Korean politics, despite the steady progress of democracy and the rule of law in recent decades, has yet to break away completely from the legacies of past authoritarian governments. 
One such legacy is the president keeping powerful agencies like the state prosecution under tight control. Another backward aspect is that the government still does not have qualms about twisting the arms of big businesses.
There are two current cases that illustrate the backwardness — the first one surrounding the ongoing state prosecution’s investigation into POSCO and the second one involving President Park Geun-hye’s push for a youth employment fund.
Probe into POSCO
The prosecution launched a probe into alleged wrongdoings of the POSCO steel group in March, starting with its construction unit. About 10 people — former and current executives of the POSCO Engineering and Construction and its contractors — have been imprisoned for corruption.
But many, myself included, doubted that the prosecution’s ultimate target was POSCO E&C. As expected, the probe zeroed in on former POSCO CEO Chung Joon-yang and Lee Sang-deuk, brother of former President Lee Myung-bak.
It was an open secret that Chung and Lee, who also served as the National Assembly vice speaker, were very close during the Lee Myung-bak administration. There were allegations that the president’s brother exerted influence to help Chung take over the giant steelmaking group, and in return was rewarded with business favors.
Prosecutors interrogated Chung — five times — and Lee, as well as former POSCO E&C chairman Chung Dong-hwa. But the court rejected an arrest warrant for the vice chairman twice, citing lack of evidence. Prosecutors indicted Lee without seeking his detention, and Chung is likely to have the same fate.
This should convince one that the prosecution, without enough evidence to conduct such a massive, long probe, decided the final outcome in advance and tried to target people around them, with the hope of eventually snaring Chung and Lee.
This makes one suspect that there was a political motive behind the probe — either Park or her aides who read her mind well ordered the probe, or the prosecution was pandering to her by punishing her former rival.
Park and Lee Myung-bak were archrivals in the conservative ruling party, and Park had a bitter memory of losing the 2007 presidential nomination race to him. It is common knowledge that they don’t like each other. So there had been speculation that Lee Sang-deuk and Chung Joon-yang would be the first targets of an investigation during the Park administration.
The POSCO probe fits perfectly into the past practice in which the government in power punishes its predecessor under the cover of a corruption investigation into the former leader’s associates and relatives.
This has multiple effects — corruption busting and “liquidation of the wrongdoings of the previous government” usually enhances the president’s popular ratings, and through such a crackdown, the president can scare off or tame those who might stand in the way of smooth governance.
That being the case, no president has loosened their grip on agencies with investigative rights. Park is no exception.
One piece of evidence is that she has placed people from the southeastern region, her political home base, at all the powerful agencies, including the heads of the national police, tax service, antitrust watchdog and the top state auditing agency. One cannot say this is a pure coincidence, and it surely raises the chances of the president abusing the power of those agencies for her political interests.
Youth Hope Fund
Another anachronistic feature of the Park presidency is her push for a youth employment fund. She proposed the “Youth Hope Fund” in September to fight the severe youth unemployment problem and became the first contributor to the fund.
Park donated 20 million won ($17,000) and she is contributing 20 percent of her monthly salary to the fund. It is nothing short of amazing that chaebol tycoons, as well as government officials from the prime minister down are lining up to join the fund.
Samsung Group donated 25 billion won in the name of chairman Lee Kun-hee and employees. Hyundai Motor Group and its chairman contributed 20 billion won, and so did LG, SK and Lotte. There were celebrities too, including actress Kim Tae-hee and Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung, the leader of the Korean Catholic Church. It definitely looks like a charity campaign.
I personally don’t agree with the president’s view that establishing a charity-like fund can be a major means to tackle the unemployment problem. It is politically expedient but can only be for show, since job creation creating jobs hinges on the overall strength of the economy. Under Park’s rhetoric, we might need more campaigns, for instance, for raising the birthrate.
A more fundamental problem with the Youth Hope Fund is that the campaign reminds us of similar fund-raising drives during authoritarian governments.
During the Chun Doo-hwan administration (1980-1988), the same chaebol lined up to donate huge money to the “Peace Dam” project, for which the government overstated dangers from floods that can be caused by North Korea opening the floodgates of a dam upstream of a river that flows into the South.
As we know, presidents until Chun’s successor Roh Tae-woo (1988-1993) pocketed illegal political funds in the Blue House.
Today, any such thing would be unimaginable, but the tradition of the government in power twisting the arms of big businesses holds firm.
There are many old habits that never die in Korean politics.
By Chon Shi-yong
Chon Shi-yong is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Herald. He can be reached at sychon@heraldcorp.com. –Ed.
