Possibility of peninsula progress

Park Geun-hye's win in a high-turnout election in the ROK paves the way for improving regional peace and stability

The 18th presidential election of the Republic of Korea was held on Dec 19 and Park Geun-hye, the conservative ruling New Frontier Party candidate, is set to become the country's first female president after she defeated her archrival Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party.

Voter turnout in this year's election was 75.8 percent, much higher than that of the presidential election in 2007, when the turnout was 63.0 percent, and 2002, when it was 70.8 percent. The higher turnout shows that voters hoped to show their views on major issues and believed their votes might make a difference in what was seen as a neck-and-neck competition between the daughter of former strongman president Park Chung-hee and the trusted follower of former president Roh Moo-hyun.

In order to defeat Park and unseat the conservative ruling party, the opposition had demonstrated unprecedented unity, with Ahn Chul-soo and Lee Jung-hee withdrawing from the election during the final stage. As a result, the election became a showdown between Park and Moon - the other four independent candidates together won only 0.4 percent of the votes.

Park, meanwhile, secured victory with 51.6 percent of the votes, the highest percentage since the country's democratic transition in 1987, and Moon got 48.02 percent. In fact, the last time a presidential candidate won more than half the votes was 1971, when Park's father Park Chung-hee won 53.2 percent of the votes.

Regarding domestic economic policies, people are looking forward to Park leading the economy to new heights and advancing public welfare. Park's father has been credited with modernizing the domestic economy, and a number of opinion polls suggest he is regarded as the biggest contributor to the country of all the presidents.

During her father's era, a number of outstanding enterprises grew rapidly with national policy support and managed to secure a place in the fiercely competitive international market. Though some people criticize the fact that the national economy is dominated by a small number of large enterprises and advocate so-called economic democratization, many people are still very proud of the country's multinational corporations, such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai. Park Geun-hye will continue to support the development of large-scale enterprises, but she will also try to create better development opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the country's per capita GDP is more than $20,000 and it has entered a new development stage where people are increasingly pursuing economic justice and a better quality of life. This will bring both opportunities and challenges for policymakers.

Turning to foreign and security policy, the diplomatic highlight of Lee Myung-bak's government over the past five years was the improvement in relations with the United States. The ROK-US alliance was strengthened, and the ROK actively participated in regional and international affairs with enhanced international status. Clearly the ROK-US alliance will remain the pillar of Seoul's security and diplomacy, and on this basis the ROK will continue to develop relations with China, seek to break the deadlock in relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and improve relations with other countries.

However, the inter-Korean relationship has been growing increasingly tense over the last five years. Seoul failed to grasp the initiative in dealing with the DPRK and the sinking of a ROK warship and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island not only deteriorated the security situation on the peninsula, but also damaged the relationship between the ROK and China. Finding new initiatives to ease tensions, rather than just acting tough, and improving relations with the DPRK will be a major test for Park Geun-hye.

Fortunately, she once visited the DPRK and has her own understanding of relations between the two countries. While dealing with the thorny issue, she is likely to demonstrate friendliness as well as severity. Park once visited China, as a special envoy of former president Lee Myung-bak, and she is also likely to attach more importance to China, the most important trading partner of the ROK, than her predecessor.

The author is an associate research fellow with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

(China Daily 12/25/2012 page10)