Jenny Lee

Brief background

Born either September 30 or November 14, 1917, Park Chung-Hee was a prominent figure in the economic modernization of South Korea. Although his family was extremely poor, Park was driven by his success in overcoming hardships through hard work and discipline. He knew that education was the only way he could escape his poverty-stricken life. In 1932, he was accepted into Taegu Teachers College where he discovered his deep passion for the military.^[1] Soon after, Park entered the Manchurian Military Academy in 1940 where he excelled in all subjects.^[2] Park was accused of being affiliated with the political Left in the late 1940s. Park adamantly claimed that he was not a communist and that his association with the Left was only because of his older brother Sanghui’s involvement. When he was arrested in the 1940s, Park gave up all the names in his network to avoid the death penalty.^[3]

As President of South Korea

After the fall of President Syngman Rhee in April 26, 1960, Park was selected as the new leader by the coup plotters.^[4] Under Park, South Korea’s economy skyrocketed largely due to rapid industrialization and economic growth in the early 1960s. Despite the booming economy, Park’s presidency was filled with many struggles, especially from protesters who were displeased with his authoritarian government. On June 3, 1964, 15,000 students nationwide showed their anger with Park’s administration after he announced his intention of renewing economic and trade negotiations with Japan. Students stormed government buildings demanding the resignation of President Park. In response, the government declared martial law, placed newspapers under severe censorship, closed down schools, and arrested leaders of the student movement and journalists.^[5] Many South Koreans were not ready for such a relationship especially due to Japan’s brutal treatment of the Korean people during the Colonial Period. To end the public uproar, Park ordered two combat divisions to violently shut down the student protests as a way to make an example out of those who questioned his authority.^[6] Although Park is praised for industrializing South Korea, his administration was plagued with human rights violations that dismantled many democratic liberties that the Korean population desired.

Yusin constitution

On October 17, 1972, Park proclaimed martial law for the third time and administered restrictions on the Constitution. This placed basic democratic rights for South Koreans in a very compromising situation.^[7] He suspended the existing constitution, dissolved the National Assembly and the political parties, and prohibited all political activities. This was a time of extreme political restriction that, in many ways, regressed much of the democratic rights progress. Park created a new basis for government with a new constitution called the Yusin (meaning “revitalization”) Constitution and this constitution gave Park nearly complete political powers. The Constitution “set forth an institutional structure of government in which laws that infringed upon the citizen’s basic rights and suppress political opposition were enforced with constitutional legality.”^[8] Under this law, Park was essentially able to justify any of his political actions as constitutional. He was not elected directly by the voters but by a National Council for Unification.^[9] Promptly afterward, Park passed Emergency Measure No. 9 in May 1975, which prohibited any criticism of him.^[10] Park was able to justify his political repression as part of the need for national security. He had used North Korea as an excuse because of the DPRK’s aggressive incidents along the DMZ in 1967.^[11] Under the Yusin regime, Park instigated “mass arrests, prolonged detention without trial…other denials of due legal process…and constant surveillance by the KCIA (South Korean National Intelligence Service).”^[12] Park had arrested hundreds of dissenters who insisted on abolishing the Yusin constitution.^[13] Despite the laws aimed at controlling the population, a vigorous dissident movement emerged which consisted of students and intellectuals, who carried on a long Confucian tradition of being upholders of moral righteousness.^[14] Park was unable to fully crush the movements, as violent student protests erupted from time to time.

Park’s mindset

In Park’s The Country, the Revolution and I, he mentioned that in “human life, economics precedes politics or culture… in this light, the economic situation of Korea is most urgent” and that “we have to accomplish, as quickly as possible, the goal of an independent economy… there is no other net to catch this elusive goal except economic independence.”^[15] Park found that economic prosperity was of the utmost cruciality that must be focused on. If it meant that politics or democratic rights were to be subdued for the greater good, in this case for rapid industrialization and a stable economy, then that was a price that South Koreans must pay.

Park’s fall from grace

Park’s inability to improve relations with the United States, specifically President Carter’s administration’s demands for better human rights policies, discredited Park in South Korean politics.^[16] Park, for the most part, refused to adhere to the U.S’s pressuring demands on many issues, including relinquishing Park’s restrictive political control over South Korea. The deteriorating relationship between the U.S irreparably damaged the Yusin regime and everything that Park had stood for as it created a resurgence of opposition political parties and dissenters. Most importantly, Park’s “inner circle [fractured] into hard-liners and soft-liners” on ways to handle political turmoil hence creating an irrevocable divide.^[17] Eventually, in October 1979, Park was assassinated by his KCIA director Kim Chae-gyu.^[18]

Park’s legacy

Park’s legacy is marred by many of his actions as president. Interestingly enough, in South Korea many of the members of the older generations look at Park’s administration fondly while the members of the younger generations shudder at the thought of Park’s administration. In 2015, Gallup Korea conducted a poll randomly asking 1,000 adults nationwide aged 19 and above questions about presidential performance evaluations and reasons for positive and negative evaluations.^[19] One of the questions asked was “Among the former presidents, who was the president who led the country the most after liberation from the former presidents?” 44% of the people determined that Park led Korea the most (62% of those in their 50s and 71% in their 60s). On the other hand, 24% of the people asked believed that Roh Moo-hyun led the country the most (40% in the 2030 generation believed so).Another question was asked on “who had done many good things as president” and once more, 67% of the people believed that Park achieved this while 16% of the people believed that there were “many bad things.” Around 44% of respondents in their 20s, 52% in their 30s, 58% in their 40s, and 91% over their 60s, answered that Park did a lot of good things as president. 52% of the 667 positive evaluators cited “economic development” as the largest reason why Park did well. On the other hand, 72% of the 159 negative evaluators believed that “dictatorship/restoration/democratic retreat” were reasons for what made Park an insufficient president.

On the other hand, President Kim Dae-jung, who advocated for more democracy nationwide, received responses of “there are many good things” from 61% in their 20s, 65% in their 30s, 51% in their 40s, and about 40% in their 50s and over. This trend indicates that the younger generation prioritizes more democratic establishments as what makes a president a good president. However, the older generation prioritizes economic establishments as more noteworthy in making a country great.

As shown, even to this day, Park’s presidency is controversial as many wonder whether his actions for improving the economy were worth the human rights violations that he committed.

Bibliography

Eckert, Carter J. “Park Chung-Hee: An EAA Interview with Carter J. Eckert.” By Carter J. Eckert, Education About Asia: Central Asia, volume 18:3 (Winter 2013): 46-48.

“Hanguggaelleob deilli opinieon je174ho (2015nyeon 8wol 1ju) – yeogdae dateonglyeong pyeong-gawa geu iyu” 한국갤럽 데일리 오피니언 제174호(2015년 8월 1주) – 역대 대통령 평가와 그 이유 [Gallup Korea Daily Opinion No. 174 (August 1st, 2015) – Evaluation of Past Presidents and Their Reasons], August 1, 2015. https://gallupkorea.blogspot.com/2015/08/1742015-8-1.html.

Kim, Byung-Kook and Ezra F. Vogel. The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061064.

Kim, Chŏng-wŏn. Divided Korea: The Politics of Development, 1945-1972. Harvard East Asian Monographs, 59. Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1975.

Kim, Marie Seong-Hak.“Travails of Judges: Courts and Constitutional Authoritarianism in South Korea.” In The American Journal of Comparative Law 63, no. 3 (2015), 601–54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26425431.

Park Chung-hee. The Country, the Revolution and I. Seoul: Hollym Corporation, 1972.

Seth, Michael. “13. South Korea: From Poverty to Prosperity, 1953 to 1997”. In A Concise History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present, third ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019.