Foreign policy In June 1965, Park signed a
treaty normalizing relations with Japan, which included payment of reparations and the making of soft-loans from Japan, and led to increased trade and investment between South Korea and Japan. In July 1966, South Korea and the United States signed a
Status of Forces Agreement, establishing a more equal relationship between the two countries. With its growing economic strength and the security guarantee of the United States, the threat of a conventional invasion from North Korea seemed increasingly remote. Despite the South Korean government's heavy reliance on American support, Park made an effort to not fully attach his foreign policy agendas to their US counterpart. However, following the escalation of the
Vietnam War with the US deploying ground combat troops in March 1965, South Korea sent the
Capital Division and the
2nd Marine Brigade to
South Vietnam in September 1965, followed by the
White Horse Division in September 1966.
Vietnam War |225px At the request of the United States, Park sent approximately 320,000 South Korean troops to fight alongside the United States and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War; a commitment second only to that of the United States. The stated reasons for this were to help maintain good relations with the United States, prevent the
further advance of communism in East Asia and to enhance the Republic's international standing. In January 1965, on the day when a bill mandating a major deployment passed the National Assembly (with 106 votes for and 11 against), Park announced that it was "time for South Korea to wean itself from a passive position of receiving help or suffering intervention, and to assume a proactive role of taking responsibility on major international issues." South Korean soldiers were not able to ultimately defeat the
Viet Cong, even though South Korea was quite successful. They also gained a reputation for brutality towards civilians and were accused of numerous "
My Lai-style"
massacres. Although primarily to strengthen the military alliance with the United States, there were also financial incentives for South Korea's participation in the war. South Korean military personnel were paid by the United States federal government and their salaries were remitted directly to the South Korean government. Park was eager to send South Korean troops to Vietnam and vigorously campaigned to extend the war. In return for troop commitments, South Korea received tens of billions of dollars in grants, loans, subsidies, technology transfers, and preferential markets, all provided by the
Johnson and
Nixon administrations.
North Korea on October 1, 1973 Park oversaw transitional changes between the two Koreas from conflict to consolidation. In 1961, the North Korean leader,
Kim Il Sung secretly sent Hwang Tae-song, a former friend of Park Chung Hee and a vice-minister in ministry of trade, to South Korea, hoping to improve inter-Korean relations. However, in order to dissipate the suspicions about his Communist leanings and assure Americans his firm stance as an ally, Park decided to execute Hwang as a spy. Beginning in October 1964, North Korea increased the infiltration of its intelligence-gatherers and propagandists into the South. More than 30 South Korean soldiers and at least 10 civilians had been killed in clashes with North Korean infiltrators by October 1966. In October 1966, Park ordered the Korean Army to stage a retaliatory attack without seeking the approval of
General Charles Bonesteel. This action, which was in retaliation for ongoing South Korean losses, caused tension between Park's government and the U.S. command in Korea, which wished not to violate the armistice. Between 1966 and 1969 the clashes escalated as Park's armed forces were involved in firefights
along the Korean DMZ. The fighting, sometimes referred to as the Second Korean War, was related to a speech given by Kim Il Sung on October 5, 1966, in which the North Korean leader challenged the legitimacy of the 1953
Armistice Agreement. Kim stated that irregular warfare could now succeed in a way conventional warfare could not because the South Korean military was now involved with the ever-growing Vietnam War. He believed Park's administration could be undermined if armed provocation by North Korea was directed against U.S. troops. This would force United States to reconsider its worldwide commitments. Any splits would give the North an opportunity to incite an insurgency in the South against Park. On January 21, 1968, the 31-man
Unit 124 of North
Korean People's Army special forces commandos attempted to
assassinate Park and nearly succeeded. They were stopped just 800 metres from the
Blue House by a police patrol. A fire fight broke out and all but two of the North Koreans were killed or captured. In response to the assassination attempt, Park organized
Unit 684, a group intended to assassinate Kim Il Sung. It was disbanded in 1971. Despite the hostility, negotiations were conducted between the North and South regarding
reunification. On July 4, 1972, both countries released a joint statement specifying that reunification must be achieved internally with no reliance on external forces or outside interference, that the process must be achieved peacefully without the use of military force, and that all parties must promote national unity as a united people over any differences of ideological and political systems. The United States Department of State was not happy with these proposals and, following Park's assassination in 1979, they were quietly buried. On August 15, 1974, Park was delivering a speech in the
National Theater in Seoul at the ceremony to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the ending of colonial rule when a man named
Mun Se-gwang fired a gun at Park from the front row. The would-be assassin, who was a
Japanese-born North Korean sympathizer, missed Park but a stray bullet struck his wife Yuk Young-soo (who died later that day) and others on the stage. Park continued his speech as his dying wife was carried off the stage. Mun was hanged in a Seoul prison four months later. On the first anniversary of his wife's death, Park wrote in his diary "I felt as though I had lost everything in the world. All things became a burden and I lost my courage and will. A year has passed since then. And during that year I have cried alone in secret too many times to count."
Japan On June 22, 1965, the Park administration and the government of Japan under
Eisaku Satō signed the
Treaty on Basic Relations Between Japan and the Republic of Korea, which normalized relations between Japan and South Korea for the first time. Relations with Japan had previously not been officially established since Korea's decolonization and
division at the end of World War II. In January 2005, the South Korean government uncovered 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents of the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea of 1965 that had been kept secret for forty years. These documents revealed that the Japanese government proposed to the government of South Korea, then headed by Park, to directly compensate individual victims of Japanese colonization of Korea, but it was the Park administration that insisted it would handle the individual compensation to the victims, and took over the entire amount of the grant, $300,000,000 () (for 35 years of Japanese colonial rule in Korea), on behalf of the victims. The Park administration negotiated for a total of $360,000,000 () in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the forced labor and military service during the colonial period but received only $300,000,000 ().
China Park's government had no diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, but did attempt to establish trade in chili peppers unsuccessfully in 1974 and successfully in 1978, contributing to a softening of tensions between the two Cold War enemies.
Economic policy One of Park's main goals was to end the extreme poverty prevalent in South Korea, and lift the country up from being an underdeveloped economy to a developed economy
via statist methods. Using the Soviet Union and its Five Year Plans as a model, Park launched his first Five Year Plan in 1962 by declaring the city of Ulsan as a "special industrial development zone". The
chaebol of
Hyundai took advantage of Ulsan's special status to make the city the home of its main factories. Park is credited with playing a pivotal role in the development of South Korea's
tiger economy by shifting its focus to
export-oriented industrialisation. When he came to power in 1961, South Korea's per capita income was only US$72.00.
North Korea was the greater economic and military power on the peninsula due to the North's history of heavy industries such as the power and chemical plants, and the large amounts of economic, technical and financial aid it received from other communist bloc countries such as the
Soviet Union,
East Germany and
China. One of Park's reforms was to bring in 24 hour provision of electricity in 1964, which was a major change as previously homes and businesses were provided with electricity for a few hours every day. With the second Five Year Plan in 1967, Park founded the Kuro Industrial Park in southwestern Seoul, and created the state owned
Pohang Iron and Steel Company Limited to provide cheap steel for the
chaebol, who were founding the first automobile factories and shipyards in South Korea. Reflecting its statist tendencies, the Park government rewarded
chaebol who met their targets under the Five Year Plans with loans on easy terms of repayment, tax cuts, easy licensing and subsidies. It was common from the late 1960s onward for South Koreans to speak of the "octopus" nature of the
chaebol as they began to extend their "tentacles" into all areas of the economy. Some of the successful
chaebol like Lucky Goldstar (
LG) and
Samsung went back to the Japanese period while others like Hyundai were founded shortly after the end of Japanese rule; all would go to become world-famous companies.
Hyundai, which began as a transport firm moving supplies for the U.S. Army during the Korean War, came to dominate the South Korean construction industry in the 1960s, and in 1967 opened its first car factory, building automobiles under license for Ford. In 1970, Hyundai finished the construction of the Seoul-Pusan Expressway, which became one of the busiest highways of South Korea, and in 1975 produced the
Pony, its first car that was designed entirely by its own engineers. Besides manufacturing automobiles and construction, Hyundai moved into shipbuilding, cement, chemicals and electronics, ultimately becoming one of the world's largest corporations. On August 3, 1972, Park enacted an "Emergency Financial Act of August 3rd" (), which banned all private loans to make the foundation of economic growth, and supported chaebols even further. A sign of the growth of the South Korean economy was that in 1969 there were 200,000 television sets in operation in South Korea, and by 1979 there were six million television sets operating in South Korea. In 1969, only 6% of South Korean families owned a television; by 1979 four of every five South Korean families owned a TV. However, all television in South Korea was in black and white, and the color television did not come to South Korea until 1979. Reflecting the growth of TV ownership, the state-owned
Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) began to produce more programming, while private sector corporation
MBC began operating in 1969. During the Yushin era, television productions were subjected to strict censorship with, for example, men with long hair being banned from appearing on TV, but soap operas became a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s, becoming extremely popular. South Korean industry saw remarkable development under Park's leadership. Park viewed Japan's development model, in particular the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the
Keiretsu, as an example for Korea. Park emulated MITI by establishing the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Economic Planning Board (EPB). Government-corporate cooperation on expanding South Korean exports helped lead to the growth of some South Korean companies into today's giant Korean conglomerates, the chaebols. President Park Chung Hee paid great attention to education for the low-income class and the people as well as economic development. He led the reform in the education sector, raising the educational standard of the Republic of Korea and promoting social equality. To increase access to education, the government expanded investment in education policies, and as a result, children from economically vulnerable families could benefit from it. President Park's educational reforms have raised the standard of education in the Republic of Korea and are affecting the current Korean education system. According to the
Gapminder Foundation extreme poverty was reduced from 66.9 percent in 1961 to 11.2 percent in 1979, making this one of the fastest and largest reductions in poverty in human history. This growth also encompassed declines in child mortality and increases in life expectancy. From 1961 to 1979 child mortality declined by 64%, the third-fastest decrease in child mortality of any country with over 10 million inhabitants during the same period.
West Germany in West Germany, 1964 Park's economic policy was highlighted by South Korea's relationship with
West Germany. Park had an
affinity for Germany due to his perception of it having strong leadership like that of
Bismarck and
Hitler, and wanted to create ties with West Germany to deal with the problems of increasing population growth and economic hardships and to receive an inflow of foreign capital for domestic development. Upon an agreement in 1961, South Korea sent labor forces to West Germany, including more than 8,000 mine workers and 10,000 nurses, which continued until 1977. (See
Gastarbeiter and
Koreans in Germany)
Iran Park was close friends with the last Shah of Iran,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had established diplomatic relations in 1962 and following a visit to Iran in 1969, developed a close relationship with the two countries. Park realized the importance of Iran in securing oil for South Korea's industrial development and by 1973, was their main and only source of oil during the Oil Crisis. Most refineries in South Korea were built to process Iranian crude and thousands of engineers and workers were sent to Iran to help develop their refining capability. The relationship eventually expanded beyond oil as Park promoted other industries to operate in Iran. Many Chaebol's went to Iran, including
Hyundai Engineering & Construction, whose first Middle East Project were a series of shipyards in
Bandar Abbas and
Chahbahar to help develop Iran's maritime industry. Park's favorite architect
Kim Swoo-Geun and his office designed the
Ekbatan Complex in Tehran and the South Korean Special Forces helped train the
Imperial Iranian Navy Commandos. Park invited the Shah in 1978 for a special "South Korea-Iran" summit to further deepen relations but due to the
Iranian Revolution, it never materialized. In preparation for that summit, Tehran and Seoul became sister cities and the two exchanged street names as well;
Teheran-ro in
Gangnam and
Seoul Street in Tehran which both still remain. and banning the use of
traditional Korean measurements like the
li and
pyeong. Despite its strict wording, the law's enforcement was so spotty as to be considered a failure, with the government abandoning prosecution under its terms by 1970. In 1971, Park won another
close election against his rival,
Kim Dae-jung. That December, shortly after being sworn in, he declared a state of emergency "based on the dangerous realities of the international situation". In October 1972, Park dissolved the legislature and suspended the 1963 constitution in a
self-coup. Work then began on drafting a new constitution. Park had drawn inspiration for his self-coup from
Ferdinand Marcos,
President of the Philippines, who had orchestrated a
similar coup a few weeks earlier. A new constitution, the so-called
Yushin Constitution was approved in a heavily rigged
plebiscite in November 1972. Meaning "rejuvenation" or "renewal" (as well as "restoration" in some contexts), scholars see the term's usage as Park alluding to himself as an "imperial president". The new
Yushin constitution was a highly authoritarian document. It transferred the presidential election process to an
electoral college, the
National Conference for Unification. It also dramatically expanded the president's powers. Notably, he was given sweeping powers to rule by decree and suspend constitutional freedoms. The presidential term was increased from four to six years, with no limits on re-election. For all intents and purposes, it codified the emergency powers Park had exercised for the past year, transforming his presidency into a legal dictatorship. As per his new constitution, Park ran for a fresh term as president in
December 1972, and won unopposed. He was
reelected in 1978 also unopposed. Many of South Korea's leading writers were opposed to the Park regime, and many of the best remembered poems and novels of the 1970s satirized the
Yushin system. Park argued that Western-style liberal democracy was not suitable for South Korea due to its still-shaky economy. He believed that in the interest of stability, the country needed a "Korean-style democracy" with a strong, unchallenged presidency. Although he repeatedly promised to open up the regime and restore full democracy, fewer and fewer people believed him. In 1974, Park cracked down on the
People's Revolutionary Party, a self-proclaimed leftist party and the first since Park seized power in 1961, using the National Security Law, resulted in the execution of eight people. In 1975, in preparation for South Korea's bid to host the
1988 Olympic Games, he ordered the police to 'cleanse' the streets and expel beggars, vagrants and street vendors who gave the country a bad image abroad. Police officers, assisted by shop owners, rounded up panhandlers, small-time street merchants selling gum and trinkets, the disabled, lost or unattended children, and dissidents, including a college student who'd been holding anti-government leaflets. Thousands of people were victims of this
social cleansing campaign, were sent thirty-six camps and subjected to forced labour, torture and repeated rape. By 1986, the number of inmates had jumped over five years from 8,600 to more than 16,000, according to government documents. Officially, 513 people died of exhaustion in these camps, but the number could be much higher. Park abolished the usage of
hanja or
Chinese characters and established
hangul exclusivity for the Korean language in the 1960s and 1970s. After a Five-Year Hangul Exclusivity Plan () was promulgated through legislative and executive means, from 1970, using
hanja became illegal in all grades of public school and in the military. This led to less illiteracy in South Korea.
Final years of presidency in 1975 During the final years of his presidency, Park realized that people were not satisfied with the government. Despite this, his autocracy became increasingly open in this period.
Military As president, Park tried to strengthen the military. He often said that if an independent country cannot protect itself with its military, it is not an independent country. Park also tried to develop his homegrown
nuclear weapons programs, announcing that they would be made by 1983. This was never progressed after Park's death in 1979. ==Government of Park Chung Hee==