For political assignments, however, the four still used people in their inner circles.
In Singapore, since the number of bureaucrats was small enough, talented young people were rotated to many different departments, enabling them to understand how their own work fit in with the overall needs of the community. In China, with such a huge government, even Party members who became specialists and worked in different organizations tended to develop their own culture and to pursue their own narrow sectional or regional interests. Members of the inner core were needed to provide coordination between units and to ensure that overall interests were represented.
Though Park Chung Hee had by the late 1960s over two hundred people on his personal staff at the Blue House, when needed he brought in specialists from the bureaucracy or elsewhere to join him there. He chose to bring in a small number of people, such as O Wôn-ch’ôl, who led the heavy and chemical industry initiative, and to give them broad responsibilities.
The four leaders felt a sense of urgency in reshaping their countries and had little interest in or patience for academic discussions that were not directly related to the practical issues they faced. They all realized that they needed talented officials and supported high-quality schools, universities, and research institutes, but they were far more interested in issues relating to technology, economics, and management than in philosophy, religion, literature, and other fields in the humanities and social sciences. They were all secular and believed in science and the Enlightenment. Atatürk was especially critical of traditional religious practices that provided such resistance to his efforts at modernizing thinking. Although the others were less openly critical of religion, they tended to view it in the same light.
All of the four bristled when anyone criticized them personally. All worried that any unanswered critique might affect their authority, prestige, and ability to rule. All were ready to counterattack or even to silence out-
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spoken critics. Compared with Atatürk, who was revered as a military hero, Lee who was elected to office, and Deng who was selected by a Party Plenum, Park, coming to power by a coup, had far less legitimacy. Because of this, because he had so few acquaintances in the intellectual community, and because he felt vulnerable to both domestic and U.S. criticism, he relied less on persuasion and more on fear, intimidation, and crackdowns on those who dared to criticize him publicly.
Park Compared with Other Rebuilders:
Coping with Domestic and Foreign Opposition Park’s efforts to resolve the generic problems he faced had many similarities to the other leaders’ efforts. Like the others he assembled a very able group of committed generalists and developed long-range goals for the nation with a pragmatic approach to finding ways to achieve them. Like the others he transformed the early struggles against colonialism into struggles to defend the country, keep order, build a modern nation, bring modern industry, and enrich the people. But Park’s rise to power and his ensuing approach had significant differences from those of the other transforming leaders.
1. Park came to power by a coup, with a lower level of legitimacy than any other leader.
2. Because South Korea had had a more democratic system before he came to power than any of the other countries, his repressive regime, especially his forceful imposition of the yushin constitution in 1972, was seen at home and abroad as reversing the trend toward democracy.
3. It was more difficult for Park and many of his supporters to be seen as genuine patriots because they were compromised by having worked with the country that had been seen as Korea’s main enemy, Japan. The issue was especially difficult for Park, for not only had he served in the Japanese army during the colonial period but in 1965, to get the external technical, managerial, and financial help he needed to launch industrialization, he normalized relations with Japan and worked closely with the Japanese.
4. Park’s total mobilization for economic progress and his tight control over available capital and resources, especially during the heavy and chemical industrialization drive, went beyond that of the other three leaders. It was such a strain to get the needed resources that Park tried to get control over funds everywhere. Because of the political resistance to these efforts, he chose to force through the yushin constitution to give him tighter political control.
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5. Park did not have the broad contacts outside the military that the other three leaders had, nor the extent of experience in persuading the public outside his narrow circles, nor the natural ability to manage public relations. Because he had significant domestic opposition, he relied heavily on the KCIA, military intelligence, and the police to clamp down still further on his opponents.
6. Despite his authoritarianism, Park could not fully ignore two significant groups that objected to his autocratic behavior, the U.S. government and Christians. He was more dependent than the other three leaders on U.S. government support for security, since the presence of U.S. troops on South Korean soil was so essential to protecting South Korea from large-scale attacks by the North. He therefore was in a weak position to resist U.S. pressure for greater democracy and respect for human rights.
Because of the strong Protestant and Catholic churches in Korea, with membership that was above 15 percent of the population, and strong international Christian support, those who opposed Park’s authoritarianism could rally their churches, as in the days of Japanese colonialism. Because of this foreign support, Park’s ability to crack down on Korean Christians was severely constrained; they formed a base of resistance that was beyond his power to fully control.
None of the other three did more than Park in raising the people’s standard of living, and in strengthening the country. All four leaders had intense single-minded devotion to their nation, but none more so than Park.
None did more to launch heavy industry. But because of the issues of legitimacy, the lack of “thoroughgoing” patriotism in his relations with Japan, his difficulty in managing public relations, and the limitations on his ability to silence domestic critics and their foreign supporters, expressions of opposition to Park were stronger than for Atatürk, Lee, or Deng. With more determined opponents, Park used more sustained forceful methods to keep them under control than the other leaders did.
Public Memory of the Rebuilders
In Turkey, Atatürk has remained a hero in the public’s eyes not only for his military victories, patriotism, and economic progress but for his determination to leave their feudal past behind and link Turkey to the modern West. Except for religious extremists who resent his secularism, people in Turkey revere him as the great man who set Turkey on a new path and brought enlightenment to his people.
Lee Kuan Yew, the only rebuilder who lived on to greet the twenty-first
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century, has been a hero in Singapore since his early days as prime minister.
Singaporeans are proud that their leader became a major world leader and that their nation has earned a reputation as clean and green. Singapore is small enough that Lee’s presence and influence has been felt everywhere, long after his retirement, like a patriarch in an extended family. Singaporeans are grateful for his brilliant and courageous leadership that brought Singapore through a dangerous period that no other leader could have achieved. Some Singaporeans believe that Lee Kuan Yew remained stricter than necessary as a taskmaster, too ready to look down on people of lesser ability, too harsh toward potential rivals, and that the well-ordered society he created is a little dull. But the dominant view is one of huge respect for a man of extraordinary intellect, wisdom, and dedication who played the decisive role in making Singapore an unusually well ordered, prosperous, secure, and attractive place to live.
The Chinese Communist Party made an official evaluation of Mao but not of Deng. The official evaluation of Mao in 1981 declared that 70 percent of his actions were contributions and 30 percent were errors, an
d that the 30 percent were largely in his later days. Until his death, Mao was treated as a god, and a minority remains nostalgic for what is remembered as a simpler but less corrupt and more equal society. Most people, however, believe Mao was leading China down the wrong path. They are enormously grateful that Deng turned China around and opened it up in many ways that have benefited the people and the country.
Many people, especially intellectuals and liberal Party leaders, are critical of Deng for his failure to do more to stop corruption and allow greater freedom, for his 1987 sacking of Hu Yaobang, who stood for a more humane and democratic rule, and above all for the 1989 crackdown around Tiananmen Square, when hundreds of citizens were shot on the streets of Beijing. Now that a generation is growing up on the coast with a comfortable standard of living, many say that in launching his reforms and opening, Deng did not do enough to combat the evil side-effects of his policies, particularly corruption, inequality, and the unrestrained selfishness that comes from the passion to get rich.
The picture of Deng that has been presented in the public media, especially in 2005, the year of the hundredth anniversary of his birth, is an official picture of a hero who always made correct decisions and lacked personal foibles. The public has little sense of what he was like as a person except that he was a family man as well as a dedicated official.
The public overwhelmingly believes that Deng is the leader who set China on the correct path of reform and opening that has improved the lives of the people, decreased the fear in their daily lives, ended the century
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of failures and humiliation, and created a strong China that they can be proud of. Even among intellectuals who criticize Deng for not doing more to promote democracy, there is almost universal appreciation for his successes in launching reform and opening, and a conviction that no other leader could have accomplished what he did. Many Chinese believe his contributions not only exceed Mao’s but that he did more for China than any leader in recent centuries.
Of the four leaders, Park Chung Hee remains the most controversial in his own country. He was hated and feared for his illegal seizure of power by a coup, the repression of opposition, the military clampdowns, the climate of fear, the harshness of the yushin constitution, and his disregard for democratic procedures and the rule of law.
Since Chun Doo Hwan, who seized power in 1980, and Roh Tae-woo were Park’s underlings before they became his successors, the South Korean public also links Park to the repression during their rule and especially the horror of the slaughter of civilians by Chun Doo Hwan’s troops in Kwangju. Since the South Korean media has become freer, media opinion has been dominated by intellectuals who were suppressed during earlier eras and who in the new, freer environment have poured out their grievances against Park. Many Koreans consider the authoritarian governments of Park and his immediate successors unworthy of a nation that boasts such a rich history, such high standards of education, and such high levels of science and technology.
Because Park normalized relations with Japan in 1965, Koreans’ view of Park cannot be separated from the widespread hatred of Japanese colonial occupation. Park’s service in the Japanese army, his use of the prewar Japanese model, and his readiness to work closely with Japan all contributed to the controversy surrounding him.
Yet South Koreans know that Park held their nation together at a critical moment and made it possible to create the modern prosperous nation that people today enjoy. The pain and suffering during the era of Park and his successors has made it difficult for people to deal with his rule in an objective way. Both the horrors and the successes were beyond the range of ordinary human experience. Park aroused such passions that it has taken several decades after his death for the Korean public to begin to look at him with some detachment, engage in an objective analysis of him and his rule, and seek an understanding of how and why the troubled past caused such pain and yet laid the grounds for the prosperity and eventually the freedom they enjoy now.
c h a p t e r
n i n e t e e n
Reflections on a Reverse Image:
South Korea under Park Chung Hee
and the Philippines under
Ferdinand Marcos
Paul D. Hutchcroft
Park Chung Hee and Ferdinand Marcos were both born in 1917, came of age while their respective countries were under colonial rule, emerged as national leaders in the 1960s, and proclaimed martial law at virtually the same time in late 1972. The countries they ruled each had deep historical and economic ties with the United States and Japan, and in the postwar years both South Korea and the Philippines hosted major U.S. military bases and were strongly aligned with the West. In declaring martial law, the incumbent presidents claimed that harsh measures were necessary to defend against a range of challenges and promote democratic foundations appropriate to national circumstances. Although both men enjoyed a strong base of power, they at the same time feared popular electoral rivals, made constitutional changes ensuring their continuance in office, and carried out horrific repression against movements of political opposition. The two authoritarian regimes were based on a high concentration of personal authority and power, with a relatively weak role for the ruling political party in each country.
Despite these striking similarities, the regimes of these two leaders produced huge contrasts in political-economic outcomes: rapid industrialization in Korea and disastrous economic predation in the Philippines. “More than any other single political figure,” leading historians conclude, “Park
. . . shaped the modern South Korean political economy, and his legacy was both admirable and appalling.” The assessment of Marcos by his for-
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mer chief ideologue tells an entirely different story: “He believed he could have a vision for society . . . and still loot it.” According to Transparency International, Marcos ranks as the second-most successful kleptocrat in history, stealing roughly $5–$10 billion during his two decades in the presidential palace.1
How are these highly contrasting outcomes to be explained? The analysis below demonstrates the importance of both structure and agency. On the one hand, Park had the advantage of certain structural preconditions much better suited to positive developmental outcomes. His dictatorship both inherited and nurtured a far more institutionalized civilian and military bureaucracy than did the dictatorship of Marcos. One can observe within the Park regime an often paradoxical mix of institutionalization and personalization; Marcos, on the other hand, both inherited and nurtured a thoroughly patrimonial bureaucracy. In addition, state-society relations in Korea and the Philippines can be viewed—at various points in both the colonial and the postcolonial eras—as the reverse image of each other. In general, the Korean state historically faced weak countervailing forces in society. The dominant political-economic elite in the Philippines, by contrast, historically demonstrates a remarkable capacity both to plunder the state and to fend off challenges from below.2
Differences in the nature of state institutions and state-society relations are an essential but by no means complete part of the story. One must also examine important individual differences in the two leaders, beginning with the very notable contrast in their personal backgrounds: Park went from humble peasant origins to colonial and postcolonial military service to his 1961 seizure of political power, while Marcos came forth from a minor provincial elite family and used a range of ingenious political tactics to ascend to the highest post in the land in 1965. Once in office, both presidents were interested in maximizing power and authority, but their broader goals were the reverse image of each other: Park was obsessed with national economic development and seems to have accumulated little personal wealth while Marcos’s developmentalist rhetoric masked an underlying commitment to promoting the economic success of his family and his cronies. Although one can say that both regimes were personalistic, the Marcos regime was thoroughly familial i
n character as well.
This chapter examines the combination of structural and agency-based factors that explain the starkly varying political-economic outcomes of the two authoritarian regimes. Given the rich and textured detail provided in earlier chapters of this volume, less attention will be given to Park and Korea as compared to Marcos and the Philippines. To enhance my analysis of the combined importance of structure versus agency, I conclude with
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counterfactual speculation that imagines Park at the helm in the Philippines and Marcos in charge of South Korea. As I shall argue, both dictators began their rule with structural factors highly conducive to their respective personal goals: rapid development in one case and systematic plunder in the other.
State-Society Relations in Korea and the
Philippines: The Looking Glass of the Recent Past The historical character of state-society relations in Korea and the Philippines have been the mirror image of each other in many ways. Scholars of modern Korean history and politics commonly describe a highly centralized and overbearing state able to exercise a considerable degree of control over a weak and poorly organized yet often “contentious” society. Within the society, explains Carter Eckert, the bourgeoisie has been “a decidedly unhegemonic class, estranged from the very society in which it continues to grow.”3 In the Philippines, by contrast, a strikingly decentralized and porous state has been continually raided by a hegemonic oligarchy that maintains strong clientelist linkages with a range of other societal groups.
While the country has a long history of popular resistance and revolutionary activity, the national oligarchy that emerged in the early twentieth century still dominates both state and society—even though its composition and economic base have evolved significantly over time, and its dominance has occasionally come under challenge. In each country, the dynamics of state-society relations have been dramatically shaped both by colonialism and by postcolonial ties to foreign powers.
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