Roh Tae Woo Research Articles

Korea under Roh Tae-Woo: democratisation, northern policy, and inter-Korean relations

Korea under Roh Tae-Woo: democratisation, northern policy, and inter-Korean relations

Transitional Politics of Korea, 1987-1992: Activation of Civil Society

IVAD EMIC DISCOURSE in the Korean social science community during e early 1980s and up to the mid-1980s tended to focus upon the state; for instance, the role of the state in industrialization, its relations with big capital, its relations with labor, and its general character in Korean society.' However, in the wake of a democratic transition in South Korea during the period 1987-1992, one of the major scholarly debates in Korea has centered on changing relations between state and civil society.2 The main elements in transitional politics from an authoritarian regime to a would-be democratizing government during the Roh Tae Woo presidency involved liberalization of the regime, activation of the civil society, and the relative weakening of the state. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze contemporary Korean politics highlighting activities of the civil society. Lately, many Korean social scientists have instigated stimulating and often controversial debates concerning civil society in Korea.3 Some put a great deal of emphasis on the significance of an emerging civil society and its potential role

South Korean-Soviet Relations: Contemporary Issues and Prospects

Relations between South Korea and the Soviet Union improved dramatically in 1990-91 as demonstrated by the three summit meetings of Presidents Roh Tae Woo and Mikhail Gorbachev in less than ten months-San Francisco in June 1990, Moscow in December, and Cheju Island in April 1991. This article examines the evolution of these relations in terms of Moscow's reassessment of its policy toward Asia and North and South Korea, and Seoul's implementation of its Nordpolitik toward China and the Soviet Union. In so doing, it analyzes some contemporary issues of, and prospects for South Korean-Soviet relations. With the end of the Cold War, the USSR's Asia policy is gradually shifting from military to economic interests. As a result, the Soviet Union is regarding South Korea as a test case of its thinking toward Asia in general and Japan in particular. Gorbachev first signaled a willingness to normalize relations with China in his Vladivostok speech in July 1986 and which he reiterated in his Krasnoyarsk speech in September 1988. In a summit with Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in May 1989, he was able to put an end to the long-standing Sino-Soviet dispute and open a new era of reconciliation. Despite the issue of the Northern Territories, Gorbachev also sought to elicit Japan's economic cooperation. To do so, however, he first had to make a breakthrough in Soviet relations with South Korea so that it could serve as an impetus to improving Soviet-Japanese relations. The USSR's policy in Asia aims at two ends: first, to reduce security threats posed by such powers as the U.S., China, and Japan, and second, to integrate the Soviet Far East into the international economic relations of the Pacific. To the former end, Moscow has been scaling down its military deployment in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Siberia, and the West Pa-

Seeing and remembering: Sanggye-Dong and the demonstrations of June 1987

Renters of Sanggye-Dong began demonstrating and resisting relocation in June 1986, and by March 1987 the situation had intensified to the point where the remaining resisters took refuge at Myungdong Cathedral in the center of Seoul. It is important to realize what was going on in the southern part of Korea at that time. Demonstrations had flared sporadically since the 10 January torture-murder of Park Chong Chol, a twenty-one-year-old linguistics student from Seoul National University. Park's death in police custody had been the latest in a series of such events that had marked the years of Chun Doo Hwan's rule. Indeed, Chun's ascension to power had been facilitated by the 1980 massacre by military and paramilitary forces of 2,000 or more residents of Kwangju. The demonstrations increased in the spring of 1987, and in June they were almost continuous. The great peace march of 23 June included 1.5 million people demonstrating in some forty cities and townships, with 250,000 demonstrating in Seoul alone. The June demonstrations caused not only Chun Doo Hwan's 10 June endorsement of Roh Tae Woo as his chosen successor but also the 27 June promise by the ruling party and Roh Tae Woo of direct rather than indirect elections in December 1987. June 1987 was a turning point in the history of the southern part of Korea.

The Korean Experiment

The Korean Experiment Sung-Joo Han (bio) Korea was at the forefront of the democratic revolution that has now swept through Latin America and Eastern Europe, toppling authoritarian governments and redefining the nature and balance of international relations throughout the world. In the spring of 1987, business people, workers, and other ordinary Korean citizens joined student activists in the streets to demand free elections and an end to authoritarian government. After weeks of escalating tension and confrontations between fire-bomb wielding protesters and helmeted riot police armed with tear gas, the government yielded to the people's demands. On June 29, Roh Tae Woo, the presidential nominee of the ruling Democratic Justice Party (DJP), launched Korea's experiment with democracy by declaring that its next president would be chosen by the people through free elections under a new democratic constitution.1 This pathbreaking venture was truly an experiment. The country's only previous democratic revolution, led by student protestors against South Korea's first leader, Syngman Rhee, in April 1961, survived for less than a year. The popularly elected successors to Rhee, Prime Minister Chang Myon and President Yun Po-Sun, were ousted in a military coup led by General Park Chung Hee. Park imposed a strict authoritarian regime and ruled until he was assassinated by the director of the Korean Central [End Page 92] Intelligence Agency, Kim Chae-kyu, in 1979. After months of political turmoil, General Chun Doo Hwan took power in 1980 and suppressed a popular uprising in the provincial city of Kwangju to cement his control over the nation. This history of authoritarian rule was not the only obstacle to the success of Korean democracy. Korean culture emphasizes community hierarchies and social order over individual freedom of expression and self-determination, the central tenets of democratic societies. Roh Tae Woo's June Declaration was the first step in discovering if democratic reforms were indeed adaptable to Korea, and if so, what kind of democracy Korea would be. After the ratification of a new democratic constitution in October 1987, over 90 percent of the people went back to the polls in December for the first election of a president by direct popular vote in 26 years. DJP candidate Roh Tae Woo was able to win with a plurality of only 37 percent because the vote for the two long-time opposition leaders, Kim Dae Jung of the Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD) and Kim Young Sam of the Reunification Democratic Party (RDP), was split almost evenly. Kim Jong Pil of the New Democratic Republican Party (NDRP), a fourth candidate whose party included former leaders from Park Chung Hee's government, did much better than expected, capturing 8 percent of the vote. A divided opposition had only itself to blame; the two Kims who led the opposition received a combined 55 percent of the vote, yet the DJP retained its hold on power. By early 1988 it appeared that, after several years of volatile confrontations, South Korean politics might at last become more stable. A peaceful transfer of power—albeit within the same party—had been accomplished through democratic elections. With the opposition leaders discredited among the electorate due to their failure to form a united front against Roh, the dominance of the DJP in South Korean politics seemed assured, at least for the foreseeable future. But the voters handed the DJP an unexpected and serious setback in the April 1988 parliamentary elections. The party failed to secure a majority, winning only 125 seats in the 299-seat National Assembly. Kim Dae Jung's PPD won 71 seats and became the largest opposition party. With Kim Young Sam's RDP and Kim Jong Pil's NDRP securing 59 and 35 seats respectively, the three rival parties to the ruling DJP held a large majority in the parliament. This result not only resurrected the political lives of Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam but also rewarded the third Kim, Kim Jong Pil of the NDRP, with disproportionate political influence because he could control the balance of power between the government and the two major opposition parties. When all three opposition parties cooperated, they could reject presidential nominations...

Political Change in South Korea: The Challenge of the Conservative Alliance

A revolutionary change has been made in South Korean politics under the Sixth Republic. On January 22, 1990, President Roh Tae Woo and the two opposition leaders, Young Sam and Jong Pil, jointly announced the creation of a new governing party, the Democratic Liberal Party (DLP), thus leaving the largest opposition party, led by Dae Jung, in isolation. The precarious one-Roh, threeKim four-party system, which had lasted for almost two years, was suddenly abandoned, and a new asymmetric three-party system in the form of a oone-Roh, two-Kim grand alliance versus one Kim (and one Lee) has emerged. ' Given the traditional pattern of hostile zero-sum confrontation between the government and the opposition, the new political experiment signifies drastic chemical as well as physical changes in South Korea's body politic. The impact of the surprise merger is indeed far-reaching. Domestically, the pace of the democratization process is now dominated by the new ruling party with its nearly three-quarters parliamentary majority. InterKorean relations are more regulated by the new conservative alliance in the South under less influence from the opposition. Externally, South Korea's relations with the U.S. are becoming more subtle as the political base of Seoul's bargaining position has been strengthened commensurately. On the other hand, its relations with Japan are becoming more pragmatic as the two governments are now under comparable political structures. In addition, the Nordpolitik of South Korea is being accelerated because of reduced concern about the negative domestic political feedback.

The 1988 Parliamentary Election in South Korea

Research Article| May 01 1989 The 1988 Parliamentary Election in South Korea Hong Nack Kim Hong Nack Kim Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1960) 29 (5): 480–495. https://doi.org/10.2307/2644533 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Hong Nack Kim; The 1988 Parliamentary Election in South Korea. Far Eastern Survey 1 May 1960; 29 (5): 480–495. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2644533 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1989 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Gorbachev and the Korean Peninsula

Soviet policy in Northeast Asia in general and towards the Korean Peninsula in particular has opened a new chapter since the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in March 1985. Compared with his predecessors' diplomatic stagnation and failures in the region, Gorbachev's diplomatic initiatives, accompanied by his internal glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), have been highly significant. Equally profound changes appear to be taking place in Seoul under Roh Tae Woo, the first president in modern Korean history to inherit the leadership peacefully, who has ushered in a new era of expanding contacts with many socialist states, including China and the Soviet Union. What is the nature of Gorbachev's new initiatives towards the Korean Peninsula? How is Gorbachev responding to Roh's own initiatives? How is Pyongyang reacting, and how will Moscow's relations with Pyongyang be affected? The purpose of this essay is to analyse Moscow's basic dilemma-that of reconciling its past obligations to Pyongyang with the fresh opportunities in Seoul, within the context of Soviet relations with China, Japan, and the USA. The past obligations largely result from perceived mutual interests within the socialist community; whereas the fresh opportunities arise from the newly emerging Pacific

The End of the Hermit Kingdom

Korea became known as the Hermit Kingdom at the end of the nineteenth century when it had withdrawn into itself under the threats of its neighbors-China, Russia, and Japan. This characterization has endured through this century even despite Korea's internal war and the involvement of the international community in that conflict. The election of Roh Tae Woo marked the beginning of a new stage in Korean politics: “the period of Korean-style democracy.” Robert Myers follows the historical eras and events leading up to this change and predicts a less threatening, less Confucian politics for the Korea of the future.

South Korea: Chun, the Kims and the constitutional struggle

In December 1987 South Koreans will vote in the country's first direct presidential election since 1971. The candidates are expected to be Roh Tae Woo, a former general who heads the ruling Democratic Justice Party (DJP), and either Kim Dae Jung or Kim Young Sam, the leaders of the two largest factions of the main opposition party, the Reunification Democratic Party (RDP).1 The DJP was founded in 1981 by the current president, Chun Doo Hwan. In May 1980 in the wake of the assassination of Park Chung Hee in the previous year, Chun led a group of generals who seized power from an interim civilian government. Roh played a key role in the first stage of the coup, leading an army division from the North Korean border in an attack on military headquarters in Seoul in December 1979. In September 1981 Chun shed his uniform, organised a political party, and in February 1981 was elected president in an indirect (and stacked) election designed to win an easy victory. The party draws its political base from the hundreds of local officials Chun has appointed, and from the upper ranks of the middle class-retired military officers and businessmen with a stake in the system. Its policies have been based on anti-communism, fostering strong economic growth, deepening the country's alliance with the USA and Japan, maintaining hostility to North Korea and unrelenting repression against Koreans it considers 'subversive' and 'anti-state'. The DJP makes two claims to legitimacy. First, President Chun has promised to relinquish power in 1988 and preside over the first peaceful transfer of power in South Korean history. A laudable goal that has been. praised-with enthusiasm-from Washington. Chun's preference for a 'cabinet style' of government, in which the president is elected indirectly by the National Assembly, has proven to be highly unpopular in Korea. From the perspective of the democratic movement, the cabinet

Resistance Theatre in South Korea: Above and Underground

Ed. Note: Since the author's visit to Korea in November and December 1986, there have been important political events not anticipated by this article. Violent street protestsfor democratic changeforced the government to announce the first election in 16 years. The 17 December 1987 election was won by former president Chun Doohwan's hand-picked successor Roh Tae Woo, who, after 85 percent of the vote had been counted, had 36.5 percent of the vote. The two rival leaders of the divided opposition were reported to have won a combined total of 53 percent of the vote (Haberman 1987:1). The opposition charged widespread fraud in the election and continued their protests. We do not know for sure, but we assume that political theatre such as that described by van Erven continues to animate the Korean scene. We plan a follow-up report covering postelection changes and protest performance during the Summer 1988 Olympics.