America played a crucial role in South Korea’s success
In fact, South Korea has had more genuine alternations in politics than Japan, which remains essentially a one-party democracy. Moreover, in recent years, South Korea has held accountable both its elected president and the owners of its largest company, impressive even when compared to more established democracies in the West.
Achievement is about not just where you are but where you came from, the distance travelled. And, by that definition, surely South Korea is the most successful country in the world. People might be inclined to conclude that Koreans are simply innately talented. In fact, the case of South Korea disproves this notion.
Just across the 38th parallel live millions of North Koreans, ethnically indistinguishable from their neighbours to the south. Yet, North Korea is a disaster, one of the world’s least successful economies and most repressive political systems. South Korea’s success is about having the right kind of policies, which the World Bank once concluded were support for markets and trade as well as big investments in education and infrastructure.
I would add one other major factor to explain South Korea’s success — America. The United States shielded and supported South Korea from its infancy, when it was a basket-case economy and a fragile country threatened by its neighbours. Americans went to war to defend this small nation, halfway across the world, and has maintained its defence commitment and troop presence for six decades. Washington lavished financial resources on it as well.
According to a South Korean think tank, the US poured US$60 billion in aid and loans into South Korea from 1946 to 1978, close to the amount it spent on the entire continent of Africa during the same period.
We are living in a time when Americans on both sides of the aisle are weary of engaging with the world, dubious about maintaining troops in foreign countries and convinced that foreign aid is a waste of money. Over the next few weeks, as they watch the glittering games in Pyeongchang, they might want to think about how far South Korea has come — and take some small pride in having helped it get there.
The writer is an American journalist and author. He is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly column for ‘The Washington Post’