A History of Korea (93 page)

After their defeat in the presidential election, the major opposition parties soon regained strength and, together, elected more candidates than the government party in the National Assembly elections held on 26 April 1988. In accordance with the new election law, the total seats elected directly from local districts increased from two-thirds to three-fourths. Each local constituency elected one lawmaker rather than the previous two, and the number of election districts more than doubled. Half the at-large proportional representation seats were given to whichever party elected the largest number of candidates, and the remaining seats were distributed to other parties in proportion to their elected numbers.

The new election law worked to the opposition’s advantage. Roh’s Democratic Justice Party elected 125 of 299 seats, with 34.0 percent of the popular vote; Kim Dae-jung’s Peace and Democracy Party won 70 seats, with 19.3 percent of the vote; Kim Young-sam’s Reunification Democratic Party won 59 seats, with 23.8 percent of the vote; and Kim Jong-pil’s New Democratic Republican Party won 35 seats, with 11.7 percent of the vote. The discrepancy between the elected numbers and the percentages of the popular vote for the two main opposition parties indicated that Kim Dae-jung secured greater regional loyalty in his home district than did Kim Young-sam.

As the three opposition parties combined were a majority, the National Assembly asserted itself as an autonomous legislature. Shortly after the National Assembly went into session, the opposition parties joined forces to elect the Speaker of the National Assembly. They also influenced Roh’s appointment of a new Chief Justice. The legislature exercised its restored powers of inspection and investigation without reserve, and in June 1988 it created special panels to review illegal activities that occurred in the Fifth Republic, the Kwangju incident, perceived election fraud, controversial laws, and regional rivalry.

In early 1988, immediately upon Chun’s retirement from the presidency, stories of corruption and dictatorial excesses under his regime began surfacing. Many key members of his administration and even members of his family were convicted of criminal charges related to corruption and sentenced to prison terms. On 23 November 1988 Chun officially apologized to the populace for the abuses of his administration and, with his wife, began a two-year, self-imposed exile at the remote Paektam-sa temple in the mountains of Kangw
ŏ
n province. The parliamentary opposition held televised legislative hearings on the abuses of the Fifth Republic, which reached its peak on 31 December 1989 when Chun admitted to a degree of responsibility for the scandals in his Fifth Republic.

Meanwhile, South Korea hosted the 24th Summer Olympics from 17 September to 2 October 1988, and it was a great success. For South Koreans, who had been preparing for the event for many years, the Seoul Olympics was far more than a sports festival; it was an opportunity to show the world that their country was no longer a poverty-stricken war victim but a modern, increasingly prosperous nation. The games in Seoul signaled South Korea’s rise to prominence and maturity as a regional power in East Asia, especially as they were attended by athletes from the Soviet Union, China, and the communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, all North Korea’s allies, which was a major embarrassment for North Korea. For South Korea, on the other hand, the Olympics provided momentum for the nation to accommodate to the communist world and was also a source of enormous national pride as South Korea took its place on the world stage.

The democratic political system of the Sixth Republic, meanwhile, was faced with the popular demand for more freedom and participation. Professional associations and interest groups, long under the state’s domination, began to strive for more autonomy. University teachers, journalists, and lawyers organized their efforts and became increasingly outspoken on political issues. The major business conglomerates, the chaeb
ŏ
l, sought a greater role in making economic policy. Farmers’ associations, which had traditionally been little more than mechanisms for passing along government policies to farmers, began to proliferate and protest the government’s liberal trade measures. At the fringes of politics, an extremist wing of the leftist student movement turned to sporadic violence in the late 1980s, including dozens of assaults against government offices, commercial establishments, police stations, and U.S. diplomatic and cultural facilities.

President Roh could not cope with the conflicting demands of newly emerging interest groups, mainly because of structural defects in his presidency. Because the three opposition parties commanded the majority in the National Assembly, Roh was politically powerless. Kim Young-sam was also in a political crisis and needed to join forces with Roh Tae-woo to effectively control the political situation. Kim’s Reunification Democratic Party was the third largest party after Roh’s Democratic Justice Party and Kim Dae-jung’s Peace and Democracy Party. On 22 January 1990 three of the four major political parties announced a merger, creating the Democratic Liberal Party (
DLP
), which was reminiscent of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The
DLP
was designed to secure a majority (219 seats) of the National Assembly for Roh and to isolate
Kim Dae-jung from other major political forces for Kim Young-sam. Kim Jong-pil dreamed of the first prime minister through a constitutional amendment seeking a parliamentary system. Despite the ostensible justification that it increased political stability, the
DLP
was the product of a marriage of convenience between the three political leaders. In the end Kim Young-sam turned out to be the biggest winner, as he tirelessly maneuvered himself into the presidency, succeeding Roh in late February 1993.

During the Roh years the movement to local autonomy began, and on 26 March 1991 local elections were held for the second time in 30 years to elect representatives to provincial, city, county, district, and metropolitan area assemblies. The ruling Democratic Liberal Party won a plurality of seats.

The South Korean electorate became increasingly critical of the giant
DLP
, especially the chronic intraparty rivalry, and in the 24 March 1992 National Assembly elections, the
DLP
suffered a crushing defeat, losing 71 seats. Candidates from the Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil factions suffered a major blow, with the
DLP
recovering a bare majority only by absorbing several members who had run as independents. Kim Dae-jung’s Peace and Democracy Party greatly enhanced its position, winning 98 seats. The independents obtained 21 seats, and 31 candidates were elected from the newly formed Reunification National Party under the leadership of Ch
ŏ
ng Chu-y
ŏ
ng, founder and patriarch of the Hyundai Group. Although his support base was seriously eroded, Kim Young-sam was finally endorsed as the
DLP
presidential candidate, and on 18 December 1992 Kim won the presidency with 42 percent of the vote. His rival, Kim Dae-jung, gained 33.8 percent, and Ch
ŏ
ng Chu-y
ŏ
ng won 16 percent. With Kim’s election to the presidency, the rule by former military strongmen completely ended.

Many South Koreans who preferred strong leadership were tired of Roh’s passive guidance. His indecisiveness had earned him the derisive title of “Mul Tae-woo,” or Wishy-Washy Tae-woo. In fact, he intentionally assumed a low-profile presidency, explaining that his philosophy of life was to live flexibly, like water. He gained this wisdom, apparently, working as Chun Doo-hwan’s number-two man for the previous 40 years. His conclusion, it seems, was that it was better to do nothing than to exercise leadership rashly and make fatal mistakes, especially given that South Korean society was simmering under the heat of democratization. The result was that the government under his presidency drifted aimlessly.

Although it initiated the new Sixth Republic, the Roh Tae-woo presidency was indeed a transitional administration, moving from past military dictator-ships
toward true democracy. Thus his Sixth Republic was often called the “Fifth-and-a-Half-Republic.” A typical Fifth Republic man, Roh was closely identified with the preceding Chun regime. Having seized power after the June resistance that ended military-backed authoritarianism and set South Korea on the path to democracy, Roh was in an awkward position between the two incompatible political ideologies and institutions. He had also been elected to the presidency with less than majority support, and thus he was unable to exercise effective leadership to cope with the volatile situation. Forced to come to terms with seasoned civilian political leaders for his survival, he chose to follow public opinion rather than lead it, and so the public correctly saw him as indecisive and weak.

Still, the achievements of the Roh administration were significant. There was no reversion to authoritarian rule, and the investigation of past abuses of power, though incomplete, eventually resulted, in 1995, in the public humiliation and imprisonment of both Chun and Roh himself. Also notable was his aggressive pursuit of better relations with socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, which recognized the Republic of Korea in 1990, and China, which recognized it in 1992. This policy of
nordpolitik,
the effort to improve relations with communist countries, appeared to move North–South Korean relations into a new phase of negotiations, raising hopes for progress toward reunification.

In the 1970s the Park Chung-hee government further intensified its industrialization drive, and the Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan (1972–1976) achieved rapid progress in building an export-oriented structure. After the plan was successfully completed, South Korea initiated the Fourth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (1977–1981) to foster the development of industries capable of competing in the world’s industrial export market. During the period of the Third and Fourth Five-Year Plans, Park pushed ahead with his ambitious Heavy and Chemical Industries Promotion Plan, a massive program to build six strategic industries—iron and steel, shipbuilding, chemicals, electronics, nonferrous metals, and machinery. Initiated in late 1971 and formally announced in January 1973, the plan was intended to enhance Park’s political legitimacy and cope with the perilous security environment on the Korean peninsula. Park viewed the North Korean military buildup with apprehension
and had little confidence in U.S. security commitments. The Heavy and Chemical Industries Promotion Plan constituted the core of South Korean economic policy during the 1970s and became the foundation of South Korea’s later success in the automobile, shipbuilding, and electronics industries.
⁹
The completion of the P’ohang Integrated Steel Works in July 1973, the Y
ŏ
ch’
ŏ
n Petrochemical Industrial Complex in May 1978, and the Kori Atomic Power Plant in July 1978 typified the development of South Korea’s heavy and chemical industries in the 1970s.

Also in the 1970s South Korea developed an export-driven economy to the point where exports accounted for as much as one-third of its
GDP
. Despite the first oil shock in 1973, South Korea established an export record of $10 billion in December 1977. South Korea also sought foreign loans and investment for its economic development, and by the late 1970s the country emerged as one of the largest debtor nations in the world.

The greatly increased
GDP
and per-capita income in this period rapidly improved material conditions and social stability for a populace that had long suffered from poverty, inflation, stagnation, and uncertainty. Annual per-capita income shot up from $94 in 1960 to more than $1,000 in 1976. This progress far outweighed the burden of authoritarian control in the popular mind. At the same time, however, rapid economic growth produced the rise of the corporate-conglomerate, or chaeb
ŏ
l, economic structure, widespread corruption resulting from cozy connections between government and business, and increasingly unequal income distribution.

As industrialization speedily progressed, large and ever more diversified business conglomerates, aided by the government, drove the South Korean economy. This cooperative effort between the government and chaeb
ŏ
l leaders was urgently needed to turn the economy away from consumer goods and light industries and toward heavy, chemical, and import-substitution industries. In return for their responsiveness to regulatory authorities, chaeb
ŏ
l leaders received various privileges from the government that enabled them to amass great wealth. As time went on, they became involved in an increasingly corrupt system where large sums of money, extracted from big businesses, found their way into the pockets of influential politicians and administrators who often used the money for further influence peddling. The chaeb
ŏ
l-led industrialization also accelerated the monopolistic and oligopolistic concentration of capital and profits in the hands of a limited number of corporate conglomerates.

Park’s policy of partiality for big businesses harmed small- and mediumsized businesses that produced many basic items for daily consumption including food, clothing, and household goods, and also exported soft toys, textiles, garments, wigs, and footwear. Despite their enormous contributions to the national economy, these smaller businesses were disadvantaged by their weak capitalization and continual risk of bankruptcy. They were also vulnerable in their dealings with larger corporations which controlled the national economy. Their fierce competition with one another, moreover, reduced their profit margins to a minimum.
¹⁰

As the South Korean economy rapidly expanded and changed from an agrarian to an industrialized economy, unequal income distribution grew increasingly serious. The Park government attempted to ease the urban-rural gap in income by, for instance, the so-called New Village Movement.