Taipei Times: South Korea's minority government under President Kim Dae-jung has suffered many setbacks over the years. What can Korea's experience teach Taiwan's political elite?
Shim Jae-hoon: President Kim's government is not only a minority government, but is also constrained by the fact that Kim is a lame-duck president. Under South Korea's constitution, he can't run for a second term. His current term ends in February 2003, and he is already seen as ineffective. A government minority in parliament with a lame-duck president creates the worst possible political scenario.
The second thing is the economic slowdown. It is estimated that South Korea will have 2.5 percent GDP growth this year. This is better than Taiwan and Singapore. But that is no consolation because other countries, including Taiwan, escaped the 1997 financial crisis. This economic downturn is serious. We have about 1 million unemployed while you only have about 500,000.
But in many ways, after watching the election in Taiwan, the similarities are very striking.
Taiwanese are worrying about the lack of an overall majority in parliament, while our opposition is just one seat short of a majority. If the opposition gains the support of one independent, the government will have a hard time passing the national budget or other legislative revisions and bills. We are deadlocked.
We have even tried a coalition government, which Taiwan is going to try. In building a coalition, ideology is critical. Kim Dae-jung's tragedy is that he was so impatient that he formed a coalition with a conservative party. Kim's ruling Millennium Democratic Party is a center-left, liberal party, but his coalition partner came from the conservative camp.
So the coalition was bound to fail. When it was established three years ago, the opposition-dominated parliament refused to endorse the prime minister for seven months.
TT: President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has pledged to forge a cross-party coalition for national stabilization after the election. But Taiwan's domestic politics are polarized along ethnic lines while Korean politics is divided along regional lines. To what extent do you think ethnic polarization could undermine the formation of a coalition government?
Shim: In our case, regionalism has been a very strong factor. Kim Dae-jung comes from the south-west. People from that part of the country have been excluded from government for a long time. When he came to power, Kim had a mandate to fight that regionalism. He needed to set a good example by showing that he could transcend regional barriers. But, instead, he gave way to political expediency, following the path of his predecessors and giving major government posts to people from his native constituency.
When President Chen forms his coalition, he should come to grips with the ethnic issue. If he gives all the important government posts to native Taiwanese, excluding people with a mainland background, he too will face accusations of ethnocentricity. That will handicap his government and sow the seeds of instability.
Your cross-strait relations are our North-South relations. Chen wants independence for Taiwan. In South Korea, Kim Dae-jung wants a close relationship with North Korea. It's the conservative opposition that boycotts and rejects him.
South Korea has a substantial reform agenda. Kim Dae-jung came to power under a reform banner. But what happened? After the 1997 financial crisis, his best friends were trade unions and the media. But look what happened. Now his worst critics are the trade unions because he had to curtail their power.
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