South Korea in Crisis: Danger or Opportunity?

SOUTH KOREA IN CRISIS:___ DANGER OR OPPORTUNITY? Bruce Cumings ijouth Korea is now in the fifth year of a political-economic crisis. This crisis has four dimensions: economic structure, political regime, international environment, and elite-mass relations. Within each dimension, there is a key problem: in the economy, sluggish exports amid a huge debt burden; in the polity, heightened authoritarianism with diminished legitimacy; in the world at large, troubles with old allies and antagonists as well as with new suitors and potential friends; and between elite and mass, a new mood that is least apparent and yet may be the worst of the problems. It is in the nature of a crisis of this sort, i.e., one involving fundamentals, that it will not be obvious to everyone. In fact, it sometimes seems that it is not obvious to anyone, judging from the typical commentary on Korea found in much of our media. And, it is true, more complacent analysts can adduce events and statistics that point toward a rosy future for South Korea. For two years the economy has grown at a rate of about 6 percent, no mean feat amid the general stagnation of the world economy. For a year, since March 1982, the polity has been stable and the regime seems to have loosened up in certain respects—for example, by releasing dissident democrat Kim Dae Jung from prison. Recent visits by Secretary of State George P. Schultz and by Japanese Premier Yasuhiro Nakaso.ne indicated that serious problems between Seoul and Washington, and between Seoul and Tokyo, have been Bruce Cumings is associate professor of international studies at the University of Washington. He is author of The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence ofSeparate Regimes, 1945—1947 (Princeton University Press, 1981), and editor of Child of Conflict: The Korean-American Relationship, 1945—53 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983). The author wishes to thank James B. Palais and Thomas Ferguson for their comments. 71 72 SAIS REVIEW overcome. Nor has there been a repetition of the mass violence that occurred in 1979 and 1980. So, in early 1983 all would seem to be well. Of course, in 1978, after thirteen years of rapid growth and with Park Chung Hee apparently in full control, such analysts would not have foreseen, and did not foresee, the eruption that was just around the corner. One way to reconcile a fundamental crisis with the current appearance of business-as-usual is to remember what a crisis means. The term has by now become almost too hackneyed to use, but a crisis implies both danger and opportunity. Furthermore, it is impossible to say with certainty which aspect will out. South Korea is, and has been for five years, on the knife-edge of danger and opportunity. At issue in the economic realm is whether Korea will move to a more advantageous position in the world economy, or stand still and, therefore, fall back in its all-out competition with the other members of the Pacific Rim's "gang of four," especially Taiwan. At stake in the political realm is the stabilization of the new regime by President Chun Doo Hwan. Democratization is necessary to give representation in the polity to rising and growing groups and classes (this is another way of asking if Chun can succeed where Park failed). Although South Korea cannot remedy the crisis in the international realm, it is no less real: Can South Korea expect the strategic configuration of the past three decades to hold indefinitely? I believe it cannot. Finally, can the least legitimate of South Korea's three important republics—the current regime—find a noncoercive way to convince the mass of Koreans that it is the appropriate government to rule them? Each of the four dimensions of the Korean crisis will be taken up in order. But before getting to that, we should consider a handful of recent anecdotes that I take to be more important than current statistics on economic performance or rosy claims by South Korean publicists. Last summer a group of American scholars noted for their close ties to Seoul had an audience with Chun Doo Hwan...