Get with it

By Bernard Rowan

So we've reached the end of 2013, a year in which South Korea inaugurated its first female president. Though one year is a short period of time, it makes up 20 percent of Park Geun-hye's presidency.

This column will analyze what Park has done with her presidency since my congratulatory letter of nearly a year ago (The Korea Times, January 18, 2013). Frankly, the appraisal isn't positive. This conservative president has kept close to her base at the expense of the nation. Unless events change and a sense of real focus crystallizes, President Park deserves a visit from Dickens' "Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come".

Park governed early on without the benefit of the "political honeymoon" given to most new presidents. She spent much of her first year at odds with the opposition party, and political relations remain rocky at best. Pitiful! Park won the election with less than an overwhelming mandate. For that reason, she needed to reach out to the opposition. But, her credibility has declined along the way. Park's first year has shown she is stubborn and slow to put her stamp on how the country is governed.

Park has continued South Korea's assumption of greater responsibility for defense and security on the peninsula. She's hung tough on North Korea, drawing proper continuity with the Lee administration's policy. The real meaning of the American "pivot to Asia" is a need to contain Chinese ambitions within the context of declining relative American power.

South Korea continues to develop its regional security role responsibly and with zero tolerance for North Korean provocations. We can only hope the idiots who sit atop Kim Jong-un's military will not test that resolve. Foreign and military relations marked the high points in Park's first year of regency over Korea.

In economic terms, Park launched an era of democratization. She ended it within the year! Her moderation was so short as to escape notice. It was noticeably hollow in substance. In fact, Korea's economy isn't better off. Many pundits say times have grown worse. Falling real wages encourage little liberalization. The chaebol-dominated economy remains South Korea's greatest unanswered challenge. Perhaps we shouldn't have expected anything else.

Park Geun-hye hasn't been a poster child either of liberalization or progressive democratization in economics. Rhetoric has trumped economic reality. There was not even a debate over the need to develop an entrepreneurial economy in South Korea. Chaebol continues to rule and will do, until the symptoms typified by high-profile investigations and prosecutions spawn policies to reduce corruption. Episodic enforcement hasn't changed the dynamics of Korean economic power. Park Geun-hye's administration doesn't seem intent on such change, it seems.

The nation's strengths in ICT continue. However, that isn't due to Park's vision per se. Whither green development? Park's search for a Korean style of global economics need look no further. But green growth looks like a victim of jealousy and neglect. South Korea remains too much of a centralized, export-led economy. Too many salaries and fortunes hang on the conglomerates' tails. Change cannot occur with immediacy, and it'll never occur without focused national debate and leadership.

Park's done nothing of note to improve the plight of women. Korea's first woman president could at least try to better the lot of "the other half" of South Korea's citizenry. She's failed thus far, and squandered a window of opportunity. Park should strengthen the lot of the halmeoni, ajumma, yeoja, and agassi. Women are waiting for her to take serious action to improve their situations.

In addition, conditions today are no better for younger Koreans, those who in the end must carry forward the dreams and aims of our great nation and people. Too many South Korean youth vie for rare spots in top universities only to struggle to earn a suitable position when their education is completed. Korea needs more universities and trades schools, and not just for its citizens.

And, untouched is the regional imbalance in South Korea. Park is a leader for her party and for conservatives. She is just the latest who hasn't tried to spread development and advancement to the Jeolla region. Immigrants and the under- and unemployed are low priorities.

Park has done little to enhance national unity. Many state their disappointment. I think her father would, too. Nothing akin to the Saemaeul Movement. Park could learn a lot from the Park Chung Hee School of Policy and Saemaul itself! No thoughtfulness about the many Koreans outside Gyeonggi Province. So safe. So sad.

You have more time, but you appear stuck in neutral. Your leadership suffers under the weight of reversals and missed opportunities. It's time to get with it, Madame President! So much opportunity exists. Too many problems will follow your continued drift and inaction.

Bernard Rowan is assistant provost for curriculum and assessment, professor of political science and faculty athletics representative at Chicago State University, where he has served for 20 years. He can be reached at browan10@yahoo.com.