Integrity of conservatism

Kim Hyun-ki
The author is the Tokyo bureau chief and rotating correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, Japan, was the world’s first hospital to employ carbon ion radiotherapy to treat cancer in 1994. The novel technology Japan takes pride in uses a particle accelerator that beams the particles of carbon ions at about 70 percent of the speed of light to destroy the DNAs of cancer cells. The accelerators are not available in Tokyo. The host facilities are spread out in 7 locations outside the capital, although it is home to the largest number of cancer patients.

Still, Tokyo residents do not complain. Japan does not just chant balanced growth across the nation. It acts on it. Foreigners visiting Japan are most impressed by the development of its non-capital areas.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, speaks in a meeting with CFOs of four major banking groups, deputy prime minister for economic affairs, and the governor of the mighty Financial Services Commission to check the financial situation of the Korean economy at a conference room of the Korea Federation of Banks in Seoul, Sept. 30. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Since the premiership of Kakuei Tanaka, who initiated the “Japanese archipelago remodeling theory” in the 1970s, followed by the “regional development work” under Shinzo Abe in the 2010s, the Japanese government has maintained logic, phases and consistency in the policy of balanced national development. Tanaka enabled people, goods and information to flow out of the capital and across provincial areas. Abe promoted a specific industry for each prefecture. During the nearly 8-year term of Abe, Fukui Prefecture earned the reputation as the mecca for eyeglasses. Niigata Prefecture became the home for monozukuri, or craftmanship. The capital, in the meantime, concentrated on harnessing muscles instead of weight. Tokyo went all-out to reinvent the city while preserving historical sites and moving beyond the present toward a new future.

The sudden and impromptu idea of merging Gimpo, Gyeonggi, on the western outskirts of Seoul into Seoul raises eyebrows because of the smallness of the thought and the thinness of deliberation. Amid controversy, the governing People Power Party (PPP) plans to make other big cities like Busan and Gwangju “megacities.” Populism has the tendency to fall into a vicious cycle. The PPP must stop the silliness before it really loses face.

In another charade, after President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the government not to tolerate banks’ “bullying” with interest rates, banks rushed to announce hefty financial support for small merchants. Earlier this year, banks made a similar flurry after the president scorned their bonus binge from interest income.

However, lifting interest rates has been a global trend. Mitsubishi UFJ Bank raised the interest rate of its 10-year fixed deposit by 100 times from 0.002 percent to 0.2 percent. Loan rates also zoomed up. The highest rates in more than a decade will be painful to consumers and merchants. However, when policymakers start to interfere in market rates, the market will become distorted to end up hardening the lives of consumers even more.

Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Bok-hyun questioned what innovation the banks really made to rake in 60 trillion won ($46 billion) in interest income and earn more than manufacturers of chips and motor vehicles. But it was the government that fanned interest rates to rise by lifting the regulation on loans. Habitual bank-bashing at every political upheaval to squeeze out funds from them cannot be normal. If there is a problem, the system must change through fundamental fixes. The president calling platform giant Kakao “very unethical” also cannot be appropriate.

He should leave the government offices to identify and fix problems and punish those responsible. It should be the people and system — not the president — that make Kakao founder Kim Beom-su shave off his iconic mustache in a show of humbleness. The act is no different from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media rampage to attack companies. The business community in Korea criticizes the president for offering favors to the CEOs of big corporations whom the president brought to his overseas trips. Instead of pleasing the minority, a leader must earn the confidence of the majority.

Reflecting on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke — the father of modern conservatism — defined conservativism as an approach to reforms and changes with reason and caution. Many modest conservative voters who had supported Yoon would have thought the same. However, is the Korean conservative government going in the path of reason? A few rightists may cheer the extreme ways. However, the majority moderate conservatives who can determine the fate of the incumbent government wish to see the country keep to principles and common sense.