Word: korea
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Student demonstrations are an integral part of the political fabric of South Korea. But unlike most protests, fought under well-established rules of engagement at the gates of universities, the June 1987 demonstrations surged off the campuses, into the city streets. More important, they enlisted the support of middle-class citizens, whose forbearance with democracy delayed had been pushed to the limit under Chun...
...connection with an assault on a journalist. The chief of army intelligence, Major General Lee Kyu Hong, was relieved of his post on charges that he attempted to block an investigation of the incident. As long as Seoul believes, justifiably, that there is a military threat from North Korea, the South Korean armed forces are bound to maintain a strong influence. "The government of ((South)) Korea is a big ship, and you must change course slowly," says D.J.P. Assemblyman Nam Jae Hee. "The people know Roh is altering the direction gradually. That's enough." The opposition also knows that pushing...
...political hand has been strengthened immeasurably by his country's seemingly unstoppable economy, which last year was the fastest growing in the world. South Korea's gross national product in 1987 topped $119 billion, and has risen at the staggering average annual rate of 8.8% for the past two decades. The country financed its fast expansion by running up a foreign debt that reached $47 billion by 1986. But in that same year South Korea registered a small current-account trade surplus, the first in its history, and last year expanded it to $7.7 billion. That overage has helped enable...
...secret, in essence, is a labor force that is industrious (a six-day workweek is standard), well educated (literacy rate: 93%), extraordinarily thrifty (savings rate: 35.8%) and modestly paid (average income of manufacturing employees: $409 a month). Parts of this spartan work ethic, which enables South Korea to produce everything from steel to videocassette recorders at some of the world's lowest costs, are beginning to change. In recent months there has been a wave of labor unrest, much of it centered on winning higher wages. Even so, most economists expect South Korea's industrial machine to continue to grow...
Seoul hopes eventually to open channels to the North through its so-called Northern policy, an initiative born of Olympics contacts that is designed to shift South Korea away from its rigidly anti-Communist foreign policy. As yet the South has no formal diplomatic relations with a Communist country but hopes for change after the Games, with China first on the wish list...