The Delight of Peace

Neither bells pealed nor parades formed when the Korean War armistice was signed in an austere barrack room at Panmunjom--and for good reason.

South Koreans had scant cause to rejoice. Three years of war had left more than 500,000 Southerners dead and millions without homes; more than $3 billion in damage had been inflicted on the South, and its capital, Seoul, had changed hands four times, leaving it a jumbled pile of rubble. This week, 20 years after the signing of the armistice, South Koreans had many things to celebrate. U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, on a three-day visit to Seoul last week, put his finger on it when he told his hosts that "the accomplishments you have achieved are something that all of us can be proud of."

Two decades of hard work have transformed the nation of 32 million into one of Asia's most rapidly advancing industrial societies. In Seoul, now bursting with more than 6,000,000 inhabitants, buildings rising to 30 stories have replaced the one-and two-story shops in the downtown district. Construction on the country's first subway nears completion. New hotels and proliferating offices of foreign firms have begun to give the capital a cosmopolitan accent. Thousands of nightclubs, cabarets, beer halls and bars prosper, as do the traditional kisaeng houses where hostesses entertain tired businessmen.

TIME Correspondent Herman Nickel, who visited Seoul last week, reports that people are well dressed and well fed, the shops bursting with goods of every description. In the past twelve years, the annual G.N.P. has soared from $95 to $300 per capita. Even in the poorer sections of the capital, such as the squalid shacks which cling precariously to steep hillsides, electric lights, radios and fans are common. A middle class of small entrepreneurs and professionals has emerged.

The trauma of the war. followed by the impact of Western technology, has eroded much of the traditional Korean family life, especially in the cities. Custom had compelled all family members to live together in one house, but the young generation today wants to move out. Kim In Ho, a 22-year-old college graduate living in Seoul, proclaims:

"None of us would like to stick to the old fashions of the Hermit Kingdom" --referring to the nickname Korea acquired in past centuries when it deliberately sealed itself off from outside influences. Traditional weddings and funerals, which are costly affairs, have been simplified. Clothes have become increasingly Western and faddish.

Vietnam Profit. South Korea's "economic miracle" was stoked by massive U.S. aid. Since the armistice, the U.S. has poured $4.5 billion of direct nonmilitary aid into the country, plus hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the 43,000 American forces stationed there. Just as Japan reaped the economic spin-off from the Korean War, so South Korea found itself profiting from the war in Viet Nam, where it stationed 30,000 marines and received at least $150 million annually in U.S. payments for its troops.

The country's booming economy, however, owes its greatest debt to its own hardworking, low-paid, literate and highly qualified labor force. Under a series of five-year economic programs initiated by President Chung Hee Park in 1961, Korea has imitated Japan's post-World War II climb to prosperity by deliberately moving from comparatively simple industries into increasingly complex ones. Park built up power plants and a transportation infrastructure, then pushed export industries which took advantage of his country's low cost of labor. Soon electronics boomed, and South Korea today exports phonographs, FM radios, television sets and tape recorders. In fact, most of Japan's Sony black and white TV sets are now actually manufactured in Korea.

The current five-year plan calls for construction of shipyards on the southern coast, which are intended to make South Korea the world's second or third biggest shipbuilder by the early 1980s.

It is already building two 260,000-ton freighters for Greek customers and has back orders totaling $262 million.

This rapid industrialization has had its hazards. Industry has been favored at the expense of agriculture. Even though the land reform in 1950 created a broad-based, independent peasant proprietorship for the first time in Korean history (North or South), the farmer has not shared equally in the boom.

As a result, South Korea, which once exported rice, must now import it.

Politically, South Korea has turned into a dictatorship--and a tough-fisted one at that. Since November 1971, Park has systematically tightened his authoritarian control over the country, rewriting the constitution and emasculating the National Assembly. Today no factions of the populace dare defy him. Park insists that he needs greater power in order to orchestrate the delicate contacts he initiated with North Korea. One set of meetings, under the aegis of the Red Cross, aims at reuniting those Korean families separated by the divided country. A second team of negotiators discuss the possibilities of unifying the two nations. So far neither set of negotiations has made real progress.

Though South Koreans chafe at their lack of freedom, many clearly approve of Park's economic policies. One highly informed South Korean observed: "A lot of people may not like the way Park has grabbed power, but so long as the economy keeps going as it is, he is not going to be in trouble." Two decades after the war, South Koreans still savor the delights of peace.

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