KOREA 2001
Introduction
Recorded Korean history stretches back to the 1st century BCE, and Korea has been united under one dynasty or another since Silla's unification of the Korean peninsula in the 7th century CE. Under the Silla and Koryó dynasties, Korean culture took form, with a stable central government marked strongly by Chinese influence; a vigorous Buddhist faith that inspired many scholarly and artistic achievements; and a distinctive ceramics industry that produced exquisite celadon stoneware. In 1392, inspired by Chinese Confucianism, a new dynasty known as the Choson was installed. From then until 1912, the Choson dynasty maintained a social and political structure that endured longer than almost any other regime in world history and further reinforced Korean national identity, as illustrated by its own unique hangul syllabary, invented in 1446 by King Sejong. Despite a Japanese invasion in 1592-98, the Choson political system lasted until the 19th century. Although a growing population, internecine struggle, and the growth of a capitalist economy all destabilized Choson Korea, the main factor in Korea's collapse was Western intrusion, as Christian missionaries and Western fleets exposed Korea to the outside world.
Once Japan began its ascent to Great Power status, Korea tried to modernize, but in 1912 Korea was made a Japanese protectorate. At first, Japan only controlled Korea's foreign relations, but it went on to control the land system, the police and military, the bureaucracy and all other vital institutions, all while sponsoring Japanese settlement on Korean lands and the rapid industrialization of Korea to produce goods for Japan's economic expansion. In 1913, 1919, and again in 1928, millions of Koreans took to the streets in nonviolent demonstrations for independence, but foreign support for Korean independence did not until the Second World War. Reluctantly, Japan allowed Korea to regain its independence under the terms of the Treaty of San Francisco in November of 1944, and the Choson returned from their Swiss exile.
Many outside observers had expected that Korea would languish as an impoverished backwater of the League of Nations, perhaps even succumbing to Communist revolution. Much to their surprise, though, since 1944 Korea has managed an astonishing recovery from its nadir under Japanese colonization. The famed Korean economic miracle in the quarante glorieux before the Third World War made Korea one of the most prosperous Second World countries in the world. Korea shared in the general economic depression in the 1980's, but in the 1990's Korea's chaebol went on to forge new export markets worldwide at the same time that Korea engaged in a careful process of territorial expansion to its north.
Even though Korea still has a long way to go before living standards catch up to those in Japan and Europe, it is unquestionably a world economic power on the rise. Against the odds, Korea managed to synthesize Western/Japanese modernity with Korean traditions, in the process creating a new Korean culture. This hybridity makes Korea an interesting place for the visitor.
Visiting Korea
Koreans have only recently begun to travel abroad. Over the past half-century, though, Koreans have become accustomed to visitors from the other member-states of the League, and Korea beginning to sign the League agreements regarding free travel. Visitors from Japan and Russia are looked upon with particular suspicion, however.
Visitors should familiarize themselves with entry requirements, especially customs requirements, and be sure to check their visa status before entering. Korean customs restrict the entry of firearms and many drugs, and check arrivals and their belongings for these.
Although much of northern Korea -- particularly the Parhae territories -- are still outside the rule of law and there is considerable street crime in major cities, Korea is a safe country for visitors.
Money
Prior to the Third World War, Korea's domestic trade was done in wons, with écus and United States dollars in international trade. In 1980, 19 Korean wons were the equivalent of one écu, and 12 wons were the equivalent of the United States dollar. The Third World War led to a rapid collapse in the value of the Korean won against First World currencies, as elsewhere in the Second and Third Worlds. As a result of this collapse, a stable monetary system remained out of reach for the rest of the 1980's. Only in 1988 could the won be maintained at a floating rate of roughly 16 won to the écu.
As of 1 January 2001, the official exchange rate for the Korean won against the écu is 17 wons to the écu, although black-market exchange rates are significantly higher. Banks and government exchanges in major cities and the north will convert foreign currencies to wons automatically, extracting a 5% service charge.
Natural Environment
Climate
Korea has a basically continental climate, with cold, dry winters and hot, rainy summers. In most of peninsular Korea, the average January temperature ranges from -9° to 0° C, and the average July temperature range is 21° to 29° C. Winter temperatures are higher along the southern coast and considerably lower in the mountainous interior and the north. The average annual precipitation in most of northern Korea is 1 000 mm, in Seoul is 1 250 mm, and in Pusan is 1 370 mm. The southern coast is subject to late summer typhoons that bring strong winds and heavy rains. In the Parhae Territories, January temperatures average about -18° C while July temperatures generally exceed 22° C, and rainfall -- as in peninsular Korea, concentrated in the summer -- averages between about 500 and 750 mm.
Geography
Korea has a predominantly rugged, mountainous terrain. The principal range is the T'aebaek-sanmaek, which extends in a generally north-south direction parallel to the eastern coast, stretching to the Manchurian Plain. The country's highest peak is Mount Paektu (2 744 m) located on the former Chinese-Korean border in the northeast; the second-highest mountain is located on the island of Cheju in the extreme south, is Halla-san (1 950 m). Most of the soils in the mountainous regions lack organic material and are relatively infertile.
Plains constitute less than one-fifth the total area and are concentrated in the west along the coast; the coastal plains in the east and south are very narrow. Apart from the eastern coast, Korea has a highly indented coastline characterized by high tidal ranges. Three of Korea's longest rivers, the Naktong, the Han, and the Yalu rise in the T'aebaek-sanmaek, the first river flowing south to the Korea Strait, the next two to the Yellow Sea. Other major rivers include the Kùm, Yôngsan, Tongjin, Taedong, Tumen, Ch'ông-ch'ôn, and Chaeryông. Fertile alluvial soils are found in these river valleys.
The three northwestern territories of South Parhae, North Parhae, and New Parhae -- formerly the Manchurian provinces of China and the Siberian Far Eastern provinces of the Soviet Union -- are geographically distinct from the Korean peninsula proper. The centre of Manchuria is known as the Manchurian plain; drained by the Liao and Sungari rivers, the Manchurian Plain is potentially fertile with large grasslands and forests marred by the wreckage of destroyed cities. Surrounding the plains are the Manchurian uplands, bordering upon Mongolia to the west, the Japanese Northern Territories across the Amur river to the north, and the Sea of Okhotsk of the East. These mountains are high and heavily forested, and relatively inhospitable.
The Korean People
Demography
The population of Korea reached a total of 55 million people in 1981. Had pre-war patterns of growth continued, there would now be almost 70 million Koreans. Subsequently, famine decimated the Korean population, stabilizing with the arrival of League food aid at 40 million in 1984. After that, the recovery of the Korean economy led to a renewal of population growth, mainly through a high rate of natural increase but also via immigration. Annual growth rates were 2% in the second half of the 1980's, 2.5% in the first half of the 1990's, and 1.5% thereafter. The Korean population has grown to a total of 64.1 million in 2000. The Korean birth rate and TFR (of 3.1 children born per woman) has been gradually declining, but immigration from alterworld Koreas and illegal immigrants from China are expected to maintain a fairly high rate of population growth. League projections suggest that the Korea population will eventually stabilize by 2050 at approximately 130 million.
Korea is a country that has historically been marked by ethnic homogeneity: Prior to the Third World War, more than 99% of the Korean population spoke Korean as their mother tongue, the only exceptions to this rule being the one hundred thousand Chinese residents of Korea. The chaos of the post-Third World War environment encouraged a considerable degree of immigration from devastated China to more-or-less stable Korea, while the Korean colonization of Manchuria gradually brought another ethnic Chinese population into Korea. Now, 91% of the Korean population speaks Korean as their mother tongue, and more than 8% speak a Chinese language. The 2000 preliminary census suggestes that the Chinese minority of Korean states is assimilating, as Korea continues its urbanization and internal redistribution of population, and as Korean mass culture proves to be an irresistible force.
Culture
Traditional Korean culture has fallen by the wayside, despite the efforts of the Korean government to encourage and preserve traditional art forms. Partly this is a product of the destructive impact of Japanese colonialism and rapid industrialization, partly a product of the free compulsory education and mass media that have ironed out many regional and class differences. In early 21st century Korea, global popular culture has become enormously popular among the young, particularly in its Japanese and Brazilian forms. Idoru pop singers and manga, nordestino New Wave music and paulista fiction, even European fashions and New African rhythm and blues -- all have found in Korea a large market, or at least many imitators. Likewise, Korean architecture and design consists of simple International-style patterns, while Korean television and film is limited to the production of dramas and documentations for domestic consumption.
Still, for all of the changes wrought in Korean society, many specifically Korean cultural forms have persisted and even thrived in the face of massive foreign influences. For instance, modern Korean music has been marked by the attempt to fuse traditional Korean music -- slowly-paced, rhythmically-flexible, and marked by subtle variations and microtonal shadings -- with up-tempo and rhythmically-stable Western popular music. Sometimes, as with ponchak pop -- a combination of sentimental lyrics with a danceable beat -- or with the sentimental balladry of torotto, it works, although it can just as easily produce inoffensive easy-listening music. The samulnori folk music of Korean farmers -- heavily influenced by Korean shamanistic rites -- has also made something of a recovery, while the populist and politically radical musicians of minjung folk-pop are also popular, particularly among the young.
Korean literature has also progressed rapidly since the colonial era. Historical literature dealing with the colonial era and with glorious episodes in Korea's past is popular, as is uchronic literature dealing with routes not taken in Korean history. Increasingly new literary genres, heavily influenced by the post-modernist writers of Japan and manifested in the highly popular works of Paik Ho-il and Chang Min-gi, has sought to describe the uncertain freedoms and chances of life in urban industrial Korea.
Some observers predict that as Korea continues its rapid industrialization and as Korean living standards begin to converge with those in neighbouring Japan, Europe, and the Southern Hemisphere, Korean aesthetics might manage a resurgence. For instance, the traditional hanbok clothing of Koreans has recently become more popular, while Korean celadonware and paper crafts are also coming into vogue among members of the Korean middle classes. As of yet, the outlook for the bulk of Korean traditions is highly uncertain.
Religion
In the late 1990's one-third of the people in Korea professed no religion, and this portion was growing. Buddhism claimed more adherents (some 25 million) than any other religion in Korea. It is buttressed by Confucianism, whose moral and political attitudes are a far more prominent element in Korean life than its relatively small number of stated adherents would suggest. Other significant influences include Ch'ôndogyo, a religion founded in the mid-19th century that fuses elements of Confucianism and Taoism. Shamanism is also a major aspect of Korean spiritual life, and is practiced to at least some degree by almost all non-Christian Koreans (and some Korean Christians).
Christians represent a small but influential minority of 16% of the Korean population. Christian missionaries were first permitted in Korea in 1882; by the early 1990s the Christian population was estimated at some 9.2 million, most of whom were Protestants. Two-thirds of Korea's Christians are Protestants, while the rest are Roman Catholic. Although there are large Christian populations across Korea, Christians are particularly concentrated in the north and in the southwest, where Protestant and Catholics dominate, respectively.
Cities
The 2000 preliminary census suggested that 63% of the Korean population lived in urban areas. This figure has been estimated by the League Statistical Bureau to have risen to 68% in 2000. Despite the attempts of the Korean government to encourage the agricultural colonization of the Parhae territories, the peasant population of Korea continues to flood into the cities of Korea, which are rapidly becoming some of the largest in East Asia and the entire world. Only recently has the Korean government begun to build modern infrastructures in the major cities, and living conditions for the poor are low. Still, the average visitor will not notice this.
Seoul is the largest city and chief commercial, manufacturing, administrative, and cultural center of Korea. With 11.8 million inhabitants as of 2000, Seoul is the fifth-largest city in the world. Business and commercial centers are located in the downtown area and, increasingly, in the area south of the Han River. Factories -- manufacturing everything from automobiles to consumer electronics -- are concentrated in the western part of the city, while poorer residential areas are mostly in the eastern part of the city. Seoul is the centre of the Korean rail, bus, and air transportation network, and it is the cultural and educational center of the country. More than 50 colleges and universities are located here, while the National Museum and the National Science Museum showcase exhibitions as various as traditional Korean paintings to modern Korean technology, and are supplemented by a number of smaller museums. The National Central Library, located in the Namsan area south of downtown, holds 830,000 volumes. There are many cinemas and theaters throughout the city, as well as numerous arts centres including the Korea Traditional Performing Arts Center. In addition, Seoul is the seat of the Yi dynasty, home to the four major palaces of Kyôngbok Palace, Ch'angdôk Palace, Ch'anggonggung Palace, and Tôksu Palace, and to Chongmyo, the Royal Ancestral Shrine, where Confucian memorial services for the Yi royal family are held each May. Pollution is a major problem in Seoul, but only recently has the Korean government taken steps to deal with it -- the visitor is advised to wear masks for the length of the stay.
Pusan is the second-largest city in Korea with a population of almost four million people. Located in southeastern Korea on the Korea Strait, Pusan is an industrial and transshipment center for most of Korea's exports from the heavily industrialized province of Kyôngsang. Pusan has several universities, among them the Pusan National University. Pusan has long been Korea's main gateway to the outside world -- following the beginning of Meiji, Pusan was the first Korean port opened to Japanese trade, in 1876. After 1912, when Korea became a Japanese protectorate, the city carried on a flourishing trade in manufactured goods and foodstuff with Japan. It remains to this day a decidedly working-class city with a sprawling harbour district, but it has recently become a major centre of offworld/Korean joint ventures for export.
P'yôngyang is the third-largest city of Korea, with a population of three million people, and it is located on the Taedong River in northwestern Korea near the Yellow Sea. It is the principal commercial, manufacturing, administration, and cultural center of northern Korea, and the main gateway to northern China, Siberia, and Korea's Parhae territories. Because it has periodically been devastated by war, P'yôngyang has been rebuilt many times and is presently a well-planned modern city with beautiful parks and gardens and wide avenues lined with large apartment houses. P'yôngyang is said to have been established in 1122 BC. In keeping with its extreme age, Pyongyang is the main centre in Korea for traditional arts and culture, with many venues for theater, music, traditional crafts, and dance. Points of interest include the remains of the ancient city walls, tombs from the 1st century BC, Buddhist temples, the North Korean Historical Museum, and a fine arts museum. P'yôngyang is more visibly diverse than Seoul or the Kyôngsang provinces -- not only is one-quarter of its ethnic Korean population Christian, but there is a post-Third World War Chinese immigrant minority of a half-million people.
Taegu is the fourth-largest city in Korea with a population of three million people, and the largest city and capital of North Kyôngsang province, on a branch of the Naktong River. Not only is Taegu a road and rail hub and a centre for trade in a wide variety of foodstuffs, but it is the second industrial city in all of Korea behind Seoul. Some of the major exports from Taegu include automobile, electronics, textiles, and spun silk. Taegu is an educational center and the site of a half-dozen different universities, colleges, and technical institutes.
Inch'ôn is a city located near Seoul on the Yellow Sea, at the mouth of the Han River. Inch'ôn is Seoul's chief port, and the second-largest port in all of Korea, with a total population of under two million people. As Seoul's sprawl expands to the west, Inch'ôn is increasingly becoming a suburb of the capital. Inch'ôn is an unattractive and poor city despite its proximity to Seoul, and its lower-class residential districts have long served as the centre of radical political movements.
Kwangju is the largest city of the Chôlla provinces in southwestern Korea and is the capital of South Chôlla Province, with a population of a million and a half people. Located in an agricultural area, it is an important regional transportation and commercial hub for southwestern Korea. Unlike Seoul or the Kyôngsang provinces, though, the Chôlla provinces are some of the least industrial in all of Korea. Although the Chôllas have been disadvantaged by their isolation and ill-educated populations, the prejudice of the Korean government against the "uncouth" southwesterners and the Roman Catholicism practiced by 40% of the population of the Chôllas has been an equally important factor in their marginalization. Kwangju is a major stronghold of the opposition parties, and Chosun University has played an important role in mobilizing the local population.
The Korean Government
The Korean government, like that of Japan, is a unitary imperial state. However, there are numerous differences between the Korean and Japanese systems of government, not least of which is the relative strength of the military and of regional divisions in the Korean regime.
Structure
Executive power is formally vested in the reigning Emperor of Korea, who is defined by the Korean Constitution as the male head of the Yi dynasty. However, in actual fact most power is vested in the Prime Minister, the individual who is the leader of the political party that receives the largest proportion of the popular vote. The Prime Minister appoints a cabinet; the Prime Minister's appointees can be vetoed by the Parliament only if two-thirds of parliamentarians vote against a candidate for a Cabinet position.
Legislative power is vested in the unicameral Parliament, which includes 305 elected members. Since 1991, all parliamentarians have been selected via direct elections in geographically-defined ridings. The opposition has complained that ridings are gerrymandered by the government Chief Electoral Commission in order to give maximum representation to pro-government ridings in the centre and southeast of the country and to minimize the power of anti-government ridings elsewhere in Korea. All members serve two-year terms, while no member can serve no more than three consecutive terms.
The highest court in Korea is the High Court, consisting of 14 justices (including the chief justice). Below the Supreme Court are six appellate courts, located in Seoul, Pusan, Taegu, P'yôngyang, Hamhung, and Kwangju. District courts, which are located in the major cities, have jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases of the first instance. As of January of 2001, the Korean government has not accepted the authority of the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, as a court of final appeal.
Korea is theoretically a democracy, but in practice it is an authoritarian parliamentary state. Since the late 1970's, the ruling Korean National Party has consistently returned from national elections with a majority of the popular vote. In the course of the 1990's, opposition parties -- the Liberal Party of Korea and the Korean People's Party -- have begun to make strong showings in national elections. In July of 1997, the Korean National Party won only 46% of the popular vote and 59% of the seats in Parliament, as the Liberal and People's parties made their strongest showings yet, shutting out the National Party in the working-class districts of Seoul and in much of the north.
Provincial Governments
Korea is divided into 17 provinces, including four cities with provincial status, and three territories. The provinces of Korea possess little of the autonomy afforded to their German and Brazilian counterparts; economic, political, and social influence still emanates outward from Seoul to the provinces. These provinces are, from south to north:
In addition to this, the territories formerly part of northeastern China and the Siberian Far Eastern Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic have been administered since the Sino-Korean War of 1997 as territories of the Empire of Korea. International recognition of Korea's northern frontiers -- now bordering upon the Mandate of Mongolia to the west and northwest, and the Japanese Northern Territories to the north, dates from early 1998.
The Korean Military
In theory, the Emperor of Korea is commander in chief of the armed forces; in practice, the Prime Minister commands the armed forces in peacetime, while the Chief of Staff commands the armed forces in peacetime. In the late 1990's total military forces stood at 633 000. Of these, 520 thousand were soldiers, 60 thousand were sailors, and 53 thousand were in the air force. At any one time, up to two million men in the appropriate age groups can be mobilized to supplement the regular force.
Before the Third World War, the Korean armed forces were oriented towards the defense of Korea's national territory. Korean national military called for the creation of a small but highly trained and well-armed professional force, capable of holding off the larger if technically inferior Sino-Siberian invaders long enough for help to arrive from elsewhere in the League of Nations. Until 1985, the European and Chilean navies maintained port facilities in Pusan and Hamhung, and Australia maintained a small Korean Expeditionary Corps of twenty thousand soldiers in northern Korea, all as tripwire forces to deter invasion.
The destruction of Korea's potential enemies in the Third World War changed Korean defense policies immeasurably. Given that Siberia was now a wasteland and China was locked into a complex and bloody multi-sided civil war, Korea was now the second military power of Asia, behind only Japan. Korean armed forces were used intermittantly throughout the 1980's and early 1990's in campaigns against ethnic Chinese partisans. The first Korean war since the Third World War was the Sino-Korean War, fought in 1997 with the aim of making the Agrarianist regime of China recognize Korean sovereignty over the former northeastern provinces of the People's Republic of China.
Aside from sporadic anti-partisan campaigns since the Korean victory in 1997, the Korean armed forces last saw major action in July of 1998, when the Holy Alliance invaded Korea. Although the fierce Korean resistance in the Parhae territories deterred a Holy Alliance invasion of peninsular Korea, the victory came at a high cost in manpower and material.
Since 1998, Korean military doctrine has undergone substantial changes, as the Korean government has begun the mass production of technologically-advanced weaponry, or where that is impossible due to licensing fees, to purchase arms on the interworld arms market. The Chiefs of Staff have been known to favour the adoption of an explicitly anti-Japanese strategic posture. More likely, though, is the development of the Korean military in tandem with the Korean economy, with the end goal of developing a large professional force of one million soldiers, excluding conscripts. This modernized force should be capable of deterring the invasion of the national territory of Korea long enough to ensure the arrival of help from elsewhere, with a secondary goal of projecting power across northeastern Asia.
Korean Foreign Relations
Before Korea was colonized by Japan, Korea was known as the "Hermit Kingdom" owing to its deliberate rejection of foreign intercourse aside from trade with Japan and Korea's tributary relationship with China. Since 1944, however, Korea has been forced by necessity to greatly expand its foreign interactions. Korea's acquisition in 2000 of permanent membership on the League Supreme Council, along with Korea's substantial foreign presence in terms of trade and emigrants, has given Korea one of the highest diplomatic profiles of any single country in the world.
Regional
Australia: As the two middle-ranking powers of the western Pacific Rim, less populous and wealthy than Japan but stabler and more influential than any other country, Australia and Korea maintain a fairly close relationship despite Australian concern over human-rights violations in Korea. The 1.1 million Korean-Australians make up one of the largest population groups in Australia, while more tourists come from Australia to Korea than anywhere else in the world save Japan. The two countries carry on a vibrant trade relationship, with Korea purchasing Australian foodstuffs and raw materials and exporting back consumer goods.
China: Relations with China have been strained since the Sino-Korean War of 1997. The Chinese government and people continue to resent Korea's blatantly imperialist annexation of most of northeastern China and fear Korea's growing economic power. Korea and Koreans, in turn, look down upon China as a barbarous and backward country. The Korean and Chinese diplomatic corps maintain embassies in Chongqing and Seoul, respectively, but relations are chilly at best.
Japan: The legacy of Japan's colonization of Korea continues to strain the Japanese-Korean relationship. Before the Third World War, the two governments were constrained to cooperate to at least a minimal degree against Sino-Siberian and American threats. The destruction of those threats in 1982-3 left the two countries free to drift apart. Over the 1980's and 1990's, the Korean and Japanese governments have found themselves in repeated diplomatic confrontations over such matters as the possession of the disputed Tok-do/Takeshima islands in the middle of the Sea of Japan (known to Koreans as the East Sea), Japan's treatment of its huge number of Korean immigrants, Korea's aggressively mercantilistic trade policies, and Japanese policies during the colonial era. Recently, relations between the two countries have improved following the foiled assassination attempt upon the lives of the Japanese and Korean emperors by an unknown agency, and collaboration on off-world colonization, while the underlying economic patterns of Japanese investment in Korea and the peripheral incorporation of Korean chaebol in Japanese keiretsu served to limit the potential for conflict. Japan maintains a large embassy in Seoul, and and consulates in all of the major cities of Korea.
League of Nations mandates: Korea's relations before the Third World War with the Indochina Union, the Philippines, and Indonesia were limited to Korean imports of raw materials and the export of Korean manufactured goods. After the Third World War and the transformation of these republics into League mandates, the Korean relationship become almost colonial in nature. Taking advantage of its position as an Asian industrial power independent of Japan, Korean construction and resource-extraction firms invested heavily in the area, building self-sufficient timber plantations and oil wells with refineries in the Borneo Mandate, and rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of the region. Although Korean investment in the area is a distant second to Japanese investment, Korean chaebol have managed to accumulate a substantial industrial base concentrated in the Borneo and Malaya mandates and to create an indigenous political elite beholded to Korean concerns.
Thailand: The Thai kingdom is viewed by Koreans as a potential third indigenous Asian industrial power, based on its historical record of independence from European colonialists and foreign alliances as much as upon its pre-Third World War economic boom and humane internal political policies. Korean chaebol want to participate in Thailand's future industrialization; the Korean government wants to secure a potential ally against China and Japan; Koreans generally want ensure Korea's food security with Thailand's abundant rice exports. As a consequence, Korea maintains an extensive presence in Thailand, ranging from aid agencies operating in the Thai provinces to assembly plants in Bangkok.
Non-Regional
Argentina: Argentina is Korea's third-largest trading partner in the world, and a military partner of long standing. Korea and Argentina have good relations, with some occasional disputes over inexpensive Korean exports of consumer goods into the Argentine domestic market. Korea is a major customer of Argentine military supplies, while Argentina is the fourth-largest Korean export market. In addition to its Seoul embassy, Argentina maintains consulates in Pusan and Hamhung.
Brazil: Brazil is respected as the wealthiest and most liberal country of the world, and as a force that can potentially counterbalance Japan. However, Brazil's condemnation of Korea's alleged export dumping in South American markets and dislike of Korean human rights violations makes bilateral relations uncomfortable, if intimate by necessity. Brazil maintains an embassy in Seoul, a consulate in Pusan, and trade missions in Taegu and P'yôngyang.
Chile: As the South American country with the largest and most modern navy, the Chilean navy maintained an extensive presence in Korea as part of the League tripwire forces. Despite this long-term military deployment, however, Korean-Chilean tensions were long marked by tension over Chilean military doctrine and the open criticism of Korea's human rights record by Chile. Once the Chilean North Pacific fleet withdrew from its bases in Pusan and Hamhung, relations between the two countries were reduced to the minimum necessary for the maintenace of their bilateral trade relationship. Chile maintains an embassy in Seoul, and trade missions in Pusan and Inch'ôn.
Egypt: When Korea regained its independence, the Yi dynasty and Korean nationalists hoped to modernize Korea as effectively as the House of Mehmet Ali modernized Egypt. Since the 1960's, the two countries have increasingly found common ground as self-assertive, rapidly modernizing and conservative monarchical states with ambitions for Great Power status. In the 1980's, Korean pressure upon Cairo played a crucial role in enlisting Egyptian support for the Trade and Migration Pacts, and in the 1990's the two countries pushed successfully for permanent voting membership on the Supreme Council of the League. Despite this close political relationship, there is little Korean-Egyptian trade. Egypt maintains its embassy in Seoul, and consulates in Pusan, Taegu, and P'yôngyang.
European Confederation: The European Confederation is one of Korea's largest export markets and an important military partner of Korea; these facts, along with Korea's recognition of crucial role played by Europe in restoring Korea's independence, ensure a close and reasonably friendly relationship despite European concern over the Korean human rights situation. In addition to its Seoul embassy, the Confederation maintains consulates in Pusan, Taegu, P'yôngyang and Hamhung, and trade offices in Inch'ôn and Kwangju, and aid offices in northern Korea and the Parhae Territories.
Iran: Although Korea buys much of its oil and natural gas requirements from Iran, Korean relations with Iran are strained. This is a product of Korea's acquiescence in Egypt's anti-Iranian foreign policy, and of Korean officialdom's concern with the religious fanaticism of the Islamic Republic. Like the Mexican government, the Korean government is convinced that Iranian ambitions should be strictly limited. Iran's diplomatic presence in Korea is limited to the small Iranian embassy in Seoul.
League of Nations: Over the past two decades, Korea has managed to position itself to the League bureaucracy and to the bulk of League members as a model state, as a prosperous and peaceful Second World economy that is a suitable supplier for the League's manifold material requirements and a potentially important component to peacemaking missions worldwide. Consequently, the Genève-Seoul relationship is relatively close, and the League maintains an extensive presence across Korea through the medium of its various organs.
Mexico: In the past generation, Korea has arrived at an entente of sorts with Mexico. Although Korea is a conservative monarchy, and Mexico is a liberal republic, leaders in the two countries believe that their nations share more as Second World countries eager for international recognition of their growing power than they don't share. The large number of Korean immigrants in Mexico has encouraged bilateral cultural exchanges between the two countries, while Korean investments in the Californias and Sonora play crucial roles in the economy of northwestern Mexico. In addition to this economic and cultural cooperation, Korea has coordinated its foreign policy initiatives with Mexico, the two countries' most notably achievements being the global acceptance of the Trade and Migration Pacts of 1985.
Economy
Korea is a prosperous Second World nation-state that, at current growth rates, is only one decade away from achieving First World status. Korea's tremendous economic achievements over the past half-century are the result of a vigorous private enterprise sector and government policies that have made economic growth -- particularly the expansion of exports -- the top priority. Further, the Korean government adopted social policies -- for instance, the establishment of a free public education system by the mid-1970's, and the establishment of public health programs -- that enhanced the effectiveness of the Korean labour force. Traditionally, the government also emphasized Koreanization of industry, and local control of companies engaged in mining, fishing, transportation, and exploitation of forests was required by law. However, recently the Korean government has actively encouraged foreign investment in new enterprises, while government controls in parts of the economy have been loosened.
The major conglomerates known as chaebol are the best-known features of the Korean economy for non-Koreans in keeping with their overwhelming focus upon overseas banking and manufacture exports. However, small family and corporate businesses produce a majority of the Korean GNP and employ most of the Korean workforce.
Agriculture
Land distribution programs were carried out after the Second World War, as land owned by Japanese citizens and agencies or by some Korean collaborators was expropriated without compensation. As Korea has industrialized and urbanized, the agricultural component of the Korean economy has shrunk. Although Korea had some 3.7 million farms in the late 1990's, the average cultivated land area for each was only 1.7 hectares. Already, the cold and relatively dry climate of Korea, and the mountainous landscape, served to limit agricultural potential. The small size of Korean farms, along with the traditional and unmechanized agricultural methods used by the farmers, has greatly hampered the ability of the agricultural sector to adapt to foreign competition. About 21 percent of the land area of the Korean peninsula is arable; nearly all of this land is under cultivation. The chief crops in the late 1990's were rice, the principal food crop; onions; potatoes; sweet potatoes; barley; maize; and, cucumbers, cabbages, and tomatoes. An important development has been the great expansion in the output of fruit, notably apples, melons, peaches, and pears. Other crops include soybeans, cotton, hemp, and silk. The estimated livestock population in the early 1990s was 8.7 million pigs, 3.5 million cattle, and 800,000 goats.
In the Parhae Territories, the Manchurian plain is the main agricultural area. Drained by the Liao and Sungari rivers and possessing fertile soils, the Manchurian plain holds the potential of becoming a major agricultural area once it becomes opened to settlement. At this time, however, cultivation in the Parhae Territory is limited because of a short growing season and the extensive pollution of the area.
The forestry industry is small; roundwood removals in the early 1990s were about 11.8 million cu m per year. The forests of the Parhae territories are already being exploited on a limited scale, but difficulties with transportation and marketing of Parhae wood and wood products has limited the growth of Parhae forestry.
Since the late 1960's, Korea has become one of the world's leading fishing nations, with a modern fleet of more than 780 deep-sea vessels. The ports of Ulsan and Masan have been developed as deep-sea fishing bases with fish-processing plants. The annual catch in the late 1990s was some 5.1 million metric tons, largely anchovy, tuna, mackerel, pollock, oysters, and seaweeds.
Manufacturing and Services
Upon independence, Korea was divided between a north that held most of the natural resources and heavy industries developed during occupation by the Japanese, and a south that contained most of the agricultural resources and a large labor pool. After China became a Communist state, the Korean government emphasized industrial development in the south for reasons of national security. Southern Korean industrial development concentrated initially on light manufacturing of export-oriented items, especially in labor-intensive industries such as textiles and apparel, footwear, and foodstuffs. Beginning in the early 1970's, however, emphasis was placed on heavy industry. Manufacturing is dominated by chaebol, large conglomerate companies with greatly diversified interests.
Major manufactures are electrical machinery, transportation equipment such as automobiles and ships, chemical products, textiles, iron and steel, and food products. The annual output of industrial products included passenger cars, trucks, merchant ships, television sets, fertilizer, woven cotton fabrics, and pig iron. Although most of these are produced for export, an increasingly large amount of Korean manufactured goods are produced for domestic consumption by the Korean middle class.
The service sector of the Korean economy provides employment to 19% of the Korean population and produces 28% of the Korean economy's total output.
Mining and Petrochemicals
Korea has extensive mineral resources. Mining is an important sector of the Korean economy, and efforts are being made to develop new deposits. The focus has been on iron ore, zinc ore, and coal, which had, in the late 1990's, annual outputs of 9.3 million, 43 800, and 58.3 million metric tons, respectively. Reserves of aluminum ores, occurring mainly in SOuth Parhae, are estimated at more than 400 million metric tons. Oil deposits are located in New Parhae, and the Korean government estimates that there are four billion barrels of oil in these wells. As of yet, though, it would be uneconomic to exploit these deposits. Other minerals exploited were graphite, lead, tungsten, magnesite, zinc, copper, bauxite, gold, silver, kaolin, and molybdenum.
Transportation
Korea possesses a highly-developed transportation infrastructure. In total, the country possesses some 81 000 km of roads, including 2 100 km of expressway. The state-owned railroad system consists of some 18 000 km of track. The country's chief ports include Pusan, Inch'ôn, Mokp'o, and Kunsan, and its merchant fleet numbers about 2140 vessels. Korean National Lines and Korean Pacific Airlines provide both domestic and foreign service. There are about 22,000 km of roads, of which only 2 percent are paved. The Taedong River is important to internal trade; the total length of inland waterways is about 4 300 km. Major ports include Namp'o and Haeju on the western coast and Ch'ôngjin, Wônsan, and Hamhung on the eastern coast.
Problems
Over the past half-century, Korea has managed an astonishing ascent to the rank of the Great Powers despite all manner of handicaps -- geopolitical, economic, and otherwise. To a limited extent, Korea continues to be handicapped by these same problems: Korea's relationships with Japan and China remain problematic at best, the decline of Korean agriculture is creating social crises for which the wider Korean society and government is simply not prepared, despite the dramatic improvements of the past half-century living standards in Korea are still well below those of First World countries, and the pressure for a more modern democratic system of government is still building up.
As difficult as all these problems are, they are not irresolvable; indeed, most evidence suggests that as before, Korea will muddle through its problems. However, the divisions that mark Korean society -- between rich and poor, Christian and non-Christian, urban and rural, centre versus peripheries, Korean and Chinese -- do have the potential to be irresolvable. A generation of Japanese colonialism and a half-century of breakneck industrialization have not only aggravated old divisions but has managed to create new causes for discord. So far, the Korean government has not recognized these divisions, much less has it tried to overcome these divisions. As plans for sponsored immigration of Koreans from offworld and the establishment of offworld Korean colonies continue apace, still more causes for division may appear. The blindness to these divisions may yet prove the downfall of Korea, or at very least delay its full convergence with the First World.