Let's talk about president Park Chung-hee. He's another legendary leader in South Korea and he has been another controversial leader in South Korea. The photograph shown here is when he was the president. That photo should have taken in 1970s, I remember, I was a college student at the time, early 1970s and I am very familiar with this kind of photo, okay? Then what is his personal background? He was born on November 4,1917 in a town called Gumi, in Gyeongbuk province, northern Gyeongbuk province. Originally he wanted to be teacher, therefore he went to graduate teacher's high school. And then he was a high school teacher in a small town called Gumi innNorthern Gyeongbuk province. But that was during the Japanese colony period, okay? But for some reasons he left elementary school and he joined Manchurian Military Cadet School, okay? After Manchu War, Manchurian state was founded by Japan, okay? You may even remember Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and created a puppet state called the Manchu State. And Manchu State has its own military academy. And then he joined the military academy, okay? But he graduated to the Manchu Military Cadet School as a top student. Then the top graduate of Manchu Military Academy has right to attend Japanese Military Academy, the elite in the military academy in Japan. And then he graduated from the Japanese Military Academy. It's a very unusual case. There are very few Koreans who went from Manchuria to this official military academy in Japan. Japanese Military Academy is kind of in a West Point of Japan at the time, okay? But after he graduated from Japanese Military Academy and commissioned as Japanese young officer. Then Japan was defeated in the Second World War and there was national independence. He's a trained professional officer, therefore it was quite natural for him to join the Korean Military Academy and he would second class of the Korean Military Academy, okay? And then he had all kinds of problems. He was implicated with some communist incident movement, he was put in jail, but one of his senior saved him from a very difficult situation. And it was because of that background American military intelligence officers always have been, were always watching over him. Therefore his military career was not as successful. And given his background the graduate of Japanese, the prestigious Japanese Military Academy. But he made the promotion all the way to major general, but his post, he was assigned rather unimportant in a post. But at a time, late 1950s, there was a growing and the grievances among the dissatisfied military officers. Particularly in 1960, when the Second Republic came in, the Second Republic was trying to slash defense budget. And also, when the Korean War was over and we had a huge military personnel, and there was the training of military personnel and, at the same time, military positions. A lot of young officers didn't have any place to go. Therefore grievance system, discontent were very high during that period of time. But Park Hee really secured those discontent elements, okay? And particularly centered around class XIII, class of the Korean Military Academy, okay? He was a leader of the group. And they staged military coup in May 1961, okay. The military coup was so successful. There's another big debate in South Korea, whether it was a military revolution, or military coup. Conservatives argued that it was a military revolution. But the diverse and progressive Then ordinary citizens argued that, that was a coup. The second Republic was Democratic in a Regime that was proffered by this illicit military coup led by Major General Park Chung-hee. After in a three years, in a of a military rule, then he retired from military at the rank of four-star general and he ran for president. He became president in 1963. He ruled until 1979, okay? And 17 years. He was ruling the country. But, tragically, he was assassinated in October 1979. How were his personal traits? He's a very intriguing person. Extremely rational. At the same time he was aggressive. Unless he was aggressive he would not have staged a military coup. Yeah he was a prudential, calculating, and he was a perfectionist. And he has a very strong influence of the military culture because his life is, I mean his entire life. More than that, throughout his life, he was strongly influenced by Japanese culture. And also, okay, he has very strong nationalist sentiment too. For him, the major constraint came from the United States. Economic constraint, others. His leadership style, obviously, authoritarian. Yet he was a transformative leader. And he was a visionary leader. Because he wanted to modernize country. He wanted to catch up with Japan and other advance industrialized countries. In that sense he was a really visionary leader. How about his ideological orientation? He has very strong nationalism sense. In fact, he used the nationalism as a vehicle of promoting modernization, and also he was anti-communist. Partly because he was accused of being a communist. He was bound to be anti-communist. Therefore if you go back to Revolutionary of a mini in 1961, the first item of Revolutionary was, we support anti-communism. Also he was a believer in state corporatism, state organizing civil society. Controlling and orchestrating civil society. State is about the civil society, okay? And also he strongly believed in ideology of 'rich nation, strong army'. In fact that phrase came from Japan during the Japanese in a major restoration in 19 centuries. One of major mottos was [FOREIGN] rich nation, strong army. He really imported that Japanese ideology and applied to South Korea in the process of implementing modernization. Another one, I would say he was obsessed with rowth. For him growth first, distribution later. That was one of very important economic ideologies. Power base. Mose political economists would argue that his power base was a developmentalist coalition. Developmental coalition is composed of state Bureaucrats and business and rural sector, okay? He strongly favored business. In fact, he created today's business conglomerate and also he co-opted the farmers by implementing new village movement. New village movement extended a lot of preferential benefit to the farmers. At the same time, the military, bureaucrats, and the regional support is from Gyeongsang province. Therefore all those constituents in Gyeongsang province supported him. Yet he excluded the popular sector. Political ball game during the Park Chung-Hee period was very clear. Conservative coalition called the Development Coalition on the one hand and progressive opposition on the other hand. Popular sector labor was against him. Decision making style. He was a military general. He was an extremely well trained military general, therefore he knows how to come up with his planning and how to make the direct control of a major policy issues. He knew how to orchestrate all the social elements. He was extremely detailed. And making and policies. For example, Korean defense industry, he was formulating policy, implementing defense industry from rural house by himself with help of high number of aide. For example one of his major projects through his period was Seoul-Busan Highway, Gyeongbu Highway. When he was inspecting the construction site of Seoul-Busan Highway, he was giving detailed instructions how to come up with landscape, okay, with a specific sketch. There is how he conducted policy. At the same time he was extremely prudential decision making. How about evaluation? Again he has a positive and negative side, okay. Positive side, he engineered modernization and industrialization. He transformed South Korea with $60 per capita income, the beginning of his military rule. More than 3,000 per capita income, it's a huge transformation. He played important role in transforming Agrarian society into the industrial society. And also, nobody can deny that he played a very important role in enhancing national security performance, strong defense, particularly through the systematic support of the defense industry. Therefore, most scholars argue that President Park Chung-hee symbolized the age of industrialization. On the other hand a negative side too. He seized political power through military coup. Therefore the person progress argue that he was illicit leader, okay? And particularly the legacy of revolution still remains. The revolution was part of authoritarian system. He ran the entire country by emergency decrees, suppressed people, okay. Excluding the popular sector. Attacked, suppressed the military sector of the popular sector, okay. And he's also retiring from some of the security part such as the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, where they tainted his role of 17 years.
