Word: korea
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...leaders in the capital who had previously stood aloof were now actively urging that the South Korean military keep clear of politics, and that Choi's civilian post-Park regime try to broaden its popular base. Reason: a major fear in Washington that if internecine mistrust in South Korea's top military leadership gets much worse, it might render the country dangerously open to invasion by the Communist regime in North Korea...
...energy-deficient advanced developing countries, such as Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan and Kenya, that are in the worst shape. They set out to emulate the industrial nations and eagerly replaced their oxen with tractors and generators. Now they are paying the price of a 1600% rise in OPEC prices since 1970; they cannot do without oil but cannot afford to buy it. Admits an official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: "The guy who was en lightened enough to follow our advice to buy machinery and fertilizer is in a bind, while the farmer who kept his water...
Economic expansion, which depends on cheap fuel, is slowing almost everywhere. Taiwan's growth has declined from 12% last year to 8%, and South Korea's from 12.5% to 6%. Oil-fueled inflation is raging. Taiwan's wholesale prices rose 3.5% last year, but are expected to jump 16% this year; at least ten points of the total are directly attributable to increased energy costs. Many Third World leaders echo Kenya's Kibaki: "We have had to postpone vitally needed development projects. We are not importing any nonessentials...
Nonetheless, the choice of Choi held out a realistic hope for gradual liberalization. A Confucian scholar's son who speaks five foreign languages (English, German, French, Japanese and Chinese), Choi describes himself as "a caretaker." What Korea needs most, he has told friends, "is not a hero but a good many good managers." He is already on record with a series of pledges: to restrict his term in office (to perhaps two years at most), to oversee the preparation of a new constitution (which might limit the President to one six-year term), and to call a new election...
...account for the country's business-as-usual atmosphere? Said the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, General John Wickham Jr.: "It demonstrates the maturity of the Korean people." A Korean business tycoon speculated: "With our TVs, refrigerators and all, so many of us now consider ourselves the middle class -the backbone of the country-that we knew we couldn't afford to go to pieces over Mr. Park's tragedy and possibly invite another North Korean invasion...