The UN Conference on Trade and Development has become the latest international organization to recognize South Korea’s developed status among world nations. In a board meeting earlier this month, the UN agency moved South Korea from its Group A list of mostly Asia-Pacific and African developing countries to Group B which consists of states with developed economies.

Local newspapers quoted a Foreign Ministry press release pointing out that it was the first time since the establishment of the UNCTAD in 1964 to change the classification of any of its 195 members from developing to developed status. Many other international bodies, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the UN Development Program have already been treating South Korea as one of the advanced economies or high-income countries.

Late in 2019, the South Korean government announced that Seoul was giving up the developing country status in the businesses of the World Trade Organization, inviting complaints from farmers’ groups here for losing various benefits in the trading of agricultural products. Still, the formal “upgrade” of the UNCTAD status must have offered Seoul officials something to brag about and satisfied many South Koreans who are proud of it.

I could not confirm the shift of Korea’s classification directly from any recent UNCTAD material, but Wikipedia kindly showed the Group B list which includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Turkey and South Korea along with 27 other states of Europe and America. List C consists of 35 Latin American and Caribbean states and List D comprises 24 Eastern European countries.

We have often heard officials boast that this country has become the only member of the international community to elevate itself from a recipient of UN aid to a donor, so remarkably as to be the sixth largest among OECD members in the volume of contributions. As regards the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we have a bitter memory. Soon after Korea joined the club of wealthier nations, a financial crisis swept Asian markets late in 1997 and Korea suffered the humiliation of an IMF bailout.

True, the hardworking people of this country craved to reach the “advanced” or “developed” rank in international society after decades of toiling to rise from the destruction of war. The goal was elusive and the growth of annual gross domestic product was slow to cross the $30,000 mark in per capita GDP which looked like the ticket to an enviable party. Then various proofs appeared, one after the other, to convince Koreans that they were entering the arena of economic powerhouses.

South Korea provides the world with the best quality smartphones and TVs, more than half of larger ships moving in the five oceans, millions of automobiles running in the six continents and even nuclear reactors that light homes in Middle East kingdoms. Domestically, vinyl houses cover large areas of farmland to produce fresh groceries all year round and poultry is supplied in excess of demand, only threatened by foreign-originating avian diseases.

The nation of 51 million people has become a “single-day living sphere” with highways and rapid transit railways taking passengers from the capital city to any province of the country in a few hours and local autonomous administrations have competed to turn every scenic place into a tourist resort. Even the COVID-19 pandemic has added to reasons for Korean pride with relatively smaller numbers of infections and fatalities, attributable to well-organized medical service networks.

Then, we realize that there still is one area in the life of this supposedly advanced nation that remains unchanged. When Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee died in October last year after several years in a coma, media commentators recalled his famous remarks about “fourth-rated” Korean politics as a still worthy judgment on national troubles. This inappreciable expression was directed to Korea’s parties and government authorities in his fierce complaint against political power back in 1995.

“Korea’s government administration is third-rated, politics fourth-rated and business enterprises are second-rated,” Lee told Korean correspondents in Beijing during a luncheon meeting. It was during the time of the Kim Young-sam administration, which was dubbed to be the first civilian government after three decades of military rule. The tycoon was a little too burnt to show his disgust at what he meant harassment by government apparatuses rendering tight regulations rather than support when Korean businesses were making an external thrust.

In the following years, Samsung grew in global stature along with other Korean conglomerates and information technology entrepreneurs, pulling the nation toward the developed rank in the world community. Meanwhile, Korean politics, piteously in the euphoria of having achieved “democratization” through struggles against military dictatorship, fell into a quagmire of ideological confrontation and ruthless pursuit for the spoils of power.

On the surface, it looked like the peaceful rotation of power was taking root, but our politicians who failed to learn the art of democratic rule in tolerance and compromise allowed an interruption in orderly transfer of power with the turmoil of 2016. After President Park Geun-hye was removed through impeachment, the Moon Jae-in presidency unfolded a politics of vengeance and power monopoly alongside economic doldrums even before the pandemic.

Moon’s favoritism for some publicly censured characters caused the emergence of a nonmainstreamer, Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung, as the front-runner in the presidential race from the ruling camp. In opposition circles, the People Power Party, still suffering from a leadership vacuum, is about to choose its candidate for the 2022 election from outside the party rather than from the inside.

Most depressing in the runup to the polls next spring is the fact that the top issues generated by the strongest hopefuls on both sides at the moment are none of their national salvation policies but their murky private matters, raised by new types of yellow journalism via YouTube and internet media. Former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl is still undecided whether his entry into the opposition People Power Party would boost his candidacy or not in view of the general public disdain of party politics.

Everyone wishes that the coronavirus will be contained before the end of the year. They also hope that better reason will be displayed by candidates and the electorate in the next election to show that Korean politics has improved since Lee Kun-hee’s diagnosis a quarter century ago.

Can the front-runners graciously overcome the damage from their private affairs? 


Kim Myong-sik
Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He can be reached at kmyongsik@hanmail.net -- Ed.