ABSTRACT
Devastated by a fratricide war (1950–53) followed by a decade of unstable economic policies, South Korea was in the early 1960s a land of deep poverty. Very rare were the experts able to predict that this rural country, deprived of natural resources, challenged by an unemployment rate above 20 per cent, continuously under the threat of a new war with its neighbour and ruled by a military government, would have a bright future. South Korea is nowadays not only a stable democracy but also an economically dynamic and innovative Asian nation. It is the world’s thirteenth largest economy, excelling for example in shipbuilding, automotive, rolling-stock, steel, electronics and petrochemical industries. Underlying these developments was an export-oriented economic industrial policy based on strong alliances between the government, banks and a few entrepreneurs who built in less than 30 years some of the world’s largest conglomerates. This success story has been dubbed the Han River miracle, backed by strong American and Japanese support and coordination of the South Korean people. More recently, South Korea could quickly overcome the severe financial crisis of 1997 without falling into a long-term depression and even reach a GNP per capita of $20,000 (US$) in the mid 2000s.
