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2 The hard part starts for Seoul's
new man By Donald Kirk
millions of dollars, much of which
wound up in a Swiss bank account. A seven-year-old
videotape showing Lee boasting that he runs the
fund provided a last-minute glitch in Lee's march
to the presidency, but did not seem to have turned
off many voters.
As Huh Chan-guk at the
Korea Economic Research Institute told me, "People
are more concerned about the economy than
morality."
Morality may not be the
uppermost concern of Lee's political foes, but
they talked about it a great deal when they passed
a bill for a
special prosecutor to
investigate Lee's link to BBK, for which
prosecutors earlier had said there was no
evidence. If President Roh signs the bill, his
appointee would have 40 days to come up with a
reason for indicting Lee - and blocking him from
inauguration in late February as Roh's successor.
The constitutional crisis, the
demonstrations and protests, the hysteria and
violence that such a denouement might provoke are
difficult to imagine. So difficult, in fact, that
it's possible Roh will veto the bill. And if he
does sign it, it's quite likely the prosecutor
will wind up agreeing that Lee has no involvement
with BBK and, if he ever was involved, that he
himself did nothing illegal. Although the history
of Korean politics is replete with extraordinary
clashes, the sense is that Lee will take over to
the usual background noise of denunciations and
criminations, but that's about it.
The
reason is that Lee's message on the economy was
too compelling for most Korean voters, an
essentially conservative people who prefer the
prospect of stability and prosperity to that of
civil unrest. At the same time, Koreans are
clearly disillusioned by the record of
disappointment in dealings with North Korea over
the past 10 years under the "Sunshine" policy
initiated by Kim Dae-jung.
At this stage,
not happy with annual growth rates of 4% or 5%,
compared with the 8% growth rates before the 1997
economic crisis, many Koreans may prefer the
resurgence of the chaebol that dominate the
economy.
"The conglomerates in Korea once
were wild animals," said Yun Chang-hyun, a finance
professor and member of the Citizens United for
Better Society. "During the past 10 years they
have turned into pets." In order to achieve Lee's
promise of 7% annual economic growth, he observed,
"the government will have to draw them out and
invest again."
Lee's economic plan, while
it may not be especially interesting outside
Korea, could bring dramatic changes in the
economic and physical landscape. In the face of
much criticism, he still wants to build a canal
linking the capital region of Seoul with the port
city of Pusan, an enormous project, and he also
wants to invest heavily in capital development and
construction throughout Korea.
In the
process, Lee wants to relax or lift entirely the
law banning the chaebol from ownership of
banks. He also wants to reduce taxes imposed by
the Roh government on construction, and strip away
the regulations that banned much expansion in the
Seoul metropolitan region as a means of spreading
new buildings more evenly around the country.
Lee's vision of the economy is an
outgrowth of his long years in business. He was a
star with Hyundai Engineering and Construction,
where he rose to the chairmanship at the age of 35
in one of the country's roughest industries. His
rise was all the more remarkable because Hyundai
Construction was then the centerpiece of the
enormous Hyundai empire. Its founder and chairman,
the late Chung Ju-yung, trusted him implicitly. As
chairman, Lee was responsible for spearheading
Hyundai projects around the world, notably in the
Middle East.
Lee might have stayed at the
helm of the Hyundai empire but for one terrible
problem. He was not one of Chung's sons, and
Chung, good Korean father that he was, made
certain real control would pass to his own sons
and other relatives before dividing up the group
in the years before his death in 2001. Lee had
long since gone into politics, running
successfully for the National Assembly and then
for mayor of Seoul.
During his four years
as mayor, Lee reinforced his reputation as a
builder who got things done. His most visible
achievement was to unearth a stream called
Chongyechon which runs through the center of
Seoul. To do so, he ordered the removal of
offices, shops and apartment blocks to create a
parking lot in the middle of the hard-driving
capital. Appropriately, in the hours after his
election, Lee was on the bandstand by the stream,
promising to "revive Korea" and thanking adoring
fans for their support as they chanted his name.
"Renovating Chongyechon is very
[different] from the canal from Pusan," said Lee
Chong-min, professor at Yonsei University. "There
is rhetoric. You cannot avoid that in campaigns."
Nonetheless, he predicted, "He will try to keep
his major projects in focus."
The first
100 days of Lee's presidency, said Lee Chong-min,
"will be the most fast-paced in the history of
Korea since the restoration of democracy in 1987".
Lee, he noted, is a man who "works for fun".
In the end, some analysts say, Lee's
instincts for business, especially construction,
may trump his notion of firmness toward North
Korea. As a product of the Hyundai empire, he may
well build on progress already achieved by the
subsidiary Hyundai Asan in developing tourism to
Mount Kumkang, above the eastern border with North
Korea, and further investment in the Kaesong
special economic zone, also above the line 64
kilometers north of Seoul.
"The policies
of his former boss Chung Ju-yung was engagement
with the North," said Peter Bartholomew, a
business consultant in Korea for the past 40
years. "MB is in the same line of continuous
economic engagement. " This is, of course,
provided he can get something in return for the
investment.
Journalist Donald
Kirk has been covering Korea - and the
confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for
more than 30 years. (Copyright 2007 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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