Seth Lipsky: Kim Dae Jung's Lesson
[Mr. Lipsky, a former member of the Journal's editorial board, is founding editor of the New York Sun.]
The life of free Korea's ex-president, Kim Dae Jung, which came to an end this week, gives new meaning to the phrase "sunshine soldier." In some respects he was like Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, who died last month, a hero of the struggle for democracy in Asia. In other respects, however, Kim had a story that was more complex and dangerous—one that stands as a cautionary tale for Mr. Obama.
I met Kim in 1979, when he was being held under house arrest at Seoul and I was the managing editor of the Asian edition of The Wall Street Journal. I'd been told that if I went to his neighborhood, Dong-gyo Don, in the western section of South Korea's capital, and telephoned him from a pay phone, I would receive instructions. They were to walk down a nearby alley and, whatever happened, to avoid stopping, or talking, when approached by government security agents.
Sure enough, the moment I ducked into the alley I was swarmed by them. When I declined to speak and kept walking briskly, they fell away. One of Kim's aides waved me on from his gate, which, as soon as I scrambled inside, closed behind me with a welcome clink. Then I was ushered into the modest bungalow of the man who once marshaled crowds of half a million Koreans and nearly toppled the presidency of the country's strongman, Park Chung Hee.
Kim had left the country after losing the 1971 election. When President Park declared marshal law in 1972, Kim began criticizing him from foreign soil, and in 1973, he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo and brought back to his country. He was arrested in 1976 after he signed a manifesto against the president and drew a sentence of five years. His country was then, as now, in one of the most dangerous military standoffs on the planet.
In a living room lined with hundreds of books in Korean, Japanese and English, along with busts of Lincoln and Kennedy and a painting of Jesus Christ, Kim lit a pipe and began to sketch his goal—which was for what he called a "democratic reunification" with North Korea. He made the point, over and over again, that the democratization of the South would have to precede any reunification, and that any reunification would have to be done democratically.
Government agents, including some who were once friends and admirers, set Kim down as not just naïve but vain. I tended to discount that kind of talk, for dissidents or exiles often can seem flaky. But I did find it hard to believe that there was much hope for his vision. Any visitor to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea gets a visceral feel of how explosive and dangerous is the peninsula, where millions died during the 1950-53 war.
Kim didn't deny the extraordinary economic gains that Korea was starting to show under Park Chung Hee. He argued that the recent economic growth in non-Communist countries in Asia demonstrated "the advantage of the Free World compared to the communist countries." He also said it was no coincidence that the success was coming in Confucian countries. Yes, under Park there had been what Kim called "brilliant" economic growth. But he predicted that the more economic growth there was, the more social unrest there would be absent a democratic system.
The meeting with Kim was one of the most memorable in a long newspaper career, even though, I don't mind saying, I emerged highly doubtful that he had a future. I couldn't have been more wrong...
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
The life of free Korea's ex-president, Kim Dae Jung, which came to an end this week, gives new meaning to the phrase "sunshine soldier." In some respects he was like Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, who died last month, a hero of the struggle for democracy in Asia. In other respects, however, Kim had a story that was more complex and dangerous—one that stands as a cautionary tale for Mr. Obama.
I met Kim in 1979, when he was being held under house arrest at Seoul and I was the managing editor of the Asian edition of The Wall Street Journal. I'd been told that if I went to his neighborhood, Dong-gyo Don, in the western section of South Korea's capital, and telephoned him from a pay phone, I would receive instructions. They were to walk down a nearby alley and, whatever happened, to avoid stopping, or talking, when approached by government security agents.
Sure enough, the moment I ducked into the alley I was swarmed by them. When I declined to speak and kept walking briskly, they fell away. One of Kim's aides waved me on from his gate, which, as soon as I scrambled inside, closed behind me with a welcome clink. Then I was ushered into the modest bungalow of the man who once marshaled crowds of half a million Koreans and nearly toppled the presidency of the country's strongman, Park Chung Hee.
Kim had left the country after losing the 1971 election. When President Park declared marshal law in 1972, Kim began criticizing him from foreign soil, and in 1973, he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo and brought back to his country. He was arrested in 1976 after he signed a manifesto against the president and drew a sentence of five years. His country was then, as now, in one of the most dangerous military standoffs on the planet.
In a living room lined with hundreds of books in Korean, Japanese and English, along with busts of Lincoln and Kennedy and a painting of Jesus Christ, Kim lit a pipe and began to sketch his goal—which was for what he called a "democratic reunification" with North Korea. He made the point, over and over again, that the democratization of the South would have to precede any reunification, and that any reunification would have to be done democratically.
Government agents, including some who were once friends and admirers, set Kim down as not just naïve but vain. I tended to discount that kind of talk, for dissidents or exiles often can seem flaky. But I did find it hard to believe that there was much hope for his vision. Any visitor to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea gets a visceral feel of how explosive and dangerous is the peninsula, where millions died during the 1950-53 war.
Kim didn't deny the extraordinary economic gains that Korea was starting to show under Park Chung Hee. He argued that the recent economic growth in non-Communist countries in Asia demonstrated "the advantage of the Free World compared to the communist countries." He also said it was no coincidence that the success was coming in Confucian countries. Yes, under Park there had been what Kim called "brilliant" economic growth. But he predicted that the more economic growth there was, the more social unrest there would be absent a democratic system.
The meeting with Kim was one of the most memorable in a long newspaper career, even though, I don't mind saying, I emerged highly doubtful that he had a future. I couldn't have been more wrong...