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South Korea Future Prospects
Seoul became more globally conscious in the 1980s. South
Korean contacts with foreigners have been largely a post-Korean
War phenomenon. Indeed, Seoul's expanding foreign business
contacts have been greatly stimulated by the fierce rivalry with
North Korea. Seoul's basic goals are still to enhance political
legitimacy, military security, and economic development vis-à-vis
P'yongyang. After the 1988 Seoul Olympics, however, South Korea's
diplomatic horizon was greatly expanded because of Roh's
Nordpolitik--which had successfully transformed South Korea's
sports industry, economic relations, and diplomacy (though its
success with P'yongyang was limited).
Lacking a reconciliation with North Korea--the final
destination of Nordpolitik--Roh's remarkable accomplishments will
remain incomplete. In his 1990 New Year policy statement, Roh
observed that "the East European wave of reform toward freedom
and prosperity is bound to teach North Korea before long." He
added that he hoped that "similar change will take place in the
North in an orderly and peaceful fashion." Roh pledged "[a]ll-out
efforts . . . to convince North Korea . . . that it should join
the trend of world history and open up."
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A number of introductory books on South Korean domestic
politics and foreign relations are available in English. Ki-baik
Lee's A New History of Korea is a Korean scholar's
perspective on Korean political history, valuable chiefly for its
examination of the period before 1945. Ramon H. Myers and Mark
Peattie's The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945 sheds
light on the colonial roots of subsequent South Korean political
cultural and behavior. Young Whan Kihl's Politics and Policies
in Divided Korea compares political leadership and styles in
the two Koreas, while Ralph N. Clough's Embattled Korea is
a thorough and cogent treatment of diplomacy and extradiplomatic
foreign policies as seen through the prism of rivalry between the
two Koreas. Dae-Kyu Yoon's Law and Political Authority in
Korea is an excellent and detailed study of the interaction
between law and politics in the Republic of Korea.
A number of useful articles on South Korean foreign relations
and the United States-Korean relationship are contained in Robert
A. Scalapino's and Hongkoo Lee's Korea-U.S. Relations
The Politics of Trade and Security. Donald Stone
Macdonald's The Koreans, although not limited to politics,
is a useful survey. David I. Steinberg's The Republic of
Korea contains many insightful observations of South Korean
politics. Kim Dae Jung is the only major political figure to have
his views published extensively in English. Mass Participatory
Economy gives his views on South Korean political economy as
of the mid-1980s; Prison Writings presents his thoughts on
South Korean political culture and other subjects. Human
Rights in Korea, edited by William R. Shaw, contains several
chapters on postwar South Korean political and human rights
issues. The United States Department of State's June 1989 "United
States Government Statement on the Events in Kwangju, Republic of
Korea, in May 1980" is also a valuable document.
Following the abolition of the Basic Press Act in 1988, the
South Korean media became a rich source of both factual and
interpretive material on politics and government. Korea
Newsreview, based on coverage of the government-owned
Korea Herald newspaper, presents weekly articles
concerning politics and foreign affairs, generally from a
progovernment point of view; beginning in 1987, the publication
has also printed the writings of dissenting guest columnists. The
full spectrum of Seoul's Korean-language news media coverage on
political topics is sampled and translated in the Foreign
Broadcast Information Service's Daily Report: East Asia.
The United States Embassy, Seoul publishes its Press
Translations: Korea six days each week.
Outside political analysis may be found in monthly
periodicals, including Asian Survey and The Journal of
Northeast Asian Studies. The monthly Korea Update
contains news and commentary on politics and human rights issues.
Perceptive accounts of the political scene are found in Far
Eastern Economic Review [Hong Kong] and Asian Wall Street
Journal, as well in major United States dailies such as the
Washington Post, New York Times, and Christian
Science Monitor.
Among annual publications are Korea Annual, published
by the state-sponsored Yonhap News Agency, and the Asia
Yearbook, published by the Far Eastern Economic
Review. Amnesty International's Report on Human Rights
contains a chapter on South Korea in each annual edition, as does
the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices. (For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of June 1990
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