Edward M. Graham: Reforming Korea's Industrial Conglomerates
William W. Lewis: The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability
Chapter 5 discusses sectoral productivity in Korea.
Troy Stangarone of Washington's Korea Economic Institute provides a nice overview of the beef agreement in the July Korea Insight: Fourth of July BBQ or More Fireworks in Seoul?
He also looks at some of the other impacts of the protests.
Evan Ramstad and Sungha Park explore deeper issues underlying the Korean beef protests: South Korean Protests Show Depth of Anger, Challenge President (Wall Street Journal, July 3). They argue that, although ostensibly about beef, the demonstrations reflected deep popular frustration with rising income inequality and poverty, and competitive pressures in the labor market, and competitive foreign pressure in agricultural markets:
"Democratization has been a disappointment," says Yoon Geum-soon, who runs a small fruit farm and is active in a women's rights group staging protests. "All the wealth goes to a few people, while others work hard for too little."
When she joined a similar protest movement that brought democracy to South Korea in 1987, the 48-year-old Mrs. Yoon says she expected that not only would the public elect its own government but also that all Koreans would get wealthier together. Instead, her business is failing as cheaper imported fruit reduces prices, and she fears she won't be able to send her teenage twins to college next year....
Mrs. Yoon, the farmer, is annoyed that things are still so tough for her children. When South Korea joined the World Trade Organization and opened its fruit market in January 1995, the government lent Mrs. Yoon 15 million won (about $15,000) at a 3% interest rate, and her family built greenhouses that year.
But she says that imported oranges from California proved to be too much competition for her Korean yellow melons. Then, energy prices rose and forced her to shut the greenhouses in 1996. Despite 14-hour working days, she was left with debts that she's coping with today.
"My twins are now in the third grade of high school," she says, which means they face college-entrance exams in November. "If they don't get into college, it's a worry for their future. But if they do, that's a worry too, as I have no idea how I would be able to pay the tuition."
Negotiations
On Friday the 13th the Korean Trade Minister, Kim Jong-Hoon, arrived in Washington for negotiations with Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative. The initial negotiations took place on Friday and Saturday. Twice Kim threatened to walkout and return to Korea. However, the negotiations stretched out for almost a week, finally ending on the 19th. Here's a combination of a profile of Kim with a discussion of the negotiations: Man of Adroit Brinkmanship (Jane Han, The Korea Times, June 22)
President Lee has faced more perils than Pauline in recent weeks. The photo was taken in happier days, well before the beef agreement. This week he had to work through a cabinet restructuring, negotiations with Washington, the biggest in the string of beef demonstrations, and a truckers' strike.
On Monday, the Lee Administration decided to delay the planned reopening of beef imports from the U.S. that had been scheduled for Tuesday: New Delay on Beef Imports (and Renegotiation?) (Korea-U.S. FTA, June 2). The Dong-A Ilbo describes some of the background discussions within the Lee Administration: The Story Behind the New U.S. Beef Measure (June 4).
The latest issue of the Korea Economic Institute's Korea Insight has two short issues on the beef and FTA debates in Korea: (a) Troy Stangarone describes A Firestorm in Korea Over U.S. Beef, while James Lister and Stangarone provide an FTA Update. Short, readable, summaries of recent events. Some interesting points:
Continue reading "New Insights on Korean Beef Controversy and FTA" »
The Lee Administration has decided to delay the resumption of U.S. beef imports (South Korea to delay renewed US beef imports, Kwang-Tae Kim, AP, June 2) and to approach the U.S. to renegotiate elements of the agreement to reopen its market (South Korea asks US to change beef import agreement, AP via the International Herald Tribune, June 3). These actions follow large demonstrations over the weekend.
Continue reading "New Delay on Beef Imports (and Renegotiation?)" »
On Thursday (in Seoul) the government announced plans to allow imports of beef from the U.S.: Beef Import Decision Triggers Protests (Michael Ha, Park Si-soo, The Korea Times, May 29). The announcement was made in a nationally televised address by the Agriculture Minister:
Continue reading "Government moves to permit U.S. beef exports" »
TradingMarkets.com provides a useful Chronology of major events in S. Korea-U.S. beef talks (May 30). This covers events from the announcement in 2003 that a Washington State cow had mad cow disease, to this Thursday's announcement by the Agriculture Minister that the government intended to permit beef imports from the U.S. to resume.
I know I've been surprised by the intensity and persistence of the Korean opposition to the beef agreement in recent weeks.
Donald Kirk provides an analysis that he attributes to experts at the East-West center in Hawaii: South Korea's Lee takes a grilling (Asia Times, May 24). The suggestion is that at least some in Korea have an agenda that goes beyond simply preventing beef imports:
...Lee finds himself under vitriolic, unrelenting attack from leftist activists who've found a weakness in his armor of conservative popularity and support. Lee's foes have picked on the issue of the deal that his government made with US negotiators in the hours before he met Bush to resume importing US beef. After regular nightly demonstrations, they've broadened their protests into a general assault on Lee that threatens to deepen existing divisions among conservatives and force Lee into compromises he had hoped to avoid....
Strategists for the United Democratic Party, the main opposition grouping, see the beef protests as critical to a chain reaction. The first step is to undermine the beef agreement, and the next is to convince a majority of US Congress members that South Koreans will not import US beef, agreement or no agreement. In that event, the Congress would be likely either to vote against ratification - or fail to vote at all.
At the same time, Lee's foes promise to do all they can to tear the FTA apart when it comes up for a vote in the National Assembly. Lee's Grand National Party holds a slim majority only when drawing on support of conservatives outside the party, and Lee also has to wheel and deal with conservatives close to his main foe inside his party, the unpredictable Park Keun-hye, daughter of Park Chung-hee, the dictatorial president who was assassinated in 1979.
Analysts see the fight over importing US beef as the lever with which activists who oppose not only Lee but also the US-Korean alliance hope to revive their flagging movement. Beef as an issue for the moment has far more traction than negotiations on getting North Korea finally to give up its nukes.
The first paragraph makes a lot of sense to me as a partisan strategy for the UDP; even non-leftist elements would be tempted to take it. I am surprised at the implication in the later paragraphs that deep-sixing the U.S.-Korea Alliance is a "UDP" agenda item; the trade deal was negotiated by a UDP president. Although, again, it does make sense that there are people in Korea, and in the UDP, exploiting the beef deal for just that purpose.
