Kim Dae-jung
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15th President of South Korea | |
In office February 25, 1998 – February 25, 2003 | |
Prime Minister | Kim Jong-pil Park Tae Joon Lee Han Dong Chang Sang Jeon Yun Churl Chang Dae Whan Kim Suk Soo |
Preceded by | Kim Young-sam |
Succeeded by | Roh Moo-hyun |
Personal details | |
Born | Haui-do, South Jeolla, South Korea | December 3, 1925
Political party | Millennium Democratic |
Spouse | Rhee Hee-hoh |
Korean name | |
Hangul | 김대중 |
---|---|
Hanja | 金大中 |
Revised Romanization | Gim Dae-jung |
McCune–Reischauer | Kim Tae-jung |
Art name | |
Hangul | 김대중 |
Hanja | 後廣 |
Kim Dae-jung (Born December 3, 1925, IPA: [kim dɛdʑuŋ]) is a former South Korean president and the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He is the first Nobel laureate from Korea.[1] A Roman Catholic since 1957, he has been called the "Nelson Mandela of Asia"[2] for his long-standing opposition to authoritarian rule. Kim Dae-jung was the President (succeeding Kim Young-sam) from 1998 to 2003.
Early life
Kim first entered politics in 1954 during the administration of Korea's first president, Syngman Rhee. Although he was elected as a representative for the National Assembly in 1961, a military coup led by Park Chung-hee, who later assumed dictator powers, voided the elections. He was able to win a seat in the House in the subsequent elections in 1963 and 1967 and went on to become an eminent opposition leader, which culminated in running a presidential campaign in 1971. He managed a close race against Park despite several handicaps imposed by the ruling regime. He proved to be a supremely talented orator who could command unwavering loyalty among his supporters. His staunchest support came from the Jeolla region, where he reliably garnered upwards of 95% of the popular vote, a record that has remained unsurpassed in South Korean politics.
Kim was almost killed in August 1973, when he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by KCIA agents in response to his criticism of President Park's yushin program. (See Kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung.) Although Kim returned to Seoul alive, he was banned from politics and imprisoned in 1976 for having participated in the proclamation of an anti-government manifesto and sentenced for five years in prison, which was reduced to house arrest in 1978.
Kim was reinstated in 1979 after Park Chung-hee was assassinated. However in 1980, Kim was arrested and sentenced to death on charges of sedition and conspiracy in the wake of another coup by Chun Doo-hwan and a popular uprising in Gwangju, his political stronghold. With the intervention of the United States government, the sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison and later he was given exile to the U.S. Kim temporarily settled in Boston, Massachusetts and taught at Harvard University as a visiting professor to the Center for International Affairs, until he chose to return to his homeland in 1985. During his period abroad, he authored a number of opinion pieces in leading Western newspapers that were sharply critical of his government.
Road to the presidency
Kim was again put under house arrest upon his return to Seoul, but resumed his role as one of the principal leaders of the political opposition. When Chun Doo-hwan succumbed to the popular demand in 1987 and allowed the first democratic presidential election after the 1972 coup, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam both ran. The result was a split the opposition vote, with Kim Young-sam receiving 28% and Kim Dae-jung 27% of the vote. The ex-general Roh Tae-woo—Chun Doo-hwan's hand-picked successor—won easily with 36.5% of the popular vote.
He made yet another failed bid for the presidency in 1992, this time solely against Kim Young-sam, who won as a candidate for the ruling party. Many thought his political career was effectively over when Kim took a hiatus from politics and departed for the United Kingdom to take a position at Clare Hall, Cambridge University as a visiting scholar. However, in 1995 he announced his return to politics and began his fourth quest for the presidency. The situation became favorable for him when the public revolted against the incumbent government in the wake of the nation's economic collapse in the Asian financial crisis just weeks before the presidential election. Allied with Kim Jong-pil, he defeated Lee Hoi-chang, Kim Young-sam's successor, in the election held on December 18, 1997, and was inaugurated as the fifteenth President of South Korea on February 25, 1998. The election was marred with controversy, as two candidates from the ruling party split the conservative vote (38.7% and 19.2% respectively), enabling Kim to win with a 40.3% of the popular vote [1]. Kim's chief opponent, Lee Hoi Chang, was a former Supreme Court Justice and had graduated at the top of his class from Seoul National University College of Law. Lee was widely viewed as elitist and his candidacy was further damaged by charges that his sons dodged mandatory military service. Kim's education in contrast was limited to vocational high school, and many Koreans sympathized with the many trials and tribulations that Kim had endured previously.
The preceding presidents Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, and Kim Young-sam all came from the relatively wealthy Gyeongsang region. Kim Dae-jung was the first president to serve out his full term who came from the Jeolla region in the southwest, an area that traditionally has been neglected and less developed, at least partly because of discriminatory policies of previous presidents. Kim's administration was in turn overrepresented in individuals from the Jeolla province, leading to charges of reverse discrimination.
Kim's inauguration marked the first time in Korean history that the ruling party peacefully transferred power to a democratically elected opposition victor.
Presidency
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/President_Bill_Clinton_greets_South_Korean_President_Kim_Dae-Jung.jpg/220px-President_Bill_Clinton_greets_South_Korean_President_Kim_Dae-Jung.jpg)
Kim Dae-jung took office in the midst of the economic crisis that hit South Korea in the final year of Kim Young-sam's term. He vigorously pushed economic reform and restructuring recommended by the International Monetary Fund, in the process significantly altering the landscape of South Korean economy. In effect, his policies were to make for a fairer market by holding the powerful chaebol (conglomerates) accountable, e.g., greater transparency in accounting practices. State subsidies to large corporations were dramatically cut or dropped. His administration is credited by some with overseeing a recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis although many believe that a recovery was inevitable and he actually hampered a full recovery (See below).
His policy of engagement with North Korea has been termed the Sunshine Policy. In 2000, he participated in the first North-South presidential summit with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il, which later led to his winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The North Korean leader, however, never kept his promise to reciprocate by visiting South Korea. North Korea has not reduced the heavy presence of troops in the DMZ and has continued to work on developing nuclear weapons, which it tested in October 2006. During Kim's administration, North Korean naval vessels intruded into South Korean waters and fired upon a South Korean naval vessel without warning, killing and wounding South Korean sailors. Kim was criticized for not demanding an apology from North Korea and going to Japan to attend a World Cup soccer match in the wake of the gunbattle between the two Koreas.
Kim completed his 5-year presidential term in 2003 and was succeeded by Roh Moo-hyun. A presidential library at Yonsei University was built to preserve Kim's legacy, and there is a convention center named after him in the city of Gwangju, the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center.
Post-presidency
Kim has actively called for restraint against the North Koreans for detonating a nuclear weapon and defended the continued Sunshine policy towards Pyongyang to defuse the crisis.[citation needed]
See also
- Liberalism in South Korea
- Kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung
- North-South presidential summit corruption allegations
- South Korean Presidential Election, 1997
References
- ^ Kim Dae-Jung (Short Asian Week biography)
- ^ Kim Dae-Jung (Short CNN biography)
External links
- Official Nobel page for Kim
- Kim Dae-jung Presidential Library
- BBC article on his legacy
- CNN Profile of Kim Dai Jung
- Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge
- Converts to Roman Catholicism
- South Korean Roman Catholics
- Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
- Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
- Kidnapped politicians
- Nobel Peace Prize laureates
- Presidents of South Korea
- South Korean politicians
- 1925 births
- Living people