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Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject: Korea Records Asia's Lowest GDP Growth |
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Korea Records Asia's Lowest GDP Growth
Korea's quarterly GDP growth rate increased from 2.7 percent in the first quarter to 3.3 percent in the second quarter and 4.4 percent in the third. But that was still far lower than that of China, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, the BOK said Friday. Korea has been suffering from 3-4 percent growth since 2003 while its Asian neighbors have continued to post steep economic growth rates ranging from 6 to 9 percent.
Chosun Ilbo (December 9, 2005)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200512/200512090006.html |
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lastat06513
Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Location: Sensus amo Caesar , etiamnunc victus amo uni plebian
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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Gee....I kinda' wonder why this is happening....
Could it be....
alot of the anti-foreign regulatory measures being passed into laws?
Doesn't Korea know (nor care that) such laws can hurt foreign investment, thus hurt other sectors of the local economy?
I guess it is a simple case of "live and learn" |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| They have the lowest population growth in the world as well. Surely that is playing a much larger role. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| The biggest factor is that Korea is no longer an emerging "tiger economy." It is a global economic power in its own right comparable to some of the bigger EU countries. Korea's economy is starting to reach the point where the huge growth rates of previous decades are no longer sustainable. It is reaching its peak, so growth rates have flattened out. Now it will just keep ticking along with 1 - 3% growth rates. The British economy for example is never likely to see a growth rate of 8% again unless there are some huge untapped oil reserves in the Yorskshire moors we don't know about. |
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patchy
Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:29 am Post subject: |
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It's because the economy is based on Park Jung Heeism. This was all predictable and was predicted some time ago when the Japanese economy started to go shaky.
Park Jung Hee was a fool, and so were the other dictators: they thought they could command-style the economy - make it into a copy of Japan's, by throwing a lot of tax money and foreign loan money into various companies of their friends and make enormous chaebols, like the Japanese equivalents, kereitsu, and then squash labor unions and drive the people as slaves with no rights to make the products and build up these companies 'to conquer' the world.
It worked in a short-term way like many things, but its inevitable doom was built in as China and other countries like India and Vietnam had the potential to go down the same road as Korea, and they have; and their workers are a lot cheaper than Korea's.
Koreans should have realized this - oh, about twenty years ago when everything they bought was "Made in China" - that the writing was on the wall - that they simply couldn't compete in this plane (manufacturing cheap products) with the massive populations of India and China and the 'more hungry' people of Vietnam, who will work for less.
Before the financial crisis hit, Koreans became more prosperous and their expectations grew and rightly they demanded more money and a higher standard of living.
These other Asian countries and India will catch up technologically - it's only a matter of time - just like the Koreans 'caught up' back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Too bad, they lost the chance to do anything about their economic structure (regardless of Hwang's breakthroughs) and they are paying the dividend for their mistakes, like supporting Park Chung Hee.
You could even say North Korea has a brighter future than South Korea in many ways: their workforce seems more disciplined than South Koreans, they have a "hungry" mentality like the communist Chinese and Vietnamese that the S. Koreans lost a long time ago. They have a sense of unity too that the cynical South Koreans lost a long time ago when they first sold out to their Japanese overlords and then to the Americans - the North Koreans never sold out - they never sold out to the Japanese, well the resistance fighters and their supporters never did anyway, and then they also stood their ground against the biggest superpower in the world, the USA, too, during the Korean War and are still standing up to them (a tiny rocky scrabble-poor country that had just emerged from a barely sustainable existence under the Japanese and fighting them too from the fringes of their country). So they have earned their nation's birthright you can say, whether you agree with communism or not.
And unlike the Japanese, South Koreans have never reached the status in the west that the Japanese have, which Japan can use to its advantage though many of its economic woes are similar.
And unlike countries like Canada, Australia and a few European countries, S Korea is poor in natural resources and is relatively overpopulated and the middle class has gotten the taste of the good living - it ain't going to be easy to get them to go back to the days of old when life was hard - when there was no such thing as cellphones, cars, PCs, or videos.
Wait for it - as Korean society busts at the seams - there will be some kind of anarchy - collapse is inevitable as the economic collapse of the late 90s was and the coming collapse is.
But countries like the US won't stick around - the US's eyes are on China and India - Korea is old business - no longer a place to invest its money in - in fact it's the other way around - Korea invests a lot of money in western countries by sending people there to become educated and hopefully migrate there and 'leave a burning ship' so to speak.
In a freer society, that the US helped to snuff out with its imposition of dictators and its control of Korean politics in other ways ever since its arrival on Korean soil, things may have been different as another style of economy most likely would have evolved - as usually happens when there is decentralization and relaxation on expression of thought and ideas - perhaps some innovative industries might have been created to take place of those chaebols - many creative individual-run small companies finding niches in the world market and driving the economy - and a social support system to buffer the people who fall through the cracks - but none of that has really eventuated with perhaps the exception of the Korean Wave, bringing in a few extra hundred billion won - but how long is the Korean Wave going to last? ... not forever, I bet. And the social support is far from being a reality despite Roh's socialist leanings - nationalizing health and so on (which actually subsidizes the middle class and the rich reducing the help the government could give to the truly needy and less fortunate - the disabled, the orphans and the like).
Koreans keep 'reaping' the results of Park Chung Hee's short-term policies over and over again - helped by the self-interested promotion of the US of these policies ... but ultimately Koreans need to do something about it themselves - and raging against MBC for exposing Hwang's crookedness is not going to cut it - in fact it makes things worse - it keeps the Koreans chasing the false dreams of a 'great Korea' and delays their rendevous with reality.
Sad, and yes, the Americans are involved in the causation of these problems, and so are the Japanese too, for invading Korea in the first place, but harping on that is not going to change things - because frankly the Americans and Japanese have got problems of their own, and their 'friendship' with South Korea was always for their self-interest and nothing more - that they have got their use out of Korea .. who cares if Korea is heading for economic collapse? ... their interest is elsewhere, their self-interests have shifted and although S. Korea is still a little relevant, especially with regards to the North Korean issue, S. Korea is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things for them.
Growth of the economy through increasing its population is never going to work as the country is relatively tiny as it is (it is one of the most densely populated nations on earth) and resource-poor - it might work in big countries like the US, Russia, Australia, Canada, but the fallout in Korea from pursuing this another short-term policy - the lack of land, pollution, congestion in cities, the decreased quality of life for everyone - puts a cap on this. The cap will also be reached in those other countries too but it takes a lot longer in these than it does in Korea.
Already the environmental disasters and damage predicted for China in the wake of its industrialization are already in stark evidence (the recent toxic spill into the drinking water of millions of Chinese to cite one situation).
Korea did not become the country it aspired to become - a high-tech society running on its exports of electronic products a la Japan; the Chinese are taking over this role and the Japanese are still holding onto its edge in certain areas, even though its products are still more expensive than Koreans'. The Koreans have not earned a reputation for quality and innovation that the Japanese have so they cannot use this when competing with the Chinese.
That's why the pinning of the hopes on the stem-cell research. But even if this had proceeded well without scandal - how much difference could that have made to the economy anyway? And then the rottenness of Korean society, the corruption, the blind nationalism only got exposed to the world with these recent revelations - diminishing the country's reputation even further.
But the rich never suffer, they just shift their operations offshore and offer the jobs to the lowest bidders - but the middle class and below them will suffer - and in a great way in the near future.
Last edited by patchy on Sun Dec 11, 2005 6:06 am; edited 5 times in total |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:59 am Post subject: |
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| I've heard about these alternate realities being predicted by quantum physics. But I'm always surprised how it easy it is to find people living in them right here on Dave's. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| patchy wrote: |
It's because the economy is based on Park Jung Heeism. This was all predictable and was predicted some time ago when the Japanese economy started to go shaky.
Park Jung Hee was a fool, and so were the other dictators: they thought they could command-style the economy - make it into a copy of Japan's, by throwing a lot of tax money and foreign loan money into various companies of their friends and make enormous chaebols, like the Japanese equivalents, kereitsu, and then squash labor unions and drive the people as slaves with no rights to make the products and build up these companies 'to conquer' the world.
It worked in a short-term way like many things, but its inevitable doom was built in as China and other countries like India and Vietnam had the potential to go down the same road as Korea, and they have; and their workers are a lot cheaper than Korea's.
Koreans should have realized this - oh, about twenty years ago when everything they bought was "Made in China" - that the writing was on the wall - that they simply couldn't compete in this plane (manufacturing cheap products) with the massive populations of India and China and the 'more hungry' people of Vietnam, who will work for less.
Before the financial crisis hit, Koreans became more prosperous and their expectations grew and rightly they demanded more money and a higher standard of living.
These other Asian countries and India will catch up technologically - it's only a matter of time - just like the Koreans 'caught up' back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Too bad, they lost the chance to do anything about their economic structure (regardless of Hwang's breakthroughs) and they are paying the dividend for their mistakes, like supporting Park Chung Hee.
You could even say North Korea has a brighter future than South Korea in many ways: their workforce seems more disciplined than South Koreans, they have a "hungry" mentality like the communist Chinese and Vietnamese that the S. Koreans lost a long time ago. They have a sense of unity too that the cynical South Koreans lost a long time ago when they first sold out to their Japanese overlords and then to the Americans - the North Koreans never sold out - they never sold out to the Japanese, well the resistance fighters and their supporters never did anyway, and then they also stood their ground against the biggest superpower in the world, the USA, too, during the Korean War and are still standing up to them (a tiny rocky scrabble-poor country that had just emerged from a barely sustainable existence under the Japanese and fighting them too from the fringes of their country). So they have earned their nation's birthright you can say, whether you agree with communism or not.
And unlike the Japanese, South Koreans have never reached the status in the west that the Japanese have, which Japan can use to its advantage though many of its economic woes are similar.
And unlike countries like Canada, Australia and a few European countries, S Korea is poor in natural resources and is relatively overpopulated and the middle class has gotten the taste of the good living - it ain't going to be easy to get them to go back to the days of old when life was hard - when there was no such thing as cellphones, cars, PCs, or videos.
Wait for it - as Korean society busts at the seams - there will be some kind of anarchy - collapse is inevitable as the economic collapse of the late 90s was and the coming collapse is.
But countries like the US won't stick around - the US's eyes are on China and India - Korea is old business - no longer a place to invest its money in - in fact it's the other way around - Korea invests a lot of money in western countries by sending people there to become educated and hopefully migrate there and 'leave a burning ship' so to speak.
In a freer society, that the US helped to snuff out with its imposition of dictators and its control of Korean politics in other ways ever since its arrival on Korean soil, things may have been different as another style of economy most likely would have evolved - as usually happens when there is decentralization and relaxation on expression of thought and ideas - perhaps some innovative industries might have been created to take place of those chaebols - many creative individual-run small companies finding niches in the world market and driving the economy - and a social support system to buffer the people who fall through the cracks - but none of that has really eventuated with perhaps the exception of the Korean Wave, bringing in a few extra hundred billion won - but how long is the Korean Wave going to last? ... not forever, I bet. And the social support is far from being a reality despite Roh's socialist leanings - nationalizing health and so on (which actually subsidizes the middle class and the rich reducing the help the government could give to the truly needy and less fortunate - the disabled, the orphans and the like).
Koreans keep 'reaping' the results of Park Chung Hee's short-term policies over and over again - helped by the self-interested promotion of the US of these policies ... but ultimately Koreans need to do something about it themselves - and raging against MBC for exposing Hwang's crookedness is not going to cut it - in fact it makes things worse - it keeps the Koreans chasing the false dreams of a 'great Korea' and delays their rendevous with reality.
Sad, and yes, the Americans are involved in the causation of these problems, and so are the Japanese too, for invading Korea in the first place, but harping on that is not going to change things - because frankly the Americans and Japanese have got problems of their own, and their 'friendship' with South Korea was always for their self-interest and nothing more - that they have got their use out of Korea .. who cares if Korea is heading for economic collapse? ... their interest is elsewhere, their self-interests have shifted and although S. Korea is still a little relevant, especially with regards to the North Korean issue, S. Korea is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things for them.
Growth of the economy through increasing its population is never going to work as the country is relatively tiny as it is (it is one of the most densely populated nations on earth) and resource-poor - it might work in big countries like the US, Russia, Australia, Canada, but the fallout in Korea from pursuing this another short-term policy - the lack of land, pollution, congestion in cities, the decreased quality of life for everyone - puts a cap on this. The cap will also be reached in those other countries too but it takes a lot longer in these than it does in Korea.
Already the environmental disasters and damage predicted for China in the wake of its industrialization are already in stark evidence (the recent toxic spill into the drinking water of millions of Chinese to cite one situation).
Korea did not become the country it aspired to become - a high-tech society running on its exports of electronic products a la Japan; the Chinese are taking over this role and the Japanese are still holding onto its edge in certain areas, even though its products are still more expensive than Koreans'. The Koreans have not earned a reputation for quality and innovation that the Japanese have so they cannot use this when competing with the Chinese.
That's why the pinning of the hopes on the stem-cell research. But even if this had proceeded well without scandal - how much difference could that have made to the economy anyway? And then the rottenness of Korean society, the corruption, the blind nationalism only got exposed to the world with these recent revelations - diminishing the country's reputation even further.
But the rich never suffer, they just shift their operations offshore and offer the jobs to the lowest bidders - but the middle class and below them will suffer - and in a great way in the near future. |
wtf? |
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Pyongshin Sangja
Joined: 20 Apr 2003
Location: I love baby!
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| Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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Park was a lot of things: thug, tyrant, militarist, a real dictator.
But I don't think you can really call him a fool. |
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I_Am_Wrong
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: whatever
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| Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:54 am Post subject: |
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| He lost me when he said that North Korea has a brighter future than South Korea. More disciplined workforce...GREAT....too bad they're lucky to get half a bowl of rice a day to eat. |
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patchy
Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 2:46 am Post subject: |
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| Pyongshin Sangja wrote: |
Park was a lot of things: thug, tyrant, militarist, a real dictator.
But I don't think you can really call him a fool. |
Why not?
He was a fool because he did many foolish things which he, in his arrogance, thought were good things for South Korea.
He betrayed the dignity of all Koreans by accepting the paltry sum of 60 million dollars as Japan's reparations for the harm it had done its citizens (and that's why the Japanese government ignore the comfort women, they feel they don't owe anything to the Koreans, they feel they discharged their debts a long time ago when Park was president).
He made Seoul the ugly and overcrowded city it is today - concrete over everything, including rivers and streams - that was Park's grand idea. Also the depopulating of the countryside with one-quarter of the nation's population squashed inside of Seoul (with the horrible pollution masking everything in gray grime).
I've already talked about the economic problems, above.
In fact, Park rather looked down on the Chinese - Koreans' prejudice against the Chinese began in Park's era - many laws discriminating against them began back then - and now look where the Koreans are now - Samsung trying to open subsidiaries in China, people going to Chinese language classes .....
But then Park thought the sun rose and set with the US and Japan .....
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| He lost me when he said that North Korea has a brighter future than South Korea. More disciplined workforce...GREAT....too bad they're lucky to get half a bowl of rice a day to eat. |
China at one time was starving - millions died in the famines of the 60s - and many people would have laughed at you if you had said you can see them becoming an economic power back then ...
(Which doesn't mean to say I think China is going in the right direction now .... but anyway ....)
North Koreans have achieved so much as a small country without the many years of industrialization that are behind many western countries and Japan. They produce many of their own weapons and even export them to other countries.... And they didn't have capitalism to fund this industry. You can make fun of juche but the North Koreans have proven capable of taking care of themselves despite the embargoes imposed by the US; imagine what they could do if they really adopted free trade/enterprise like the Chinese have ... and with all the talk about unification and how the South is going to be the one to bear all the costs a la German unification - you shouldn't forget one crucial thing - the North Koreans are a very proud people - they chose communism, they chose sovereignty unlike the South Koreans who chose to be a lapdog - twice - first to the Japanese, and then to the Americans. The North Koreans are no freeloaders of the South - it's not in their character - that's exactly why they chose the hard road - the one that meant they were hunted down like dogs - first by the Japanese - for not wanting to be Japanese slaves, then by the US - for daring to be communist and running their own country. These people do not know the meaning of compromise unlike the Southerners - and that's why NK has for its presidents a patriot who fought against the Japanese, and his son; and why the South has had for a president and a presidential candidate, an ex-officer of the Japanese army, and his daughter (now leader of the Opposition, the Grand National Party - a very nationalistic party - she was the one who said she was going to donate eggs for Hwang's research when the MBC story first broke out, and she was one of the people who attacked MBC for reporting this story).
If you've only relied on the western press like the CNN or Fox News etc as your source of information about North Korea, it's natural for you to be incredulous whenever you hear anything positive about North Korea. But if you go beyond that and read a wide variety of authors who have written about Korea (Bruce Cumings is the best western author in this regard), including its history, as well as checking out sources on the net, various publications and other media, you will have a less biased picture about North Korea and a better understanding of North Koreans and come to respect them (I hope) as well. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| He betrayed the dignity of all Koreans by accepting the paltry sum of 60 million dollars as Japan's reparations for the harm it had done its citizens |
Actually it's more like 10 times that amount, in a combination of straight cash and loans. The money was used to build the Seoul-Busan highway which was a big key to the South's economic growth. The government kept it secret until just a few years ago, preferring to let everbody think it was blood money paid for Korea's involvement in Vietnam. It was wrong to have done it secretly with no chance for open debate among the people but considering how well the money was used I don't think you can call it foolish.
And I don't think you can say anything meaningful about the choices of the North Korean people when they can be executed or sent to the gulags for dissenting even a hair. The Soviets, after all, put Kim Il-sung in charge, not the people. There was never a free and fair election to choose him. |
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Shooter McGavin
Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Location: ROK
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 4:58 am Post subject: |
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| patchy wrote: |
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| He lost me when he said that North Korea has a brighter future than South Korea. More disciplined workforce...GREAT....too bad they're lucky to get half a bowl of rice a day to eat. |
China at one time was starving - millions died in the famines of the 60s - and many people would have laughed at you if you had said you can see them becoming an economic power back then ...
(Which doesn't mean to say I think China is going in the right direction now .... but anyway ....)
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Uh no, you can't make the comparison between China, the USSR and North Korea. North Korea simply does not have the manpower to pursue a Stalinist developmental problem. They lack the natural resources as well. Sure, they built a great deal of infrastructure when they were forced to start over after the war. But as I mentioned in another thread, you can build all the railroads, subways, power stations and buildings in the world, but if you lack fuel and people to run them, it's utterly pointless, which is why the North Korean economy is in limbo.
And to say that the North never sold out is revisionist history. Kim had to ask the Soviets if he could invade in 1950, because he was worried Stalin would cut the money off. The North basically only survived because it sold out to the USSR and Red China. Unlike the South, however, one of its patrons fell apart, and the other one began to see it as a waste of time. It chose the losing side, and now they have to suffer the consequences of their actions.
And wtf is with all the North Korea love in these forums? It's seriously like there's a d*mn love in happening for the Kims. To all you communist sympathizers remember the immortal words of JFK:
"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us." There might not be a wall that's as symbolic as the Berlin Wall in North Korea, but just think about what happens to those who try to leave, and the lengths that some people will go to to get the heck out of the North. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| the North Koreans are a very proud people - they chose communism, they chose sovereignty |
No, the Kim dynasty chose communism (or their own brand of it), and they chose to isolate their country from the rest of the world. The ordinary North Koreans, have little choice whatsoever in how their country is run, or indeed, whether they will have enough food to eat this winter.
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| that's why NK has for its presidents a patriot who fought against the Japanese |
Yes, he did fight against the Japanese. Does this mean he was uniquely qualified to run the country unopposed, or to exile his enemies to gulags, or to appoint his playboy son as his heir. If Kim Il Sung was such a patriot, why did he give his son a Russian name, Yura. Of course, nobody in North Korea knows this, just as most of them believe he was born on Mt. Peakdu and not Russia. Just as many of them do not know about the army of 'pleasure corps', young girls recruited to satisfy the sexual whims of the Kims, surely one of the most sickening regimes in history. What wonderful patriots, able to enjoy the finest North Korean virgins and the most luxuriant food in the world, while their people live in abject material poverty, denied the most basic of human rights. Thanks, but I'll take the former Japanese army officer.
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| imagine what they could do if they really adopted free trade/enterprise like the Chinese have |
But they won't because they would have to jettison the entire ideology that the regime has been built on. It would be a tacit admission that the South's way of doing things is correct, and it would eventually lead to reunification under a capitalist democratic system.
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| The North Koreans are no freeloaders of the South |
Which is why they are glad to accept millions of dollars every year from Seoul, Tokyo and Washington because their failed economic system cannot provide their people with the basics of life.
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| It's because the economy is based on Park Jung Heeism. This was all predictable and was predicted some time ago when the Japanese economy started to go shaky. |
If the economy does run into trouble, then it will do what all such countries, including Japan, have done. Initiate reforms to boost economic growth. Reform of the economic structure is far more likely in a democratic, capitalist economy like South Korea, than in North Korea. Plenty of economies are having trouble at the moment, and S.Korea is no different. The idea that North Korea has a brighter future than the South marks you out as not only ideologically biased, since you are basing this belief on the fact that they did not 'sell out', but economically illiterate.
Your assessment that South Korea, one of the largest economies in the world is heading for grinding poverty, is like much of what you have said, absurd and tainted by your anti-capitalist nonsense. |
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patchy
Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 7:01 am Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| Quote: |
| He betrayed the dignity of all Koreans by accepting the paltry sum of 60 million dollars as Japan's reparations for the harm it had done its citizens |
Actually it's more like 10 times that amount, in a combination of straight cash and loans. |
Anyway, whatever it was, it was much smaller than what should have been paid. Compare with reparations being paid to Israel by Germany which are still being paid.
http://countrystudies.us/south-korea/17.htm
| Quote: |
| Park settled for a fraction of the "reparations" earlier demanded by Rhee, and Japanese fishermen were given access to South Korean waters outside of the three-mile territorial limit (Rhee had prohibited Japanese fishermen from coming any closer than the medial line between Japan and Korea). Under the treaty, the Japanese government was to provide the capital necessary for an industrialization program and to open up ever-increasing loans, investments (both public and private), and trade. The treaty normalizing relations was denounced as a sellout by the opposition and the intellectuals and touched off prolonged, widespread student demonstrations. |
| Quote: |
| The money was used to build the Seoul-Busan highway which was a big key to the South's economic growth. The government kept it secret until just a few years ago, preferring to let everbody think it was blood money paid for Korea's involvement in Vietnam. It was wrong to have done it secretly with no chance for open debate among the people but considering how well the money was used I don't think you can call it foolish. |
It was no secret that Park sold out Korea by accepting the less-than-adequate sum the Japanese paid the Koreans. The money wasn't just used to build the Seoul-Busan Highway ~ it was also used to 'build' the chaebols - and look at how straitjacketed the economy is now - it depends on the success and failure of just a handful of companies. Park thought he was the best person to decide how the money would go - to his cronies - he didn't let the people decide - and look at the result now - short-term success followed by economic collapse - which Korea's barely recovering from, just as it heads into another one.
I'm not surprised they built the highway to Busan. The political right seem to favor people from this region - maybe this is an example of a type of regional cronyism - who knows?
Perhaps the Americans here who think Park was such a good economist should invite someone of the same caliber, like his daughter, over to the US to advise them on how to run their economy, and their politics as well. Dictatorship and crony capitalism was good enough for Korea, it should be good enough for the Americans too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chunghee
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Park was born in Gumi, a small town in North Gyeongsang province near Daegu. Park graduated from the Japanese Manchurian military academy in 1944. Park had served the Kwangtung Army, part of the Imperial Japanese Army, in Manchuria in operations against Korean independence fighters who opposed Japan's colonization of Korea.
In the aftermath of Japan's defeat in World War II, Park joined leftists in the American occupation zone, which later became South Korea. Park partook in a rebellion led by units of the new American-supported army and was sentenced to death by the local Korean authorities. Park escaped death by striking a deal in which he offered up the names of his leftist comrades to the anti-communist southern Korean authorities. |
The Koreans joining in Vietnam was Park's idea too. He was full of great ideas.
| Quote: |
| And I don't think you can say anything meaningful about the choices of the North Korean people when they can be executed or sent to the gulags for dissenting even a hair. The Soviets, after all, put Kim Il-sung in charge, not the people. There was never a free and fair election to choose him. |
So were the South Koreans for going against Park (and the other dictators chosen by the USA).
You can say the same about South Korea. Just substitute Kim Il Sung (who actually had a lot of popular support because he was considered a national hero - a famous resistance fighter against the Japanese) for Syngman Rhee (whom nobody liked ~ he was more American than Korean and had spent a lot of the Japanese occupation in the USA leading a comfortable life). They were throwing many people into jail or just shooting them dead in the South because they were suspected of being communists ~ I wouldn't call that a climate of free and fair elections at all ~ not when the Americans were actively supporting the Korean (puppet) government in a massacre of people in Jeju Island at the time.
If the North Koreans had free elections, I would be quite confident Kim Il Sung would have been a front candidate and would have had a good chance of winning ~ there was no blemish on his record unlike Rhee ~ he had fought the Japanese ever since he was a teenager ~ he had more right to lead Korea than Rhee did.
And besides, the Soviets were the only ones (apart from the communist Chinese) helping the North Korean guerillas ('terrorists' nowadays) fight the Japanese. The USA actually attacked these North Korean guerillas at one point in time, before Pearl Harbor, because they didn't want the Koreans to win their war of resistance against the Japanese. The North Koreans had no problems accepting the Soviets into their country after the Japanese left - the Soviets had been their brothers in fighting the common enemy. Besides, the Soviets left soon after unlike the Americans who are still here 'til this day.
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| Uh no, you can't make the comparison between China, the USSR and North Korea. North Korea simply does not have the manpower to pursue a Stalinist developmental problem. |
I don't know what you're trying to say here. I think if little Vietnam with its much smaller population relative to China can become a producer like China, I don't see why North Koreans can't ... and they have been ~ until they were hit by floods and drought and the loss of the Soviets as an economic partner.
For many decades up until the 90s (when those things - floods etc happened), North Korea was doing quite well for itself - even better than some countries which run on purely capitalist principles (including South Korea, which had to be rescued from mass starvation in the 60s and then bailed out from financial collapse in the 90s) - in manufacturing, agriculture and so on - it was the double knock-out of being hit by natural disasters and the withdrawal of its main trading partner that forced North Korea to become the country you see featured so often in the news media today.
Before then it was a completely different story.
And you've got to remember that after the Japanese left, the North Koreans chose on the whole to turn communist - whether they agreed with the economic principles of communism or not wasn't important in their eyes - all they knew was that it was communists who had decided to fight the Japanese - communists were the people who helped get their country back - the Americans helped by blowing up Japan but they only entered the war after Pearl Harbor - before then, they were the same as the Japanese, capitalist imperialists. Communism had given them hope. And communism was better than the old order that they were used to where the king had absolute rule, and the powerful landlords, mostly of the yangban class, treated the rest of the population like serfs. Communism was like a breath of fresh air - it promised to wipe out the old order, redistribute the land, redistribute everything. That's why they fought so bitterly hard in the Korean War - a small country weakened by years of harsh Japanese occupation - facing a superpower (a superpower even Japan could not stand up to) and practically half the world (the UN), and still managing to hang onto their country by the end of it - because they believed in what they were fighting for (communism and sovereignty to them by that point were one and the same.
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| They lack the natural resources as well. Sure, they built a great deal of infrastructure when they were forced to start over after the war. But as I mentioned in another thread, you can build all the railroads, subways, power stations and buildings in the world, but if you lack fuel and people to run them, it's utterly pointless, which is why the North Korean economy is in limbo. |
South Korea lacks resources as well. Don't know what you're talking about here.
North Korea isn't the only country whose economy is in limbo, and you really can't compare North Korea's economy with the USA's or similar because North Korea is a communist country - they don't measure success by how much money they have in the bank, they measure success by other measures - they haven't done at all well by those measures lately but they're getting better - you can imagine how many South Koreans would have starved to death in the 60s if they had been dropped by all their allies, they faced embargoes AND they had to counter a national security threat at the same time in the form of the biggest superpower building nuclear arsenals against them and making threats about preemptive strikes against them.
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| And to say that the North never sold out is revisionist history. Kim had to ask the Soviets if he could invade in 1950, because he was worried Stalin would cut the money off. |
I don't know that asking an ally if they will support you in a war is 'selling out'. The North Koreans felt the Soviets were their allies because they had helped them get their country back at a time when nobody had given a damn (except for the Chinese). The Soviets and the Chinese helped out the North Koreans because they wanted to help other people free themselves of imperialism because as communists, imperialism was bad. The North Koreans were therefore attracted to the philosophy of communism and ended up adopting it.
I think Kim asked Stalin for 'permission' because if the Soviets were not going to support the war the North Koreans had less chance of succeeding, not because he was worried the 'money would be cut off'.
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| The North basically only survived because it sold out to the USSR and Red China. |
I think you are misusing the word 'sold out'. The USSR and China were supporters of North Korea but the relationship wasn't all one way. North Korea manufactured things and 'sold' them to these countries. There were other types of exchange between these countries. The USSR and China never took occupied South Korea like the Japanese did, or even the USA, so I don't see where the 'selling out' fits.
Even now, China wants North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons but North Korea doesn't listen to them - can you imagine the uproar if South Korea decided to build nukes without the US's permission?
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| Unlike the South, however, one of its patrons fell apart, and the other one began to see it as a waste of time. It chose the losing side, and now they have to suffer the consequences of their actions. |
The North Koreans 'chose' the side they felt they should be loyal to - the side that had given them succour during the long years of the occupation, the countries that had given them a base for their operations, that had fed and sheltered them and had provided them with logistics support (although by no means a smooth relationship - many ups and downs, many betrayals and misunderstandings - if you read the history) when they had lost their country to the Japanese and they were fighting to get it back.
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| And wtf is with all the North Korea love in these forums? It's seriously like there's a d*mn love in happening for the Kims. |
I don't think there is a lot of 'love' like you're saying ~ it's the opposite, the number of 'hate' posts outnumber the 'love' posts.
It's not 'love' anyway ~ it's an attempt to understand what made them become like that, and the more you read about the North Koreans, what happened during the occupation, the resistance movement during the occupation, the respective roles of the South and the North during the occupation, the roles of the communist Chinese and the Soviets, the more you understand why the country became like that ~ and admire the gritty resolve of the people, people like Kim Il Sung and his band of patriots who lived unimaginably horrid lives during the occupation ~ and it was because they made the choice to do so - to choose the side that would fight the Japanese, instead of taking the more comfortable path of least resistance that in general characterized the South.
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remember the immortal words of JFK:
"Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us." There might not be a wall that's as symbolic as the Berlin Wall in North Korea, but just think about what happens to those who try to leave, and the lengths that some people will go to to get the heck out of the North. |
JFK - wasn't he the guy who was going to blow up the Bay of Pigs, and the same one who wanted to start the war in Vietnam? |
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Shooter McGavin
Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Location: ROK
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| Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:34 am Post subject: |
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| patchy wrote: |
For many decades up until the 90s (when those things - floods etc happened), North Korea was doing quite well for itself - even better than some countries which run on purely capitalist principles (including South Korea, which had to be rescued from mass starvation in the 60s and then bailed out from financial collapse in the 90s) - in manufacturing, agriculture and so on - it was the double knock-out of being hit by natural disasters and the withdrawal of its main trading partner that forced North Korea to become the country you see featured so often in the news media today. |
I will grant you that the North outpaced the South until about the mid 1960's, when the economy essentially stagnated due to an excessive proportion of the GDP going to the military, and lack of manpower. Gulags enabled the construction of the infrastructure required to rebuild the country. Slave labour provided by dissidents built the North Korea of today. No system built in such a fashion is worthwhile. And this particular system failed, and I will argue that it was due to a lack of manpower, as there simply aren't enough North Koreans to maintain their armed forces at the current level, and still operate industry and grow food. And I would really love to see your sources that illustrate the North Korean dynamo for "decades" after the Korean War, as opposed to the single decade that I've seen in most literature on the topic.
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And you've got to remember that after the Japanese left, the North Koreans chose on the whole to turn communist. |
If having the Soviet's install Kim il-Sung equates choice, then the American installation of Rhee must qualify as an equal choice.
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Communism was like a breath of fresh air - it promised to wipe out the old order, redistribute the land, redistribute everything. That's why they fought so bitterly hard in the Korean War - a small country weakened by years of harsh Japanese occupation - facing a superpower (a superpower even Japan could not stand up to) and practically half the world (the UN), and still managing to hang onto their country by the end of it - because they believed in what they were fighting for (communism and sovereignty to them by that point were one and the same. |
Um no. They didn't lose their country because the Chinese intervened when the Northern Army had fled to the Yalu River and was basically defeated after MacArthur's brilliant landings at Incheon.
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| North Korea isn't the only country whose economy is in limbo, and you really can't compare North Korea's economy with the USA's or similar because North Korea is a communist country |
I don't seem to recall comparing NK to the US. But your argument that North Korea is "fine" considering the embargo, the military threat, the juche doctrine... it pales in comparison to Cuba, a communist country that faces similar circumstances. I will give the Cubans credit, they are probably better off today then they would be if they embraced capitalism. Communism can work, it just didn't in NK.
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| I don't know that asking an ally if they will support you in a war is 'selling out'. The North Koreans felt the Soviets were their allies because they had helped them get their country back at a time when nobody had given a damn (except for the Chinese). |
Well you apply similar logic to South Korea, which asked its ally to assist it, but which you interpret as being "imperialist forces" trying to subvert the North. I counter that communist imperialism sought to expand communist influence to another part of Asia, as a significantly stronger nation (China), intervened in the war and invaded a much weaker one (South Korea). Not to mention the significant assistance in terms of cash, arms, resources and volunteer pilots that the Soviets supplied.
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| The North Koreans 'chose' the side they felt they should be loyal to - the side that had given them succour during the long years of the occupation, the countries that had given them a base for their operations, that had fed and sheltered them and had provided them with logistics support (although by no means a smooth relationship - many ups and downs, many betrayals and misunderstandings - if you read the history) when they had lost their country to the Japanese and they were fighting to get it back. |
I agree totally with your assessment there. That side just happened to be the losing side, while the South picked the winning side. Hence the South having an economy to speak of now, and people in North Korea eating clay and tree bark just to kill the hunger pangs.
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| and admire the gritty resolve of the people, people like Kim Il Sung and his band of patriots who lived unimaginably horrid lives during the occupation |
I admire those who stand up to great evil in spite of the liklihood of harm to themselves and their families. I admire the way that both North and South Koreans opposed the Japanese tyranny. I just don't believe all that crap about Kim il-Sung the patriot. I believe the real history of Kim il-Sung, the Kim il-Sung who rode out WW2 in the Soviet Union, and only came back to the North with Soviet occupation forces in 1945 who then installed him as President. I bet you believe that Kim Jong-Il was born on Mt Paekdu and once got 13 holes in one in a game of golf. I bet you also believe that thousands of cranes came and took Kim il-Sung to paradise when he died. I personally don't buy any of those stories out of the North.
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| JFK - wasn't he the guy who was going to blow up the Bay of Pigs, and the same one who wanted to start the war in Vietnam? |
Yes he was. I never said that the Americans are perfect. Then again, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and meddled in the Somali-Ethiopian War too didn't they? I also recall some invasion of Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
I admit that the Americans were imperialistic during the Cold War. There are many examples beyond those two you listed. But the Soviets were equally imperialistic. I challenge you to see the Korean War, and Soviet and Chinese involvement in Korea for what it truly was: IMPERIALISM. |
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