South Korea Breaking into the Big Leagues

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The secret, in essence, is a labor force that is industrious (a six-day workweek is standard), well educated (literacy rate: 93%), extraordinarily thrifty (savings rate: 35.8%) and modestly paid (average income of manufacturing employees: $409 a month). Parts of this spartan work ethic, which enables South Korea to produce everything from steel to videocassette recorders at some of the world's lowest costs, are beginning to change. In recent months there has been a wave of labor unrest, much of it centered on winning higher wages. Even so, most economists expect South Korea's industrial machine to continue to grow, though at the slightly slower rate of 8.5% annually. The ultimate goal: to place South Korea, currently ranked around 15th among the world's most technologically advanced countries, within the top ten.

To prevent distractions during the Olympics, the political parties have agreed to a temporary cease-fire. Once the Olympic flame is extinguished, however -- and with it the feeling of Olympic kinship that is bonding South Koreans together -- Roh will face a host of political problems. His most serious challenge: complete removal of the legacy of the Chun era. In the coming months, the National Assembly will be preoccupied with investigations of corruption under the Chun administration and of the circumstances surrounding the Kwangju massacre, an attack in 1980 by army troops in that southern city during which at least 198 people were killed. "There's no way we can win," says D.J.P. Assemblyman Suh Sang Mok. "It's only a matter of how much we lose."

Roh will also have to pay attention to the students, who remain a volatile factor. After its success in bringing about democratization, the student movement drifted in search of an issue and finally settled on a new cause: the reunification of North and South. Since nearly all Southerners yearn for a united country, the students found themselves setting the pace again. On July 7, Roh attempted to maneuver his administration into a leading role in the reunification drive with proposals aimed at a thaw in relations with Pyongyang, but the government of Kim Il Sung, reluctant to appear upstaged, responded coolly. Low-level talks since then in the peace village of Panmunjom have stalled. Last week Pyongyang formally announced that it would boycott the Olympics.

Seoul hopes eventually to open channels to the North through its so-called Northern policy, an initiative born of Olympics contacts that is designed to shift South Korea away from its rigidly anti-Communist foreign policy. As yet the South has no formal diplomatic relations with a Communist country but hopes for change after the Games, with China first on the wish list.

While Roh is struggling with the problems of the next year or two, other politicians are looking ahead to 1993, when his term will be over. Kim Dae Jung, for one, concedes that he is positioning himself for the next presidential election -- an admission that demonstrates his new faith in democratic continuity.