Korea Briefing 1997-1999: Challenges and Change at the Turn of the Century, ed. by Kongdan Oh. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. ix + 243 pp., glossary, index. ISBN 0-7656-0610-0 (hardcover), 0-7656-0611-9 (softcover).
Reviewed by Keith Howard
SOAS, University of London
Published in co-operation with the Asia Society, and now under the series editor Mai Shaikhanuar-Cota, Korea Briefing has now appeared for a decade, first in annual instalments published by Westview, and now in occasional versions from M. E. Sharpe. In each volume, the contribution that to my mind has proved most valuable has been a chronology; here, in the latest volume, it runs for 44 pages and charts, from the Asia Society's U.S.-Korea Review, developments in North Korea (the DPRK) and South Korea (the ROK) from May 1996 - July 1999. In earlier volumes, contributions were a mixture of the topical and cultural, some tied to the year(s) preceding publication, and some of a more general nature. This approach was crowned with Korea Briefing 1993, where under the editorship of Donald N. Clark and celebrating the U.S. Festival of Korea, articles addressed literature, dance, music, Korean-American communities and the perceptions held by Koreans of America (plus the inverse: American attitudes toward Korea), in addition to discussions of policy, politics, and economy. In the 1993 volume, and in the first M. E. Sharpe volume, edited by David McCann, contributors were a mixture of Americans and Koreans or Korean-Americans.There are seven authors for the six large articles, comprising (with institutional affiliations): Doowon Lee, Yonsei University, 'South Korea's Financial Crisis and Economic Restructuring'; Byung-Kook Kim, Korea University, 'The Politics of Crisis and a Crisis of Politics: the Presidency of Kim Dae-Jung'; Gi Wook Shin and Kyung-Sup Chang, UCLA and Seoul National University respectively, 'Social Crisis in Korea'; Youngna Kim, Seoul National University, 'Korean Arts and Culture at the End of the Twentieth Century'; Young Whan Kihl, Iowa State University, 'The DPRK and its Relations with the ROK'; Hong Nack Kim, West Virginia University, 'Foreign Relations under the Kim Dae-Jung Government'. The editor, Kongdan Oh, is research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and adjunct professor at George Washington University. She offers a six-page introduction. Each writer is highly respected in their academic fields. Four pages at the end of the volume offer suggestions for further readings; most are in English, and a few websites are included, although the suggestions for Youngna Kim's chapter are all Korean sources in Korean.
Doowon Lee's chapter is clear and full of facts, with diagrams, mostly sourced from the Bank of Korea, illustrating the text. He begins with the lead up to the 1997 crisis, then concentrates on government efforts to restructure the economy, and the problems that these efforts generated. But he ends in the first quarter of 1999, rather early given the need to add conclusions. Plenty of comparative information is garnered, looking at other Southeast Asian states in addition to Latin America and Europe. He predicts a recovery, because of the 'Asian values' of high savings and investment ratios, prudent fiscal policy, high educational levels, and so on. To avoid a repeat experience, he argues-along standard lines-for closer management of fiscal policy and the establishment of a proper supervisory mechanism over financial institutions.
We shift gear to Byung-Kook Kim's deeply critical review of South Korea's political scene. His basic approach is that Kim Dae-Jung was only successful in the presidential election because of the spectre of economic collapse (page 37), and was able to consolidate his position because Kim Young Sam was effectively sidelined for his last three months in office (page 36). The Kim Young Sam administration is seen as reformist, "bequeathing to its state ministries a coherent package of policy strategies and instruments", somehow publicly blamed even after Kim Dae-Jung engaged in a major U-turn to endorse these same structural reform mechanisms (pages 42-43). Kim Dae-Jung, the "political outsider" (this is one of Kim's recurrent themes), joins an institutional vacuum in which politics is practiced without policy. Although the chapter is inspiring, I have a few minor quibbles about Kim's characterisations; his claims, for example, that anti-American sentiment was transitory and basically ended in 1991, or that Kim Young Sam effectively "relieved Kwangju of its han (anguish) when Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo were arrested in 1995" (pages 52-53) seem questionable.
Gi-Wook Shin and Kyung-Sup Chang rely primarily on local media and government statistics in their consideration of the impacts of economic hardship following the 1997 crisis. Their paper offers a consideration of how people have coped, despite the lack of an adequate state social system, and how the impact has affected the poor and middle classes differently. The authors seek a balance, in which Korean policy-makers are urged to recognise that economic restructuring needs to be coupled to social reform (page 99). The decline in moral well-being is claimed to be greater in Korea than elsewhere in Asia (the authors demonstrate this through what they call the "misery index"). Workers who were laid off, they say, often suffered psychological dejection, while opinion polls show a decline in national pride amongst the populace. Labour, although still trying to activate workers, has found itself lacking the sympathy of both the general public and the media; it is, as an activist force, at a crossroads (page 93).
Youngna Kim offers an overview of art, concentrating on fine art, literature, and film. She starts by arguing that Korean artists are now part of global culture, concluding her initial overview with a throw-off line: "suddenly everybody was talking and thinking about culture" (page 102). She ends with a query as to whether the identity of Korean culture can be protected. The problem of local v. global is, of course, common in today's world; often but elsewhere seen in terms of Western hegemony, it would have been useful to hear from Kim how the Korean experience compares with that of other developing or newly developed nations. Instead, she ends with the anodyne comment that "Korean culture will be enriched, promising greater enjoyment to all Koreans Korean culture is experiencing and coping with new challenges as it surges forward to embrace the new millennium" (page 122). Kim does not give her sources for many statements: Who, for example, judged the Kwangju 1997 Biennale as meeting world standards for its main exhibitions, but lacking conceptual consistency or artistic variety in the eight special exhibitions (page 104), and what proof is there that this did, as claimed, confuse visitors (page 105)? Who says that the very worthy and comprehensive catalogue for the new Korean Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has "virtually" become "the leading textbook in English that the academic field of Korean art had lacked" (page 108)? Can we accept without a detailed consideration the characterisation that among the individualistic contemporary Orange-jok generation, "young women were lured away with oranges and expensive cars" (page 112)? And, a year on, the claim that the government aims to give "full support to the film industry" seems dubious (page 113).
I read Young Wahn Kihl's chapter in Pyongyang in April; fortunately, no customs officer had found Korea Briefing in my luggage at the airport. I would like to be critical of the article and argue for a more positive view of North Korea and its policy than Kihl offers, but find myself in agreement with most of what he says. However, as I write, a summit between Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Jong Il is taking place, and perhaps, despite the understandable pessimism of most commentators-and Kihl included-the North might be preparing to change. Kihl nicely documents shifting domestic policy, from "agriculture first, light industry first, trade first" to "heavy industry first", and similarly discusses the North's policy on security issues and diplomacy, given meat in a tripartite characterisation of "Deny, if caught", "Brinkmanship, if provoked", and "Encirclement, if the enemy hesitates". I might quibble over a couple of minor points, about the "continuous push towards building a nuclear capability" (page 133), or the conclusion that the North is still "poised to launch a preemptive surprise attack on the South to unify the country by force" (page 137). And, the founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army is April 25, not April 26 as given. Overall, though, Kihl strikes a suitable balance, even if untrusting of the North. His guarded conclusion, that the verdict on Korea's future may not yet be in, is very much how it looks a year on.
The last chapter, by Hong Nak Kim, takes us to a broader consideration of South Korea's foreign policy. Kim Dae-Jung is shown to be pursuing a number of themes simultaneously, strengthening ties with the United States, repairing relations with Japan, revitalising relations with former socialist states including Russia and China, and reassuring North Korea, through the Sunshine Policy, that no invasion is being planned.
One final point about the volume. This concerns consistency in romanisation. While, as with many other recent publications, the diacriticals asked for in the McCune-Reischauer system are understandably missing, it is not encouraging to find Toknip (Tongnip) and Jekuk (Cheguk) by page 5. Similar adjustments throughout the book would have helped its usefulness. And, where properly-romanised Korean texts are cited as suggested readings for Youngna Kim's chapter at the end of the book, they appear in different forms within her text (eg, Issip il segi munhak iran mu-ot-inga and Issipilsegi Munhak-iran Muossinga).
Citation:
Howard, Keith 2000
Review of Kongdan Oh (ed.), Korea Briefing 1997-1999: Challenges and Change at the Turn of the Century (2000)
Korean Studies Review 2000, no. 6
http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr00-06.htm
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