Korean saga is stranger than fiction

Neither for the first nor last time, recent events in and around Korea can best be explained by an old cliche: if a writer of fiction had put those events in a novel, critics would have panned the book as simply unbelievable. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin tries to explain why.

HONG KONG (JP): Just imagine that you start reading a paperback, the story of which begins with an impoverished Third World country, playing brinkmanship with the world's only superpower, saying that it refuses to talk peace until it gets more food aid. The third world country both faces starvation and continues to hold the world's third or fourth largest army in a belligerent posture. But the superpower is led by a weak president who believes in being empathetic to everyone. So his officials start hinting at aid in the pipeline if only the third country will be good boys and start talking peace.

This third world country is the smaller half of a nation divided as a result of a bitter civil war which ended in an uneasy truce 44 years ago. The other half of the divided nation is a fast developing, very dynamic nation recently admitted to the first world club called the OECD. But the newly promoted first world nation made a big mistake: it copied the Japanese model of a capitalism heavily regulated by bureaucrats and politicians.

The president of this fast growing country was riding a wave of popularity when he was elected in 1992 with approval ratings of 90 percent and more. He was trying to rid the country of corruption and two former presidents who amassed hefty slush funds for their retirement were imprisoned as a result of his anti-corruption crusade.

Now this president is battling to achieve even a double-figure rating because the anti-corruption drive has run out of steam, and his administration seems to have behaved like its predecessors. Because it copied, and exaggerated, the Japanese model, private banks are not free to chose to whom they give loans. Instead they take orders from bureaucrats and politicians.

Naturally this system favors the big corporations who naturally expect to reward those who send big loans in their direction. Recently this country's second largest steel manufacturer went bankrupt because of US$ 7 billion worth of loans which it should never have received and could not possibly repay. So the big question arises -- who facilitated the excessive, uneconomic lending?

Inevitably, the newly promoted first world country is in uproar over the ensuing scandal. Prosecutors are calling in politicians and bureaucrats to find out who is responsible for the over-loaning to the steel company, some of them close associates of the anti-corruption president. Is it possible that the president knew nothing about all those loans? Could it possibly be that a third president will end up in jail along with his predecessors?

Just as the country is filled with suspense waiting for the answers to these and other questions, it is distracted by an unprecedented crisis. The other half of the divided nation, the Third World country, is not merely faced with famine. It has not had a president for the last three years since the death of its last leader. Even more curious, since it is a communist country, it has not had a general secretary of the communist party either.

The old leader insisted that his son should succeed him, but so far he has not formally done so. The promised communist dynasty has yet to be instituted. This fact, plus the looming famine, naturally lead to speculation that the Third World Country is falling apart.

Suddenly, out of the blue, a leading member of that communist party and a former teacher of the son, defects to the first world country's embassy in Beijing. This immediately rekindles the bitterness left behind by the civil war. The poor country charges that the defector was kidnapped by the richer country. It tries to kidnap him back from the embassy but China rushes in its armed police to keep the peace. The richer country hurriedly produces letters from the defector alleging corruption and incompetence in the poor country.

The paperback novel paints vivid scenes of Cold War tension outside the embassy, as the old adversaries confront each other. Rival delegations of officials are rushed to Beijing to negotiate with China over the fate of the defector, who is quietly reading books in the embassy. There are high-speed car chases through the streets of Beijing.

Meanwhile, just as the richer country is getting engrossed in this new crisis, prosecutors in the steel company crash scandal say they have finished their work, having secured the resignation and arrest of one leading minister. Immediately, these charges of a cover-up and hints at dark conspiracies possibly unfolding.

Could it be that the defector has been told to make his move by the Third World country so that he can stir up trouble at a time of political instability in the newly promoted first world nation? Or is it that the first world nation secretly told the man to defect at this time, precisely to divert political attention away from the corruption surrounding the steel company crash?

Then the next development is ... but, at this point, you, the reader of this paperback, would undoubtedly put it down, saying to yourself "that story is simply incredible, it could not happen in real life".

But that, roughly and simply, is the way it was in and around Korea last week.

The Third World Country is, of course, North Korea whose assumed leader Kim Jong-il celebrated his 55th birthday on Saturday but still without becoming president or general secretary.

The newly promoted first world country is, of course, South Korea. Hanbo Steel crashed owing US$7 billion. President Kim Young-sam must retire at the end of his term at the beginning of 1998.

The defector Hwang Jang-yop married a cousin of Kim Jong-il and a niece of Kim Il-sung. He once taught Kim Jong-il at Kim Il- sung University.

Hwang helped create and define the juche philosophy of the Kim dynasty extolling the virtue of self-reliance.

Last week the United Nations put out another appeal for badly needed food aid to prevent looming starvation in North Korea.