Word: koreans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...when the Asian contagion reached the Korean peninsula in September, Rubin could no longer soft-pedal the problem. South Korea is the world's 11th largest economy, America's fifth biggest trading partner, and home base for 37,000 U.S. troops who guard the border with a hostile, if starving, North Korea. Nearly every nation, from the U.S. to Slovenia, had a piece of Korea's foreign debt, and none held more than Japanese banks, which, by the standards of U.S. bank examiners, are themselves in varying states of insolvency. It didn't take much imagination...
...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...
Treasury and IMF officials worked through the next day to finish the aid package. The IMF would lend Seoul $2 billion, while the U.S., Japan, Germany and other nations kicked in an additional $8 billion in loans. In exchange, the Koreans would pass new laws opening their financial markets to foreigners, close insolvent banks and supervise others. As the deal came together, Treasury officials discussed the impact of a bailout on the Korean and American labor unions, fearing some of Labor's backers in the Democratic Party would balk at bailing out either Wall Street or the protectionist Korean workers...
Whether the South Koreans can keep their part of the bargain is unclear. The legislature in Seoul rushed through a host of reforms last week but balked at a bill that would have made it easier to implement layoffs and restructuring at the large chaebols. No wonder: last January, when the parliament tried to pass a similar measure, Korean workers staged a general strike that paralyzed the country for more than three weeks...
...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...