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Can we build a new Republic of Korea?

Published: 29 Dec. 2024, 19:49

Choi Byung-cheon
The author is president of the Democratic Institute of New Growth Economics.

The impeachment motion against President Yoon Seok Yeol passed in the National Assembly on Dec. 14 with 204 in favor and 85 against. Just eight years after the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in December 2016, the fate of President Yoon and the country will be determined by the Constitutional Court. Why is this kind of tragedy repeated in Korea?

President Yoon is a unique character among all Korean presidents. First of all, he has no political experience — especially no career as a lawmaker. Due to the nature of its work, members of the National Assembly often compromise to pass urgent bills and budgets. But Yoon spent his entire career as a prosecutor mostly investigating corruption of heavyweight politicians. Such people tend to see the world through the lens of the dichotomy of good and evil. Myung Tae-kyun, a controversial power broker, compared the president to a “blind warrior.”

If so, can we really attribute the ongoing impeachment crisis to the extraordinary character of the president? It’s not that simple. Since 2000, five politicians have been elected president, but three of them were impeached by the legislature. The 2004 impeachment motion against President Roh Moo-hyun was dismissed by the Constitutional Court, but the 2016 impeachment of President Park was upheld by the top court. President Yoon also waits for a final judgment by the court.

Let’s broaden our perspective. Since the democratization in 1987, a total of eight presidents have been elected: Roh Tae-woo in 1987, Kim Young-sam in 1992, Kim Dae-jung in 1997, Roh Moo-hyun in 2002, Lee Myung-bak in 2007, Park Geun-hye in 2012, Moon Jae-in in 2017 and Yoon Seok Yeol in 2022.

Among them, three — Roh Tae-woo, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye — were arrested after leaving office. Roh Moo-hyun ended his own life. Kim Young-sam brought about the unprecedented foreign exchange crisis in 1997. President Yoon was impeached for plotting a rebellion against the state while in office. Former President Kim Dae-jung is the only leader who safely completed his term and successfully extended the Democratic Party’s reign for another five years.

Why does this mishap happen in this country? There are many reasons — say, the innate contradictions of our presidential system, the deadlock between the presidential system and the legislative power, and our outmoded political culture. All of the reasons seem convincing.

Today, Korean politics has become ‘martial arts politics.’ It began with the suicide of President Roh Moo-hyun. Those who liked and missed the unconventional head of state vowed revenge. After the impeachment of President Park in 2017, the liberal Moon administration pledged to eradicate what it called “deep-rooted evils.” As part of the campaign, as many as 1,000 politicians and senior officials were investigated and 200 of them were indicted. Former President Lee was sentenced to prison on charges of creating slush funds, embezzlement and bribery.

The conservatives vowed retaliation after watching two former presidents from their camp be arrested. They eventually made a former prosecutor their presidential candidate as they thought he would help them with their revenge.

Korean politics mimics the overarching theme of those martial art movies, where revenge breeds revenge. There are two ways to end the politics of reprisal. One is the Kim Dae-jung-style solution. The former president was threatened with death at least three times, including a kidnapping in Tokyo in 1973. But he declared he would not engage in political retaliation and kept that promise after taking office.

The other is the European religious war-style solution. After Martin Luther initiated the Reformation in 1517, Europe suffered fierce religious wars between Protestants and Catholics. With the Peace of Westphalia signed in 1648 to end the Thirty Years’ War, the freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of thought were established. Tolérance — a French concept of acceptance, respect and recognition — began to take hold in Europe. In the old continent, tolérance was not realized through elegant philosophical reflection. It was the exact opposite. It was their conclusion after watching the slaughter in the name of religion for over a century. Martial arts politics can hardly be ended through institutions only. If a Democratic Party (DP) candidate is elected in a possible early presidential election, whether the politics of revenge will really end will depend on whether the president-elect uses the Kim Dae-jung-style solution.

The impeachment of a president is certainly a national tragedy, but it can also fuel the energy for citizens’ revolution. Depending on how we use the precious energy, it can accelerate political revenge, nourish populism or help overcome the ongoing crisis of the country.

The Moon administration, which came to power with the “candlelight energy” after Park’s impeachment in 2017, fell short of people’s expectations. Despite relatively positive public assessment of the government’s Covid-19 quarantine and economic response, its campaign to uproot the so-called “deep-seated evils” and pursue income-led growth, nuclear phase-out and real estate policies mostly received poor scores. Why did the Moon administration’s performance fall short of public expectations? That’s because errors in diagnosis led to errors in prescription. To achieve a successful reform, the government must set reform tasks correctly, diagnose the cause of the problems accurately, and employ appropriate policy measures.

Korea’s crisis in 2024 is different from that in 2017. The most important change is that the previous path to successful economic development is not effective anymore. Instead, it serves as a crisis factor for the economy.

Globalization began in earnest after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the 1990s. Five factors were behind the success of the Korean economy since the 1990s: the security umbrella of the United States, the expansion of globalization, the trickle-down effect of China, the rise of Samsung Electronics and semiconductors, and the youth-centered population structure.

In particular, the spread of globalization and the advancement of China played a pivotal role. While China achieved an average annual growth rate of about 10 percent for more than 20 years since the 1990s, Korea was the biggest beneficiary of China’s boom. Samsung and its chips showed a huge gap with its rivals in the memory sector. The average age of Koreans was also very young. In 1990, the average age of men was 28.5 years, but in 2023, it soared to 43.2 years. The ratio of people aged 65 or older was 5.1% in 1990, but it will be 20.3% in 2025.

Now, everything has changed. The United States demands Korea increase its cost sharing for security. Globalization is shrinking. China threatens the competitiveness of Korean industries by improving its technological level. It has already been reversed in many industries. Even Samsung faces a crisis now. Next year, Korea will be a super-aged society with the share of its senior population exceeding 20 percent of the entire population.

The most important thing in responding to external and internal challenges is collaboration between the corporate sector and politics. China, the United States, Japan and Taiwan all provide enormous support to their own strategic industries. But our government neglects the mission and leaves large corporations to respond in their own way. On one axis, the government must advance the capital market by establishing a mechanism to block listed companies from plundering minority shareholders. An efficient capital market can only operate if it becomes a fair capital market. The Capital Market Act, which the governing People Power Party (PPP) advocates, must be revised, as must the Commercial Act, which the Democratic Party champions.

On the other axis, it is necessary to establish a comprehensive plan by activating a quadrilateral consultative body among the government, ruling and opposition parties and the corporate sector for the economy on a permanent basis. Stakeholders must approach the issue with the determination to reinvent the ‘Economic Trends Meeting’ and ‘Export Trends Meeting’ held by President Park Chung Hee every month, in a 21st century manner.

Traditionally, the PPP focused on economic growth and security while the DP concentrated on expanding labor rights and welfare and social integration. After the presidential impeachment, a ‘new Republic of Korea’ is possible only when these distinctions are destroyed. The PPP must make the authoritarian and anti-welfare forces within the party a minority. The DP must transform itself into a party advocating both independent national defense and the Korea-U.S. alliance and create an image of a progressive party devoted to achieving economic growth and regulatory reform. When they boldly invade each other’s territory, they will be able to overcome the crisis facing the Korean economy.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.