would be able to put itself on the path to its former glory or run adrift until shipwrecked. On the other hand, the victorious opposition merged to form the Democratic Unity Party, on 15 January 2012, as the main opposition party with intent to defeat the government party in the upcoming parliamentary and president polls scheduled to be held in 2012.

For the past 20 years, South Korean democracy has been in full bloom to such an extent that public opinion functions as a crucial determinant for major political parties’ presidential candidates. The nongovernmental organizations work actively to promote the welfare of the people, including economic justice, anti-corruption in the public sectors, and environmental protection. These civic groups, both conservative and progressive, become a major source for each administration to look out for talent. The two decades witnessed the
coming of two conservative and two progressive administrations. Presently, in South Korean society, the conservatives and progressives are well balanced in strength.

Before the financial crisis of 1997–1998, South Korea’s annual growth rate in
GNP
was still high. As of 1994, tertiary industries accounted for 52 percent of the total
GNP
, secondary industries took up 40 percent, and primary industries amounted to only 8 percent. The South Korean economy had already followed the pattern of the developed nations. Mainly because of import liberalization in the early 1990s, however, the international current account showed an increasing trade deficit. As a result, cumulative foreign debt steadily increased.

As the nation took its place among the world’s developed countries, South Korea made a bid for admission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (
OECD
), the “club” of the world’s advanced economies, in July 1996. Five months later South Korea became a member of the “
OECD
club.”

Although it was one of only two Asian members of the
OECD
, South Korea was hit by a sudden and severe financial crisis in late 1997. In November the financial crisis that had begun in Thailand and Indonesia spread without warning to South Korea. By the end of the year South Korea’s currency, the w
ŏ
n, had lost some two-thirds of its value against the U.S. dollar as foreign investors fled the country, and the value of securities on its stock market had also plunged. To save its troubled and insolvent economy, South Korea sought an
IMF
bailout amounting to $57 billion in loans in return for the implementation of some painful neoliberal economic reform, including restructuring the corporate sector that produced mass unemployment.

The Asian financial crisis was a terrible wake-up call for the South Korean economy, as the “
IMF
crisis” proved that the old state-led development strategy no longer worked. From 1998 on, the South Korean economy struggled to find the path to recovery. As a result, the
GDP
continued to grow at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent, exports of manufactured goods more than doubled, and the restructuring of the corporate and banking sectors was rewarded. All these changes caused the South Korean economy to recover from the unprecedented crisis and maintain the pace of its economic growth in the early 2000s.

After the financial and economic crisis, South Koreans underwent drastic changes in their lives. Most South Koreans worried about their jobs, housing, child rearing, education, and retirement. In particular, while the idea of “life-long employment” was ebbing, “self-development” and “personal asset management” emerged as topics of conversation. Feelings of anxiety, mistrust, and helplessness became increasingly prevalent among the populace. The percentage of people who felt that their quality of life had improved in terms of making a living, social security and health services had dropped remarkably. With the income gap ever widening, the proportion of people who identified themselves with the middle class decreased from 41 percent in 1996 to 28 percent in 2007.

In the 2000s the symbolic center of South Korea’s economic gravity shifted from heavy manufacturing to high-tech production and innovation, with the development of leading-edge information technology and telecommunication services. South Korea’s success story began when the nation was hit by the financial crisis. The South Korean government turned to the high-tech industry as a solution to overcome the crisis. As a result, South Korea has become the most wired nation in the world. Samsung’s efforts to supercede Sony’s role as a leader in consumer technology highlighted the image of high-tech South Korea, where broadband penetration and mobile phone usage ranked among the world leaders. Indeed, South Korea’s large conglomerates, including Samsung, LG, SK, and Hyundai, poured significant resources into ensuring their long-term competitive advantage. South Koreans used their domestic market as a stepping stone into the world. South Korea’s information technology sector accounted for exports of $75 billion in 2004. Broadband was a new market with new demand for modems, routers, servers, and computers, as well as a new infrastructure. South Korea has proceeded to change over to wireless broadband, Wi-Bro, and it has also had digital multimedia broadcasting.