1) And yet, what was also true in 1961 was that South Korea was poorer than North Korea, whose per capita GDP was nearly a third higher.Īdditionally, South Korea stood on the front line of the Cold War, and was part of a U.S. (Some of these capabilities have a dark history. The country had a modernized military, mass literacy, large trading firms, some industrialization, and substantial U.S. This low number, however, did not truly reflect South Korea’s actual level of development. South Korea’s per capita GDP in 1961 was less than $100, lower than that of Guatemala, Cameroon, or Chad. Park and his military junta ruled over a desperately poor country. The charge in all cases was “illicit profiteering.” The head of Samsung, the largest chaebol (family-owned conglomerate), who had been travelling in Japan, was immediately placed under house arrest when he returned to Korea. Within days after he seized power in the 1961 military coup d’état in South Korea, Major General Park Chung-hee ordered the arrest of fifty-one of the country’s leading businessmen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |