Korea: Asian Paradox

Americans are beginning to appreciate the reality of the Republic of Korea’s rapid emergence as one of East Asia’s most dynamic powers. The R.O.K. has a new image, symbolized by the export of Hyundai cars and the scheduling of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. South Koreans are finally beginning to earn some of the international respect they feel they deserve for their impressive economic and social accomplishments.

This new image is nevertheless shadowed by anxiety over South Korea’s political stability—anxiety generated by the turmoil following President Park Chung Hee’s assassination eight years ago and now focused on the leadership transition scheduled for next February in an atmosphere of radical student demonstrations, government repression and seemingly endless political confrontation. Foreign understanding of the situation is confused, moreover, by contrary analyses. One interpretation, quite pervasive in the American media, tends to portray the Korean people as seething under repression in a country variously described as a "smoking volcano" or a "ticking time bomb." An opposite view, common among supporters of the R.O.K. government, is that the situation is under control, and the society is liberalizing at a pace which, while deliberate, is the only way the Korean political structure can evolve, given its lack of democratic tradition and the danger posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) in the north.

There is something right and something wrong about both of these interpretations, and it is not easy to strike a balance between them. One may dismiss the "ticking time bomb" analogy as too alarmist; South Korea is not on the eve of revolution. But one must ask whether the government’s defenders take adequate account of recent changes in Korean society, particularly the rapid growth of a middle class that wants not only stability but also greater freedom. Indeed, South Korea seems to have reached a point of maturity where continued political stability requires discernible progress toward a more democratic, less repressive political system.