7-20-05, 9:16 am

PESSIMISM is the prevailing mood in South Korea these days when you talk with politicians and trade unionists. Relations with the United States over what to do about North Korea are going from bad to worse. Tensions are evident in relations with Japan, because Japanese schoolbooks persist in minimising the cruelties inflicted on the Koreans during the Japanese occupation (1905-1945), and because of the row over the Dokdo islands, to which both sides have territorial claims. Seoul is opposed to Tokyo’s diplomatic ambition to have a permanent seat on the new UN security council next September, after the reform of the UN.

Above all the economy is going badly. Western visitors have an impression of dynamism, the result of the spectacular success of South Korea - one of the rare countries that has succeeded, over a few decades, in extracting itself from the third world and joining the developed nations - but growth is now slowing. The economy, the third-largest in Asia after Japan and China, is suffering from a decline in consumption and a slowdown of exports.

'In a relatively short period,' explains Bae Joon-beom, director of foreign relations in the Democratic Labour party, 'South Korea has moved from underdevelopment to a highly advanced industrialisation. In part thanks to the social struggles after the restoration of democracy in 1987, our standard of living is now on a par with the average for the countries of the European Union. Wages have risen a lot. We used to be a country of cheap labour inputs. Now that is no longer the case. As a consequence we now bear the full effects of globalisation. The big industrial companies, chaebols such as Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo and LG, which spearheaded our economic growth, are relocating massively. All the more so since they are setting up their new factories very close, among our Chinese neighbours.'

One result has been a deterioration in working conditions. At the headquarters of the trade union for precarious workers, which operates under the aegis of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, two officials (wearing red headbands that read, 'Another world is possible') explain: 'Out of 13 million people of working age in South Korea, 8.5 million are afflicted by part-time work, precarious and occasional work. And anyone who has a fixed job is exposed to insecurity, flexibility, relocation of factories, permanent harassment and violation of social laws by the employers.' In no other part of the world is the precarious labour market as advanced as it is here, having been created under the pressures of globalisation.

As the trade union officials explained: 'Between the company that submits the original order and the worker who carries it out there are sometimes seven layers of subcontractors. The worker never knows exactly for whom he is working. The responsibilities of the main beneficiary of the production are diluted in a jungle of subcontractors. In the event of problems the occasional worker often has no recourse, because the trade unions for precarious workers are not recognised.'

Besides social tensions there are worries about North Korea’s nuclear threat to the region. (It has been classified by President George Bush as a member of the 'axis of evil'.) It equipped itself with long-range ballistic missiles, and then in January 2003 withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Then it announced that it has several nuclear bombs and threatened to proceed to testing as a response to US threats of aggression.

The South Korean minister for unification, Chung Dong-young, whom some see as the future president (in 2007) and successor to the president, Roh Moo-hyun, has just been to Pyongyang, where he met President Kim Jong-il. He is not unduly worried. 'In 1994 when we had to face up to the first nuclear threat, the Seoul stock exchange fell by 36%. Today, when the threat is perhaps more serious, the stock exchange has not budged. This is proof that relations between Seoul and Pyongyang are solid and provide a guarantee of security. The North Korean authorities are demanding guarantees from Washington. They think that the US wants to overthrow their regime. So for them it is a matter of survival. We tell the US government that it should concentrate on the problem of the de-nuclearisation of North Korea and abandon its intention of regime change. Because the mix of these two objectives is explosive.'

Kim Jong-il has just announced his intention to resume negotiations on denuclearisation within the Group of Six (North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the US) and has indicated that his country could rejoin the non-proliferation treaty, ending its nuclear threat. The ball is in the US court. Will Bush be willing to backtrack on aggression and follow the recommendations of his South Korean ally?

From Le Monde Diplomatique