Kim Dae Jung

President of South Korea (1998-2003)

• Born: January 6, 1924
• Birthplace: Mokp'o, Korea (now in South Korea)
• Died: August 18, 2009
• Place of death: Seoul, South Korea

As president of South Korea, Kim pursued a policy of engagement with North Korea, signing an agreement in 2000 with North Korea that led to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for attempting to decrease tensions between the two countries. Kim also led the way for the restructuring of the South Korean economy, rescuing the country from bankruptcy.

Early Life

Kim Dae Jung (kihm day joong) grew up in an agricultural community. His father, a farmer, moved the family in 1936 to the port of Mokp’o, South Cholla province, where he graduated from the Mokp’o commerce high school in 1943. His father then ran a small inn, and Kim and the rest of the family assisted in running the establishment.

After graduation from high school Kim was employed primarily as a clerk in a Japanese-owned shipping company. In 1945, when Japan’s colonial rule over Korea ended, he became the manager of the company and acquired some wealth. From 1949 to 1953, Kim also published a daily newspaper, Mokp’o Ilbo. When North Korea briefly took over the city in 1950 during the first year of the Korean War, Kim was jailed, but as United Nations forces fought back to defend the South Koreans, Kim and his brother escaped a massacre of the town by the retreating forces of North Korea.

When peace returned to Korea after the war in 1953, South Korean president Syngman Rhee became increasingly unpopular. It was then that Kim decided to enter politics. In 1959, he was a leader of the National Coalition for the Protection of Civil Rights in Korea. After defeats in a few elections, he was elected to the national assembly in 1961 as a member of the Democratic Party. However, Rhee was soon ousted in a coup led by Park Chung Hee, who dissolved parliament, ordered new elections, and became president.

In 1963, Kim was again elected. He rose to a leadership role within the Minjung Party by 1965, and he chaired the party’s policy planning committee in 1966. He was reelected as a member of the New Democratic Party in 1967, serving on committees dealing with defense and the economy. In 1969, he was an outspoken opponent of President Park’s proposal to change the constitution so that he could seek a third term.

Meanwhile, Kim married Lee Hee Ho, a former executive secretary of the National Young Women’s Christian Association of Korea, and they would have three sons. Kim attended Kunkook University, Korea University, and in 1970 he completed a two-year graduate program in economics at Kyung Hee University.

Life’s Work

In 1971, Kim was chosen as the New Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in an election facing incumbent president Park. Despite election irregularities, Kim received about 46 percent of the votes and lost the election. Subsequently, during parliamentary elections, he survived five assassination attempts; in one case, a truck collided with his car, resulting in an injury that caused a lifelong limp.

In 1972, Park declared martial law, banned political activities, and forced the national assembly to adopt a new constitution, giving him the presidency for life. Kim left Korea to campaign in Japan and the United States against the end of democracy in South Korea. In August, 1973, Korean central intelligence agents kidnapped Kim from the Tokyo hotel where he was staying and smuggled him, bound hand and foot, by boat to Korea; the journey lasted several days. He was quickly jailed upon his return to South Korea. When Japan and the United States condemned the action against Kim, he was released within a week but put under house arrest. On March 1, 1976, he joined nineteen other dissidents in calling for the restoration of democracy, inspiring demonstrations throughout South Korea. He was promptly sentenced to five years in prison. Two years later, he was released from prison but placed under house arrest.

President Park was assassinated on October 26, 1979, leading to Kim’s release from house arrest on December 8. Even though new presidential elections had been scheduled for 1980, he again was arrested on May 17, on orders of the leaders of a military coup that emerged to establish a new government led by Major General Chun Doo Hwan, who declared himself president. Charged with treason, Kim was convicted by a military court in November and sentenced to death. In January, 1981, because of international pressure, his sentence was commuted to life in prison; in March, 1982, his sentence was again reduced to a twenty-year term. In December his sentence was suspended so that he could travel to the United States for “medical treatment”; in reality, he was exiled. During 1983-1984, he was a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs.

On February 8, 1985, he returned to Seoul to support the prodemocracy movement. When he arrived, he was immediately placed under house arrest but released March 6. In June, 1987, a Korean court cleared him of all charges. He then ran for president, but without success. After another presidential bid in 1992, he announced that he was retiring from politics. However, in 1995 he formed a new political party, the National Congress for New Politics, and was elected president of South Korea in December, 1997.

Kim was elected when the country was facing bankruptcy and rampant government corruption. As president he immediately formed an investigative body to address corruption and established a new economic order with greater transparency and competition under what has been called the “productive welfare ideology,” inspired by economist Anthony Giddens. Furthermore, under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund, Kim deregulated state control over the market, privatized public sector enterprises, and liberalized the financial market, but he also expanded social security reforms and bailed out the most valuable firms in the private sector.

In advocating his “sunshine policy,” Kim argued that tensions with North Korea could best be defused by direct negotiation and, ultimately, reunification. On June 15, 2000, Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issued a joint declaration. Although North Korea subsequently failed to abide by many of the terms in the agreement, the declaration did lead to the beginning of “exchanges” of South Koreans so that they could visit family members in the north who had been separated and segregated by the armistice line drawn to end the Korean War. Another outcome of the declaration was the construction of railways and roads linking north and south. Also, the South and North Korean delegations to the 2000 Olympic Games competed under a single Korean flag.

In 2003, his last year in office, Kim’s reputation suffered when information leaked that he had paid $186 million to Kim Jong Il as a condition of holding the summit conference. Scandals inside his government that included his sons further damaged his image.

Significance

Sometimes called the Nelson Mandela of Asia, Kim’s presidency culminated efforts to bring a democratic two-party system to South Korea. He was the first opposition-party leader in Korean history to be elected president.

In 2000, Kim received the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to decrease tensions between North and South Korea, an act that led to the historic summit with Kim Jong Il. Subsequently, South Korea urged the United States not to engage its so-called counterproductive tendencies and thereby vilify the North Korean regime.

Kim’s efforts to restructure the South Korean economy constitute a model for the middle way between extensive government regulation of the economy and total deregulation. Reforms begun while he was president continued after his term of office. His sometimes dictatorial performance as president as well as the scandals rocking his term in office have tarnished his reputation. Some observers argue that he was happier and more effective as an opposition leader than as a democratic leader.

Bibliography

Becker, Jasper. Rouge Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Becker paints a disturbing picture of North Korea, exploring the cult of personality around South Korea’s nemesis Kim Jong Il as unmatched in modern history.

Goldstein, Norm. Kim Dae Jung. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999. A volume in the World Leaders Past and Present series, this biography traces Kim’s life and philosophy up to his election as president in 1998.

Kim Dae Jung. Building Peace and Democracy: Kim Dae Jung Philosophy and Dialogues. New York: Korean Independent Monitor, 1987. Kim’s major statement outlining his political philosophy.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Kim Dae Jung’s Three Stage Approach to Korean Reunification: Focusing on the North-South Confederal Stage. Seoul, South Korea: Seoul National University Press, 1997. Recommends establishing first a confederation, then a federation with an all-Korean parliament, and finally a reunification, a process that would have to evolve over a period of decades.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Mass-Participatory Economy: A Democratic Alternative for Korea. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1985. Kim’s political views, as developed while he was a fellow at Harvard University. After reviewing the progress of the Korean economy under military dictatorships, he warned of a crisis to come because of the government’s suppression of workers and of loans to businesses that “cozy up” to government. Revised in 1996.

Steinberg, David, with Chun-In Moon, ed. Three Years of Kim Dae Jung Government: An Assessment. Seoul, South Korea: Yonsei University Press, 2002. Essays evaluating Kim’s economic and foreign policies, including his proposal to reunify North and South Korea.