South Korea’s big opportunity

South Korea’s big opportunity

March 14, 2017
Park Geun-hye
Park Geun-hye

THE fall of South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been dramatic and comes after parliament’s vote last night to impeach her for corruption and influence peddling. On Friday the constitutional court upheld the decision of the lawmakers After two days of hesitation Park left the presidential palace for the last time. She now faces criminal prosecution.

The allegations center around the former president’s close friend Choi Soon-sil. Evidence has amassed that Choi extorted bribes worth millions of dollars from companies in return for permissions and favors. The money was channeled through non-profit foundations she controlled. The belief is that these foundations were being used to enrich Choi and the president.

Choi had no formal government role yet was given access to official documents, some of them thought to be highly secret. Though the main focus is on the payola scandal, there have also been concerns that Choi might have been selling intelligence to outsiders, not least the North Koreans.

The full extent of this scandal has yet to emerge but one thing is already clear; this appears to be the culmination of years of cronyism by the South Korean political establishment in which the country’s powerful conglomerates, the chaebol have been complicit if not indeed active players. South Korea’s remarkable economic growth was modeled on the Japanese keiretsu which created a Japan Inc.  The difference in the two systems was that though the keiretsu was abused, there was what can best be described as a code, which limited that abuse. The guiding principle was that the close links between government, officialdom and Japanese companies was a project designed to advance the wider, general interests of Japan. The guiding aim of national benefit was always murkier in South Korea.

There have been many lurid allegations about what went on in the Blue House, the presidential palace. These helped fire up huge demonstrations which last year triggered the political and judicial procedure that has now led to Park’s ouster. The president and Choi are likely to be brought to trial. It is important that this process should be both exhaustive and fair. But what is equally important is that if convicted, the two women should be properly punished. South Korea has a bad record of pardoning politicians and corporate leaders who have been found guilty of bribery and other malfeasance.

The bellwether of change is surely going to be the trial, currently under way of the man who is the effective leader of the massive Samsung chaebol. Lee Jae-yong, rated the country’s most powerful businessman, is charged with corruption linked to the presidential scandal.  If he is found guilty all eyes will be on the severity of the sentence he receives and whether or not he is required to actually serve it.

The man expected to win May’s election for a new president is the opposition Democrat party’s Moon Jae-in, a human rights lawyer.  Moon has popular support particularly among the young. He has pledged to tackle youth unemployment which stands at an alarming nine percent. But the key to the success of who ever moves into the Blue House will be the vigor with which those found guilty of corruption, regardless of their position within the country’s elite, are actually punished. South Korea has an opportunity to reform its corrupt ways. The must not be squandered.


March 14, 2017
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