Was Park Chung-hee a dictator?
He was a Japanese collaborator and one-time communist who cynically engineered a path to the top. He was a sinister general who seized power via coup. To earn Yankee dollars, he ruthlessly exploited Korean workers in sweatshop factories and Korean soldiers in Vietnamese jungles. He bulldozed traditional architecture and created an urbanized Korea of brutish ugliness. He suppressed democratic institutions, wielded security services to suppress human rights and altered the constitution to maintain power.
Park Chung-hee, in short, was a dictator.
Particularly following the downfall of his daughter Park Geun-hye, this seems to be the dominant narrative surrounding Park Senior — at least among young Koreans I speak to. It is rare to hear a good word about the man who was, more than any other, responsible for molding today’s South Korea.
But does the descriptor “dictator” appropriately encompass the whole man? I would argue, “No.”
Park is most noted for the extraordinary surge of the Korean economy, the “Miracle on the Han.” (Both the blueprint for this — start with highways to create a concrete sector; then build vehicles to create machinery, steel and refined petrochemicals sectors — and the term for it, were borrowed from West Germany and the “Miracle on the Rhine.”) It is difficult to overstate the importance of this achievement.
His efforts to leverage startup capital from ex-colonial power Japan and Vietnam-engrossed America were risky and unpopular with the public. But the money was wisely invested. The creation of a modern national infrastructure; the rise of companies that built it and made the products to run on it; and the subsequent creation of massive, foreign-exchange earning export powerhouses; enriched the nation massively. A formerly agrarian Korea was catapulted out of third-world status.
A rich elite certainly became richer, but trickle-down became a flood that bathed the entire nation. Poverty was largely eradicated. Infectious diseases, malnutrition and infant mortality plunged. Life spans soared. Housing improved (albeit, at the cost of traditional aesthetics). Provision of training and education increased. While quality of life remained a distant priority, the seeds of great expectations had been sown.
The national character was transformed. Early western observers considered Koreans charming but indolent; observers during the Korean War wrote them off as a broken people. Ambition, diligence and a fierce desire to succeed against all odds were injected into the national DNA via the Park-era military and education systems. Under Park, Koreans became winners — respected players on the global scene — for the first time in modern history.
Park’s most under-sung achievement is environmental. He instituted a national tree-planting program that turned Korea’s hills and valleys — deforested since the late 19th century due to the ferocious appetite of ondol heating/kitchen systems for firewood — green and verdant.
Could all this have been achieved under democratic governance? Perhaps. But if it had, it almost certainly would have taken far, far, longer. Democracy may be the fairest form of governance, but inbuilt checks and balances slow things down. For this reason, democracy tends to establish itself in, and operate best in, prosperous, advanced economies. Park’s drive would almost certainly have outrun democratic institutions that demand the rule of law — with its rules and regulations — and frowned upon his penchant for national mobilization and social engineering.
Even in politics, Park won two elections fairly and squarely — but there is no denying that his political rule, from 1971 until his assassination in 1979, was harshly dictatorial. Yet if we look at a wider spectrum of national metrics — economic, social, environmental — it seems myopic to focus attention solely upon politics.
It is noteworthy that the generation which lived through the Park years tends to venerate him — but every generation rewrites history. This is natural. Not only is new material uncovered, but new approaches to historiography are demanded by changes in public attitudes, social mores and academic theories.
Will Park’s legacy continue to erode? I suspect not. In the fullness of time, I think he will be seen in a broader, fairer and more positive light than he is today. South Korea was the greatest national success story of the latter half of the 20th century; Park was its pioneering architect and builder.