South Korea's unity faction is in trouble. Less than seven weeks before the Dec. 19 presidential election, surveys show that 54 percent of voters support conservative Grand National Party candidate Lee Myung-bak. This is 37 percent higher than the support for left-wing candidate Chung Dong-young, the former minister of unification and an advocate for reconciliation between North and South Korea. Chung's support stands at 17 percent.
A major point of contention in the upcoming election is the policy toward North Korea. Inheriting former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy," left-wing leader and President Roh Moo-hyun provided vast financial aid to Pyongyang and tolerated North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's political authority despite the detrimental effects it has had upon the South Korean economy and the public discontent it incited.
During the election campaign, former minister of unification Chung Dong-young again emphasized the importance of aid to North Korea and unity between the two states.
Lee, on the other hand, has clearly indicated that economic cooperation with North Korea is acceptable only on the condition that North Korea abandon nuclear weapons. Otherwise, South Korea will pursue independent security and increase its vigilance against Pyongyang.
During the Kim Dae-jung era, the left-wing's cooperative tactics and the historical summit with Kim Jong-il earned Kim Dae-jung a Nobel Peace Prize, although it was later proven that the summit was made possible after US$500 million was secretly sent to Kim Jong-il under the cover of South Korean corporations. Yet Roh Moo-hyung maintains enthusiasm for reconciliation and after a recent summit with Kim Jong-il, resolved to extend financial aid of more than US$500 million to the North. Experts believe this will place severe economic strain upon South Korea.
Andy Jackson, a columnist for the Korea Times and an educator in South Korea, analyzed the situation for the Wall Street Journal on last Wednesday, concluding that the two candidates differ both in terms of economic policy and strategy on North Korea.
Conservative candidate Lee Myung-bak is not only unyielding on North Korea, but also emphasizes tax reductions to lower corporate rates from 25 percent to 20 percent. He is also in favor of relaxing regulations to produce a free market climate beneficial to businesses. As the former mayor of Seoul and former CEO of Hyundai, South Korea's largest corporation, Lee's management capabilities are widely trusted by voters.
As Donald Kirk, an American academic in Seoul and the author of two recent publications on South Korean economics recently said, the left-leaning Roh is too feeble toward North Korea, advocates restrictive business policies and alienates Japan and the US.
This type of left-wing strategy brought Roh's party to a dramatic defeat in last year's local elections, landing only one seat out of 16 for major city mayors and provincial governors. The Grand National Party secured twelve seats and did especially well in the areas surrounding the capital, which contains close to half of South Korea's population of 48 million.
As the world's 13th-largest economy, South Korea's competitiveness has risen again in this year's assessments. Yet from pre-election surveys, South Korean voters place more emphasis on strategy on North Korea than on the economy. Parties that seek ultimate unification at the expense of South Korean interest may be punished in the upcoming elections.
Cao Changqing is a political commentator based in the US.
Translated by Angela Hong
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs