A fragile "miracle"
SOUTH KOREA has often been in the news in the last year. The regime of President Chun Doo Hwan has been opposed by mass mobilizations, unprecedented since 1980 when Chun Doo Hwan was carried to power by a military coup d'etat. This put an end to
SOUTH KOREA are capable of weighing up the pros and cons of a controlled democratization of the present regime and acting on the outcome.
The character of the present crisis facing the Seoul regime and the nature of the democratic movement can be understood more clearly in the context of analysing the evolution of the country, the origins of the South Korean state and the tremendous economic growth experienced by the country in the last 25 years.
The South Korean state was born out of the partition of the country in 1945. After having suffered direct colonial rule in an extremely brutal form by Japanese imperialism since 1910, Korea found itself liberated from the colonial yoke by the defeat of the Japanese empire at the end of World War II. But the form of this liberation was largely determined by the geo-political situation of the country, in the framework of the balance of forces between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In accordance with the Yalta accords of February, 1945, and in particular the section that fixed the conditions for entry into the war of the USSR against Japan, Korea was to be occupied by Soviet troops north of the 38th parallel of latitude, and by the Americans south of this line. Combined character of the North Korean liberation
The Soviet and American interventions in Korea differed both in form and content. The Soviet troops arrived in the north in August, 1945, relying on a movement of popular resistance and on a network of popular anti-Japanese committees that were to constitute the basis of a new state apparatus after the destruction of the Japanese colonial state. Within this mass movement, the South Korean communists were only one component, even if they were to have a particular weight due to Soviet support and to the role they played in the resistance to Japanese colonialism.
In effect, from the beginning of the 1930s, the communists had led a guerrilla movement that fought against the Japanese in Korea, and following that in Manchuria, before finally being obliged to withdraw into Siberia.
The liberation of the northern part of the country, therefore, had a combined character, resulting from both the exterior intervention of the
Soviet army and a genuine mass mobilization. The state that developed out of it showed itself capable of rapidly instituting a series of national, democratic and anti-capitalist reforms.
19 a period of instability following in October 1979, who had led putsch in 1961. DAVID CAMERON DAVID CAMERON
The coming to power of Chun Doo Hwan was accompanied by the crushing of a popular uprising in the town of Kwangju by the army in May 1980, which left more than 200 dead and marked the end of the popular mobilizations of 1979-1980. Chun, like Park before him, legitimized his taking of power by adopting a constitution (approved by a referendum in 1980 with a 99.5 per cent "yes" vote), and winning the following presidential elections.
This constitution became the target for a protest campaign launched in spring 1986 by the main opposition party, the New Korean Democratic Party (NKDP). The NKDP was founded in 1984, and its two principal leaders are Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam. They demand that the constitution is revised before 1988, the end of Chun Doo Hwan's period in office, so that the president is elected directly and not by an electoral college as at present. They also attack the methods of election of the National Assembly, because of the considerable advantage it gives to the present ruling party, Chun Doo Hwan's Democratic Justice Party (DJP).
The legislative elections of 1985 saw a growth in the NKDP's audience.
On February 12 this year, the anniversary of those elections, a petition campaign was launched to change the constitution in Seoul. In the following months, a series of rallies mobilized tens of thousands of people in a series of large towns. What was striking in these demonstrations was the independent presence of the student movement that was putting forward radical slogans such as "Down with the the military dictatorship" military dictatorsmp s ', against the assassination of Park Chung-hee the country since the last military the presence of the 40,000 US soldiers in the country and for a "popular constitution".
At Inchon on May 3, 10,000 students and workers demonstrated around these themes, confronting the police for six hours. This demonstration indicated the existence of an opposition much more radical than that led by the two Kims, and which was no longer limited to the universities.
Since July, the government and the opposition had respected a truce while they tried to find a solution to the constitutional problem. These negotiations not having been successful, the NKDP has just announced a new campaign of mass rallies.
At the same time the ASEAN games were being held in Seoul from September 30 to October 5; Seoul airport was attacked on September 14 with five people killed and 31 wounded in the crowd; and the discussion around the possibility of the two Olympic games brought to the fore Koreas co-organizing the the still burning question of the partition of the country.
The student movement did not observe any truce and, during the
ASEAN games, held some of the most violent demonstrations against the government and the United States.
The situation therefore remains tense, and the future of Chun Doo
Hwan's regime far from assured.
The social forces that are pushing toward democratization in South
Korea - the working class, middle layers and students → are powerful.
But so are the obstacles. The South
Korean bourgeoisie and its state apparatus are stronger than their counterparts in the Philippines. They
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
HYUN
South Korean shipbuilding: second only to Japan (DR)
in 1948 with the creation of the Republic of Korea in the south, a very large majority of the country's political forces, right across the spectrum, opposed it. This has to be underlined for two reasons. First, because it demonstrates clearly the absence of popular support and the isolation of the Syngman Rhee regime. Second, because it helps in understanding the relations existing at the time between the opposition to the Seoul regime and the Pyongyang government in the North.
The grey and monotonous image that the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK) has today, and the grotesque personality cult around Kim Il Sung, should not be allowed to erase the achievements of this regime and the role that it played as a vehicle for the aspirations for unity of the Korean people between 1945 and 1950.
As opposed to the regime in Seoul, the one in Pyongyang was established on the basis of the destruction of tha
In the south of the country, events unfolded in an entirely different way.
The Americans only landed on September 8, 1945, six days after the capitulation of Japanese troops and two days after a national assembly of popular anti-Japanese committees had proclaimed a Korean People's
Republic in Seoul. Before the Americans arrived this new state power had already disarmed the Japanese, freed political prisoners and arrested collaborators.
The American authorities refused to recognize either this republic or the popular committees, and at once installed a military government. It was only in February 1946 that they installed a civil government under military tutelage. This was presided over by Syngman Rhee, a right-winger who returned to Korea in October 1945 in the wake of the American occupation, after having spent 39 of the 41 previous years in the United States.
Apart from Rhee himself, this government was largely composed of former collaborators of the Japanese. The apparatus of the new state in large part kept the personnel of the colonial state, notably in the repressive forces.
The American intervention therefore played no role in the country's liberation, which had already been affected by the mobilization of the Korean masses. On the contrary, the Americans refused to recognize the national assembly which resulted from this mobilization. Finally, far from destroying the apparatus of the colonial state, they used it to construct their own administration. They would show themselves to be resolutely hostile to any reunification of the country, which would have implied the disappearance 20 of the semi-colonial state that they had established. Therefore, since the beginning, the state born out of the
American intervention in Korea was anti-national and anti-popular. It was to remain marked by this origin.
The decisive period of Korean history between 1945 and 1950 is still little known, but the major developments are clear. The establishment of the semi-colonial state and its social content led to important demonstrations of popular opposition in the south, not only from the communist movement. There had been protest movements against Syngman Rhee's regime, taking the form of mass uprisings in 1946 and 1948 in favour of independence, unity of the country and for agrarian reform - a central question at a time when Korea was still essentially an agricultural country.
Tensions around the agrarian reform question grew following the radical agrarian reforms adopted in 1946 in the North. Syngman Rhee's regime reacted by systematic recourse to repression.
Thus, in August 1949, the United Nations commission on Korea pointed out that in the eight months preceding April 30, 1949, 89,710 people had been detained by virtue of the "Decree for the protection of national peace" '. Rhee's Minister of the Interior, Kim Huo Suk, who went to the North when war broke out, estimated that between 1945 and 1950, 250,000 people were killed by the regime and 600,000 imprisoned. (1) Even if he exaggerated for propaganda purposes, and in reality the figures were half of this, they remain impressive in a country which had less than 30 million inhabitants at that time.
When the country was divided country was divided on the basis of the destruction of the
Japanese colonial state apparatus, and it was composed of militants who had fought against Japanese imperialism.
The social and economic reforms of
1946 in the North, in particular the agrarian reform, exercised a considerable power of attraction over the masses in the South. The Pyongyang regime was moreover not really
"northern" •- many militants from the
South went to the North and the frontier between the two parts of the country largely stayed open until
1948.
It is therefore not surprising that the political platform of Pyongyang for the reunification of the country met with the support of the majority of political forces in the South. It is in this framework that the US decided to organize - in the zone under its control, and under cover of the United Nations - elections for a Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Korea in May 1948. This decision stirred opposition from the Indian, Australian and Canadian governments. The North Korean government, for its part, proposed the reunification of the country on the basis of free elections organized in the whole country after the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
During two conferences held in April and June 1948 in Pyongyang and Haeju, "the South Korean delegates were comprised of nearly all the eminent men of the country; with the exception of Doctor Rhee. (2) "The platform of the PDRK... got strong support from the representatives of the leaderships of the over-
1. These figures are cited by Wilfred Burchett, in Burchett, in 'A Nouveau la Coree,' Paris 1968, p. 121. MacArthur, London, 1951. 2. John Gunther, 'The Riddle 'The Riddle of
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
whelming majority of the Korean political spectrum, North and South." (3)
Here is just one example that illustrates the importance of this phenomenon and the reaction that followed on the part of Rhee. Kim Ku, an old and respected Korean patriot, a right-winger but a nationalist, presided over the provisional Korean government established during the war at Chongqing in the Chinese province of Sichuan, under the protection of the Kuomintang. He took part in the Pyongyang and Haeju conferences and called for a boycott of the May 1948 elections. Kim Ku was assassinated in a Seoul street in 1949 by a lieutenant in Rhee's army, who was never prosecuted for this crime. A number of other political personalities opposed to Rhee met the same fate, notably You Un-hyong, president of the short-lived republic of 1945, assassinated in July 1947.
When the PDRK was proclaimed in 1948, it was done by an assembly that had been elected publically in the North and clandestinely in the South. (4) War broke out in Korea in June 1950, in a context of mass resistance and governmental repression in the South; strong legitimacy for the Pyongyang government; and a war that had been simmering along the border since 1948. It started out as a civil war, aggravated by the intervention of American imperialism and later of Chinese forces.
The swift advance of the North Korean forces was only partially for military reasons. It was in reality much more due to the absence of popular support for Rhee's regime. According to the official history of the Korean war published by the Ameri can army, the South Korean army "disintegrated". (5) There were mass desertions. Popular committees were re-established and the reforms of the North applied in the South. After the massive intervention of American troops and the destruction of the new government in the South, a large guerrilla movement survived for a time. (6)
It is not possible to look at the
Korean war in depth here. It is enough to emphasise that if the war was costly in terms of human life and material destruction, still more significant was the tearing up of the social fabric of the country.
In addition, the repression against the left signalled a rupture in the political history of the country with the destruction of the opposition that had been in favour of reunification during the 1940s. This rupture expressed itself in terms of the physical disappearance of the cadres who had personified this opposition.
According to one American source the recapture of the South by the
American forces was accompanied by 100,000 executions or assassinations of militants opposed to the Seoul regime. That is to say nothing of the massacres that took place during the temporary occupation of the North before the intervention of the Chinese at the end of 1950.-(7) Breadbasket of the Japanese empire
Thus, the Syngman Rhee regime started off in 1953 from a massive destruction of the country's economic base and a social and political normalization. At the end of the war, the per capita national income was on the same level as that of Chad. However, over and above that immediate reality, Korea remained clearly less underdeveloped than many other countries in the third world. That is the initial element for explaining its later economic growth.
In the period of Japanese colonization, Korea underwent a not insignificant economic development. Over the three decades of direct colonization, industrial production increased at a rate of 10% per year, and already in 1940 the proletariat in the factories and mines numbered 300,000.
The country's essential industrial base was in the North (mines, metal industry, fertilizer production), while the South was much more agricultural, industry there being limited to textiles and food processing. But the agricultural sector was a modern one. Kim Dae Jung (DR)
Korea was the breadbasket of the Japanese empire, its consumption of fertilizers, mainly produced locally, increased 60-fold between 1916 and 1930. There was, moreover, a fairly well-educated labor force. In 1945, Korea already had nearly 6,000 trained engineers. (8)
It was from this starting point that South Korea, which at the time could be described as a semi-colony of the United States, began its economic growth in 1953. Moreover, while the real takeoff began at the start of the 1960s, the foundations for it were laid in the 1950s.
The fact that this economic growth could be based on Korean national capital can be explained by two factors. First of all, before 1945, 91.2% of total investment in the Korean economy, aside from agriculture, was held by the Japanese. The South Korean state was, therefore, able to expropriate the Japanese capitalists and distribute their holdings to Korean capitalists.
Moreover, in agriculture, where 40% of the land under cultivation was in the hands of the Japanese, the state carried out an agrarian reform, simply expropriating the Japanese landowners and using the proceeds to compensate their Korean counterparts.
The economic development of the 1950s was essentially geared around producing import substitutes to meet the needs of the domestic market, notably in textiles and agriculturerelated industries. These two sectors accounted for 55% of industrial production in 1955.
At that time, industry was centered around the processing of cotton, sugar and rice flour. But this first phase of economic growth quickly reached its limits. In 1955, the manufacturing sector accounted for only 10% of the GNP. The annual rate of growth in industrial production was 25% in 1955, 9% in 1958 and 3% in 1961. Thus, this was a modest industrial growth to meet the demand of the internal market and the needs of reconstruction. Moreover, this de-
Enigmo Jon Halliday, "The North Korean Jon Halliday, "The North Korean
'New Left Review, No. 127,
May-June 1981.
4. On these elections, see Burchett, op. cit., p. 120. E. Appleman, 'South to the
Naktong, 5.- Roy North to the Yalu, Washington,
1961, p. 18.
Halliday, op. cit.
taken from the be by Gregory Head a The figure 100,000 dead is son, a diplomat in Korea at the time,
*The Politics of the Vortex, Harvard,
Jean-Raphael 1968. 8. All these figures are taken from Chaponniere's study, *La
Republique de Coree, un nouveau pays caise. Unless otherwise noted, I have taken industrialise, aires, mai 1982, la Documentation notes et etudes document- franthe statistics for the present article from this source.
21
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
velopment was based on small and medium-sized companies.
It was only after Syngman Rhee's fall in 1960 and the setting up of a military regime headed by Park
Chung-hee the following year that the real boom of the South Korean economy started. While it did not represent a radical break from the
Rhee regime, the change was not without importance. The Park regime's economic policy based itself on the gains of its predecessor, but it plunged into a new and ambitious project for economic development.
The motor-force of economic development after 1961 was an extreme- police of thent dor ly interventionist policy conducted by a strong state. The role of the state in the economy was decisive, right down to the most minute details.
The fundamental aim of the Park regime's economic policy was to create a powerful export-oriented economy at the same time as conquering the domestic market sector by sector. This project was to be accomplished through a series of five-year plans, by which the South Korean state laid down the main strategic axes of national development, and then acquired the means for enforcing respect of these guidelines.
State-controlled industrial development
Starting out by establishing the necessary infrastructure for a modern economy (transport, communications, energy) through state investment, these plans focused on developing whole industries. During the first five-year plan from 1962 to 1966, priority given to developing energy, fertilizers, textiles and cement. The second plan concentrated on synthetic fibres, petro-chemicals and electrical equipment. The third plan focused on steel, transport equipment, electrical utensils, ship-building and some other industries.
The export orientation of the economy was reinforced by the devaluation of the South Korean currency, the won, in 1964, and by setting up a system of preferential credit for export. By presenting proof of export contracts, Korean firms could get loans at 6% interest, whereas the normal rate was 24%.
So it was the state that on every occasion decided the major options in economic development. It imposed its choices on the individual capitalists, who would have wanted to put to the fore individual interests liable to conflict with a process of "building up" a real native capitalist class. This was accomplished through the statecontrolled credit system, until 1980, 22 and by other mechanisms of control.
The case of the textile industry can be cited by way of example.
Having already taken over the internal market, this industry was well placed thanks to cheap skilled labor at the outset of the 1960s to break into the world market. In the short term, on the other hand, the domestic market could assure the best profits.
At that point, the government forced the textile companies to turn towards exports. It set up a mechanism by which, in order to import intermediary products necessary for production, these companies were obliged to export a part of their finished goods.
The economic growth of the last
25 years took place under the aegis of the state but also through the intermediary of the chaebol, highly diversified conglomerates numbering about 50. These are big private trusts, generally run by the owners and their families, whose origins often go back to the links their bosses enjoyed with the regime.
The great majority of the chaebol have been established over the last 20 years. A typical example is the Daewoo group, which was described in the following way in an article in Croissance des jeunes nations in 1984:
"It employs all of 70,000 people, although it was only formed 17 years ago on the basis of a small textile company. Thanks to the support of
Park Chung Hee, Kim Woochong built an empire in commerce, ship building, construction, auto, textiles, finance, telecommunications, electronics and clothing. In Pusan he has the world's biggest textile mill and in
Oskpo, an ultramodern naval yard.
He is starting major building projects in the Middle East. Today, he is investing in semiconductors." (9)
The extent of the growth of Korean capital in the form of the chaebol is also pointed up by the fact that in 1980 the list of the world's 500 biggest non-American firms included 10 South Korean companies and only 20 others in all the other third-world countries. (10) The chaebols' activities are closely regulated by the ties are government. The government often even decides what part of the market for a given product goes to each of them.
The result of this voluntarist policy of economic development has been that South Korea has succeeded in carrying through an impressive industrialization over the past 25 years. Between 1960 and 1980, the country experienced an annual growth of 10% in its GNP, as against 3.7% for the advanced capitalist countries.
During the same period, exports of South Korean manufactured products multiplied 150-fold. South
Korean companies thus became competitive with those of the imperialist countries in a series of industries.
South Korea holds second place in the international market for ships, after Japan. It produces automobiles and machine-tools. It has its own steel industry, whose production has come up to the level of internal demand in 1978. Today, South Korea exports entire ready-made factories, in particular for textiles. And this growth has been very largely based on national capital.
The emergence of a "New
Japan""?
Is South Korea, then, emerging from underdevelopment, orat least from dependence on imperialism? Are we seeing the emergence of a "New
Japan"? The conditions that made possible the economic rise of South
Korea are quite specific, and despite its growth, the country remains largely dependent on American and
Japanese imperialism.
The existence of a national-capital base and a statist economic policy are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the development of the
South Korean economy. This experience reflects an original combination of relative autonomy flowing from a certain degree of economic and military, and therefore political power, and an extreme dependence on the world market, and therefore on the imperialist powers that dominate it. Now let us look more closely at a series of external factors in the growth of the South Korean economy.
The first thing that has to be recognized is that South Korea has been one of the world's biggest aid recipients since the second world war, coming after Israel and USoccupied South Vietnam. This level of aid obviously flows from its geopolitical position in the confrontation between US imperialism and the workers' states.
Between 1946 and 1976, South Korea received aid amounting to 15,000 million US dollars, including 8,600 million dollars in economic aid and 6,900 in military aid. This military aid mainly increased the militarization of South Korean society. But in the purely economie sphere it had not inconsiderable consequences.
First of all, this volume of military aid removed a burden from the state budget, freeing resources for other
9. Pierre Rousset, "La Coree du Sud, second Japon?," in 'Croissance des jeunes jeunes nations, No. 265, Paris, October 1984.
10. 'Fortune,' August 11, 1980.
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
investments. Secondly, the high level of military spending had the by-product of developing infrastructures useful for industry (roads, ports and so on) as well as the building industry.
Korean firms began, moreover, to sign contracts with the US army in Korea and were able subsequently to extend their activities to other countries where there were often US bases. Finally, hundreds of thousands of Koreans received training in the army, either in production or management skills.
As for the directly economic aid, 5,700 million dollars of it came from the United States, 1,900 million dollars from the international organizations (World Bank, Asian Bank for Development, the United Nations), and 1,000 million dollars from war reparations paid by Japan.
At the end of the 1960s, direct aid gradually declined in importance (8% of GNP in 1953-1962; 6.5% in 1963-64; 4.4% in 1965-1974). This public aid was replaced by private foreign capital, not as a rule in the form of direct investments, which represented only 5% of industrial investments in 1970, but in the form of banking credits.
It was through banking credit that foreign capital intervened in the Korean economy. This was particularly true of Japanese banking capital after the conclusion in 1965 of a treaty normalizing relations between the two countries.
These credits went essentially to the chaebol. The South Korean regime very consciously chose this Al find to do into deht un policy, preferring to go into debt up to its neck rather than allow penetration of the country's economy by "wildcat" imperialist investment.
The consequence of this was a massive increase in the foreign debt. South Korea is one of the world's biggest debtors. In 1983, it was in fourth place, with 40,100 million US dollars in foreign debts, behind Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, but it has a per capita debt higher than that of Brazil. The service on this debt amounted to 13.5% of the country's exports and the liabilities on it amounted to 53% of GNP in 1981.
In direct foreign capital investment, the United States and Japan are dominant. These two countries alone provided 78.8% of direct foreign investment in South Korea between 1962 and 1980. While US investments were centered on production for the Korean internal market, those of Japanese companies were oriented toward re-export, either to the home country or to Europe and the United
States.
An important part of Japanese investment comes from small and medium-sized marium cired companies. In fact. companies. In tact,
(1)HYUN Insurgents in Kwangju, May 1980 (DR) Japan, the only advanced capitalist country that did not import migrant labor in the 1960s and 1970s, has rather tended to export uncompetitive sectors of its economy to its periphery, to South Korea and Taiwan, in order to take advantage of lower wages. (11)
The industrial free zones, the first of which was set up in 1970, have played a rather marginal role in the South Korean economy. In 1981, they employed less than 3% of industrial labor.
Direct foreign capital investment generally takes the form of jointventures, that is joint subsidiaries set up by Korean firms and imperialist companies. But the setting up of such subsidiaries was strictly regulated by a series of laws on foreign capital adopted between 1966 and 1981.
In the joint-venture agreements concluded between 1962 and 1978 between Korean and foreign firms, foreign capital had a majority of the stock in only 28.5% of the cases, while these accords represented only 42.9% of total investment. At the beginning of the 1980s, such investments accounted for a little more than 20% of manufacturing exports. Only in two industries did direct foreign investment account for more than 10% between 1962 and 1980 - chemicals (22%) and the electrical and electronies industry (16%).
The degree of control that the South Korean government continues to exercise over the activities of foreign capital in the country constitutes a source of tension and frictions between imperialism and Seoul.
For example, at the present moment, the government is dragging its feet about opening up the South Korean stock market's operations to foreign firms. At one time, it promised to do that in 1987. Presently, only 2.63% of stocks traded on this exchange are owned by foreigners. And the government is now trying to
11. 11. Jon Halliday, •New Left Review,' Jon "Capitalism and Socialism in East Asia, No. 124, November-December 1980.
23
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
find a formula to give foreigners entry into stock market operations while limiting the percentage of stocks that can be held by non-Koreans.
Moreover, the economy is so dominated by the chaebol which are in general private companies, that the total value of stocks traded is only equal to 12% of the GNP (the corresponding figures are 75% for Japan and 100% for Hong Kong). (12)
Despite the autonomy that South Korea enjoys thanks to the existence of a national capital and to the role of ot a national capital and to the role of the state, despite the industrial growth it has experienced over the last 25 years, it remains a dependent country. vears. it remains a dependent country This dependence comes from having an export-oriented economy, that is, one oriented toward a world market where the terms of exchange are dictated by the imperialist powers, in particular by the United States and Japan, through their control of the world market for raw materials, sources of financing, international trade and technology.
In 1981, foreign trade accounted for 77% of South Korea's GNP. For the same year, trade with the United States and Japan accounted respectively for 47.1% of imports and 43% of exports. South Korea's trade deficit has become structural. In 1981, it was 5,000 million US dollars (26,100 million dollars in imports as against 21,200 million dollars in exports).
There is also the question of South Korea's technological backwardness, or more precisely of its lack of technological autonomy. For example, in the electronics industry in 1978, 43% of products exported came from assembly units operating on the basis of components imported by foreign companies and joint ventures.
The country's lack of technological autonomy can be confirmed by considering the level of scientific and technical training. In 1979, South Korea had 418 scientists and engineers assigned to research and development per million inhabitants.
TABLE 1 1982 Principal imports
Fuel & lubricant 31.3% Machines & transport equipment 24.8% Non-food raw materials (exc. fuel) 13.9% Manufactured products 10.8% Chemical products 8.6% Food and animals 6.4% Others 4.2% Principal exports Chemical & heavy industry products 47. 7% Food & non-durable products 5.6% Raw materials & fuel 3. 3% Source: 'Sudestasie February/March 1984 24
TABLE 2
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTH KOREA OVER 20 YEARS active population Agriculture Industry Services forestry and and mines fishing 1960 or 1961 63 11 26 1965 or 1966 59 10 31 1970 or 1971 50 15 35 1975 or 1976 46 19 35 1980 34 23 43 1981 34 21 45
This is comparable to the figure for
Italy (674 in 1976), but far below the level of Japan (3,608 in 1979) and the
United States (2,854 in 1980). (13) In the high-tech industries, South Korea is a junior partner of Japanese and
American capital rather than a competitor.
Technological dependence is compounded by dependence on imperialism for sources of financing. On top of this, Korea is dependent for sources of raw materials. The latter represented 62.5% of imports in 1981, as against 23.3% for equipment, 11.1% for food products and only 3.1% for nonfood consumer goods. (See Table 1 for the details about the country's imports and exports.)
The 235.4 million dollars' worth of Korean foreign investments represent essentially an attempt to control part of the country's supply of raw materials.
Korea also suffers from a relative dependence in commercial • services.
Social consequences of rapid industrialization The Japanese trading companies, the sogo shosha, control about half of the country's foreign trade (and a comparable percentage of its internal trade). This is significant, even if the other half is controlled by the commercial houses of the chaebol.
The social consequences of the rapid and major industrialization that South Korea has undergone since 1962 have obviously been considerable. First of all, urbanization has occurred at an accelerated rate. The urban population went from 28% in 1960 to 55% in 1980. Between 1964 and 1970, the population of Seoul doubled, going from 3 to 6 million inhabitants. Today, it has reached 10 million inhabitants in a country with a total population of 40 million. Table 2 shows the changes that have come about in the composition of the GNP and the structure of the economically active population.
Breakdown of the GNP
Uroan Agriculture Manufac- Services
Population forestry and turing fishing industry 47 8 45 34 45 11 44 32 16 50 51 26 27 47 55 17 34 49 20 34 46 The growth of the industrial proletariat has obviously been substantial. In 1963, the country had 600,000 workers in industry. In 1973, it was 1.4 million, and in 1980 more than 3 million.. What is more, half of this last figure is accounted for by skilled workers.
However, the social conditions of this working class are dramatic. It is subjected to brutal exploitation, without social protection, respect for safety on the job and paid vacations, working six or seven days a week up to ten hours a day. It is, moreover, these working and living conditions and the very low level of wages (see Table 3) that explain the competitiveness of some Korean products on the world market.
Such exploitation is made possible by a series of special mechanisms. For example, in some industries, as in textiles, labor is made up essentially of young women who are physically and mentally worn out in a few years, and then they are replaced by new recruits. In any case, this level of exploitation is maintained not only by the absence of political and trade-union rights and by the militarization of society but also by the constant pressure put on wages and working conditions by the rural exodus.
In 1966, the average income in the South Korean countryside was 83% of incomes in the cities; in 1970, it was 59%. (14) This steady migration has been swelling the industrial reserve army. In 1981, 5.2% of the economically active population was classed as in search of work. That did not include the millions of people who work at part-time and unsteady jobs.
12. On the question of the opening of the South Korean economy to foreign firms, see the dossier "South Korean 'Far Eastern Economic Review,' 21 August Economy - Still under Command", 1986.
13. UNESCO, "Statistics relating to science and technology" ; 1982.
14. Figures cited by Suzanne Haig, Figures "Korea: Two Contrasting Social Systems, Intercontinental Press,' Vol. 20, No. March 15, 1982.
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
Source: Roland Benabou, "'La Coree du Sud ou l'industrialisation planifiee" Economie internationale No. 10,
1982. La Documentation francaise. Jean-Raphael Chaponniere "La Republique de Coree, un nouveau pays industriel'
. Notes et etudes documentaires, Mai 1982. La Documentation francaise.
Structure of the economically
Source: Roland Benabou, "'La Coree du Sud ou l'industrialisation planifiee" Economie internationale No. 10,
1982. La Documentation francaise. Jean-Raphael Chaponniere "La Republique de Coree, un nouveau pays in-
. Notes et etudes documentaires, Mai 1982. La Documentation francaise.
In 1981, it was estimated that 30% of the economically active population worked less than 40 hours a week. (15) This percentage is higher in the capital. where hundreds of in the capital, where hundreds of thousands of people coming from the countryside live in shantytowns outside the city.
While it is clear that the average standard of living in South Korea has improved with industrialization (the per capita income was 1,998 US dollars in 1984), this average conceals considerable inequalities. (16) In 1976, the South Korean Labor Bureau calculated that the minimum income for an average family was 142 dollars a month. In 1977, 84% of non-agricultural workers were below this threshold, according to a report prepared for a conference of Japanese and American legislators on Korean problems held that year.
In this situation, the regime has so far managed, at the cost of constant repression, to keep the South Korean workers from organizing an independent trade-union movement (the confederation that exists, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, FKTU, is an agency of the regime) and trom carrying out any major strikes. On the other hand, workers are making up a larger and larger part of the demonstrations against the regime.
The growth of the proletariat is not the only consequence of the economic development of the last two decades. There is also the emergence of urban middle layers. In 1980, South Korea had 100,000 engineers and 130,000 technicians. In addition, there were numerous executives in commerce, the services and public administration, sectors that accounted for 43.4% of the employed population in 1980.
Also to be noted is the spectacular expansion of the school and university student population, which increased from 3,763,000 school students in 1955 to 9,086,000 in 1975. Today, the country has 5,295,000 primary school students, 4,866,000 in the secondary schools, and 1,177,000 in higher education.
In a way, the reappearance of a mass movement demanding democracy is at once a result of the success of the economic policy the regime has followed since 1961 and of the political and social consequences of this success.
Economic growth has created a numerically strong working class, as well as new urban middle layers and a massive student population. The absence of any social protection and of trade-union and political rights, the restrictions on political democracy and the domination of the country by US and Japanese imperialism have fueled resistance and protest. racistance and nrotest.
International Viewpoint 24 November
TABLE 3
HOURLY SALARY COSTS IN 1979 (US dollars)
United States: 9.09 West Germany: 11.33 France: 8.17 Italy: 7.38 Spain: 5.82 Japan: 5.58
2.31
Mexico:
1.80
Brazil:
Hong Kong:
1.25
South Korea:
1.14 (0.37 in 1975)
Taiwan:
1.01
2t Etudes Documentaires, La Documentation francaise nos. 04674E68, 19 Ma. 1° Notes
Source: JR Chaponniere: "La Republique de Coree et Etudes Documentaires, La Documentation francaise nos. 4667-4668, 19 May, 1982.
However, the present movement also fits into a long tradition of popular rebellions. From the strong resistance to Japanese colonization before and after 1910 to the mass movements of the 1945-1950 period, this tradition persisted. The social and political break that came in 1953 had the consequence of shifting the social axis of resistance. Students at the fore of fight for democracy
Between the popular movements in the essentially rural society of pre-war Korea and the entry onto the scene of the working class at the end of the 1970s, it was the student movement that was the protagonist of democratic and national demands. This was the case at the time of the demonstrations that led to the overthrow of Rhee in 1960, as well as those against the Japanese-Korean treaty of 1965 and against the constitution of 1972.
Again it was student demonstrations in Pusan in October 1979 that unleashed a crisis of the regime that culminated in the assassination of Park Chung-hee on October 26 by the chief of the Korean CIA. But this time the working class and popular layers picked up the torch, notably in the Kwangju uprising in May 1980. And today, the composition of the demonstrations for democracy is more
NORTH.. -.KOREA
Yellow Sea Chonju seoul
SOUTH KOREA Changsong Hwasun
& Moked Polgyo
Sea of Japan MILES 5 9861 and more working class and plebian.
The main opposition force today, the NKDP, is a bourgeois party based primarily on the new middle layers. This party seems to be succeeding at something that was never before accomplished, that is, unifying the bourgeois opposition to the regime. One of the party's main leaders, Kim Dae Jung, said recently: "We need the support of the middle class. These people want democracy but they don't like disorder." (17)
That is the problem. Both the middle class and the bourgeoisie itself are terrified of disorder. And when Kim Dae Jung used this word, he was certainly thinking about the student movement. The latter is more and more standing out as the radical pole of the movement for democracy.
Moreover, within the student movement currents are appearing that are influenced by Marxism. And they are starting to pose the basic questions: a workers and peasants government, imperialist domination, reunification of the country.
Insofar as these currents manage to extend their influence in - the popular strata — where Christian currents have held sway up till now -the terms of the political situation in South Korea could be altered.
For the moment we are seeing a crisis of the form of bourgeois domination in South Korea, not of bourgeois domination as such. But that can change if the working class comes to the fore, with its own demands, its own organizations, and its own methods of struggle, thereby making a "democratic transition" much more dangerous for the bourgeoisie. The mobilizations in the coming months will make it possible to get a better picture of the evolution of the opposition to the regime of Chun Doo Hwan.
15. Article by Gavan McCormack published in the 'Bulletin of Concerned
Asian Scholars, ' December 1981. comes from 16. The figure for per capita income 'Asia Yearbook 1986' published by 'Far Eastern Economic Review.'
Cited in the International Herald Tribune' of April 7, 1986. [Re-translated from French. J
25