Word: kim
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...officials had one reason to be optimistic. That same day, in a defeat for the ruling party, longtime South Korean dissident Kim Dae Jung was elected President. Rubin and his guests stayed in contact with the White House through the dinner to coordinate the exact wording of President Clinton's congratulatory phone call that night to newly elected President Kim. Clinton told Kim that he had a brief window of opportunity with no room for false steps. Just to be sure, one participant in the dinner, Treasury official David Lipton, was dispatched to Seoul two days later to measure Kim...
...absolutely against any measures that unilaterally force Koreans to make the biggest sacrifice here," says Kim Young Dae, general secretary of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the country's second largest and most militant labor union. "The people in charge of the chaebols are responsible for this crisis, so why should we pay for their mistakes?" The union has threatened to repeat the strike if the government allows companies to fire workers at will...
...officials have no choice but to pin their hopes on Kim, the 73-year- old dissident turned President. In an exclusive interview with TIME last week, Kim promised to "resolve Korea's crisis and restore our international credibility and competitiveness. We have needed these reforms for quite some time. But because of collusion between politics and business, nothing happened...
...Kim has promised to spread the burden of reform. Last week his government asked citizens to donate gold jewelry to ease the currency crisis and said it would put two failing banks up for sale to foreigners. Almost immediately there were reports that Chase Manhattan and Citicorp had expressed an interest in taking positions in the firms, though the banks refused to comment. Kim told TIME that "if layoff of workers is necessary, then that is what we will do." And he has warned the chaebols that if they don't reform, he will do it for them...
...Economic dependency upon foreign capital in the end leads to crippling dependency on outsiders. But this crisis is a good chance to analyze Korea's economic and political situation. By doing so, we can make our future better. The only thing we need is time. JI HYUN KIM Pusan, South Korea...