2.5. bolsas de valores
2.5.1. Organización institucional
Lastly, the state form of the PCHM can be also viewed as a pre-national state. If we focus only on the scale at which the primacy of economic and social policy is located, the state form might be seen as national. Yet South Korea and, indeed, Korea itself have never been national states in a strict sense. In its medieval period, Korea (i.e., Chosun, 1932-1897) was a tributary state of Chinese dynasties. Immediately after the emergence of the 19th-century world market in which the hegemony of the Chinese dynasty in East Asia collapsed, South Korea came to be inserted into a subordinate position in the prevailing imperialist system within a variegated capitalist world market by being forced to accept a series of commercial treaties (see Chapter 5). In 1897—that is, two years after the last Chinese dynasty was defeated by even Imperial Japan and, as a result, Taiwan was annexed into Japan—Korea, too, proclaimed that it was transformed into the Great Korean Empire (1897—1910). Yet, since then, the Empire had been gradually annexed into Imperial Japan. In 1910, the self-described Empire became a colony of Imperial Japan.
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In brief, as an East Asian country belatedly articulated into an imperialist order within the variegated capitalism of the 19th-century world market, Korea had to achieve capitalist industrialisation as well as to build a nation- and national state. Yet it failed to accomplish those state projects that had been gradually for a few centuries achieved in Western Europe. Admittedly, Korea was decolonised in 1945. Yet, the decolonisation was not made by Korean people. In addition, immediately after the liberation, the Cold War began, and Korea were divided into two parts. In this context, South Korea had to re-launched state projects for the industrialisation of the South Korean economy and the building of a nation- and national state in an imperialist order within the variegated capitalism of the 20th-century world market. The PCHM should be viewed in terms of those state projects. Park Chung Hee accomplished industrialisation. Yet, South Korea has not yet pursued the projects for the building a nation- and national state.
This is partly because of North Korea. Of course, North Korea and South Korea joined the United Nations at the same time in 1991. Accordingly, since then, at the level of international politics, they have implicitly recognised each other as nation- and national states. Yet, South Korea’s Constitution has still specified the territory of South Korea as “the Korean peninsular and its adjacent islands”. This obviously implies that North Korea is not a legitimate state. Indeed, by law, South Korea regards North Korea as an illegal organisation that illegitimately occupied the partial territory and state population of South Korea. On the other hand, the structural relation between the US and South Korea explains why South Korea is not a national-territorial state in a strict sense. Let me note again that South Korea’s prerogative of Supreme Command still exercises operational control over South Korea’s military after it was handed to the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC)—although South Korea’s Constitution specifies the President of South Korea is Commander-in-Chief. Also, since 1979, when Park Chung Hee was assassinated, the Commander of CFC is the
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Commander, United States Forces Korea (a four-star general officer in the US Army) with the Deputy Commander being Chairman of Republic of Korea Joint Chief of Staff. In brief, South Korea’s wartime operational control is still under the strong US influence. Also, until December 1994, South Korea did not have even peacetime operational control over South Korea’s Armed Forces. These imply that the SWPS was more dependent on the US. It seems, then, that there is, currently, no concept to grasp the relation between South Korea and the US. For instance, although Central and Eastern European states under the hegemony of the USSR had been referred to as satellite states, the concept does not apply to South Korea, because it reflects a geographical characteristic of the relation between those states and the USSR. Also, while some African states, which had been colonised by European states, were defined as neo-colonies in the postwar era, this concept is also inapplicable to South Korea, because it highlights the post-colonial dependence of the colonies on their previous metropolitan states, and the continuous exploitation of the metropoles. Yet, notwithstanding its formal independence, South Korea has been substantively “cliental”. In this context, it has been a distinguishable type of client state. Also, to highlight these points related to North Korea and the US, I define South Korea as a pre-national state.
6.12 Concluding Remarks
In this chapter, I have attempted to illustrate how and why the PCHM evolved into a chimerical model. On this basis, I define its state form as CWPS. In doing so, I have focused on a supranational scale of social relations. In my view, those relations have been rather paradoxical. For instance, many South Korean people still have anti-Japanese sentiments. They have aspired to overcome and overtake Japan by developing the economy. Yet, without the financial and industrial subordination of the South Korean economy to the Japanese
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economy, South Korea’s industrialisation itself was infeasible. Also, South Korea needed the US to protect it from the threats from North Korea. Yet, the sovereignty of South Korea was impaired by the US as well. In this situation, Park Chung Hee chose not a status quo but a revision. Yet, in doing so, he tried to utilise the fascist state strategies by which he had been affected in his colonial experience. Thus, at first, he cooperated with the US to overcome North Korea. Later, he tried to raise his voice against the US by retaining nuclear weapons, based on the relative relaxation of tension with North Korea. These relations were all inscribed into the PCHM and, as a result, the model has its own distinguishable features.
Conversely, my analysis not only helps us understand the PCHM more concretely but also offers an opportunity of better understanding the current state of affairs in South Korea. South Korea has already accomplished industrialisation, and it has been thus deemed as one of the (relatively) advanced capitalist economies. In addition, it has consolidated a liberal- bourgeois democracy. For this reason, its state form, too, has been tendentially transformed into a Schumpeterian workfare post-national state. Yet, this course of development has showed its distinctive features, because it began not from a KWNS but from the CWPS. For instance, as regards a social policy regime, it has been transformed from a warfare regime into a workfare regime. Thereby public expenditure related to welfare policy has sharply increased. Also, South Korea has been transformed from a pre-national state into a post-national regime. In this process, attempts to complete the project for the building of a national state have continued. This project is also related to a project for the building of a nation-state. As a relatively advanced economy in East Asia, South Korea, too, has actively accepted migrant workers. Thus, South Korea, too, has been changed into a multicultural society. Yet, the major proportion of the migrant workers are, indeed, Koreans in China who have lived in the adjacent areas to the border between China and North Korea. Thus, the major tensions between Koreans and migrant workers are neither racial nor religious. Their conflicts were
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emerged from a difference in their life styles. Also, in this context, a transition into a multicultural society is also related to a nationalist project. Lastly, in the light of my work here, we can elaborate more on the other institutional features of the PCHM. Yet, before doing so, one more work is also required—that is, an analysis of semiotic formations for normalising and stabilising the PCHM. This work shall be done in the following chapter.
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