Kim Dae-jung

Kim Dae-Jung during a visit of George W. Bush in Seoul, February 20, 2002

Kim Dae-jung (born December 3, 1925) is a South Korean politician and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He is colloquially known as the "Nelson Mandela" of Asia and like Mandela was a key democratic figure for the West and longtime symbol of opposition against the rule of harsh dictatorial government in his respective nation. Kim Dae-jung was electedpresident (after Kim Young-sam) in 1998 and remained in office until 2003. He was born in Haui-do, South Jeolla Province, an island off the South Korean Coast.

Early political career

He first entered politics in 1954, opposing the policies of Syngman Rhee. Although he was elected as a representative for the National Assembly in 1961, a military coup led by Park Chung Hee made it void. He was able to win a seat in the house in the subsequent elections in 1963 and 1967 and went on to become an eminent opposition leader, which culminated in running a presidential campaign in 1971. He managed a close race against Park despite several handicaps imposed by the ruling regime.

Kim was almost killed in August 1973, when he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by KCIA agents in response to his criticism of President Park's yushin program. Upon hearing of the kidnapping, U.S. Ambassador Philip Habib ordered his aides to find where Kim was being hidden. After finding that he had been kidnapped by South Korean agents, Habib hastily informed Park about what had happened. As a result, Kim, who had been tied to a boat and was going to be drowned in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), was freed. After learning of American objections to the KCIA's use of torture, Park fired the intelligence chief, Lee Hu Rak. [1] Although Kim returned to Seoul alive, he was banned from politics and imprisoned in 1976 for having participated in the proclamation of an anti-government manifesto and sentenced for five years in prison, which was reduced to house arrest in 1978. During this period he converted to Catholicism.

Kim was reinstated in 1979 after Park Chung-hee was assassinated. However in 1980, Kim was arrested and sentenced to death on charges of sedition and conspiracy in the wake of another coup by Chun Doo-hwan and a popular uprising in Gwangju, his political stronghold. With the intervention of the United States government, the sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison and later he was given exile to the U.S. Kim stayed in Harvard University as visiting fellow to the Center for International Affairs, until he chose to return to his homeland in 1985.

Road to the presidency

Kim was again put under house arrest upon his return to Seoul, but resumed his role as one of the principal leaders of the political opposition. When Chun Doo-hwan succumbed to the popular demand and allowed the first democratic presidential election after the 1961 coup, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, his longtime political comrade and rival, ran against each other. That split the opposition vote and enabled ex-general Roh Tae-woo, Chun Doo-hwan's hand-picked successor, to win

He made yet another failed bid for the presidency in 1992, this time solely against Kim Young-sam, who became the successor of Roh Tae-woo. Many thought his political career was effectively over when Kim announced his retirement from politics in his concession speech and flew to the UK to stay in Cambridge University as a visiting professor. However, in 1995 he announced his return to politics and began his fourth quest for the presidency. Kim's return was initially met with a huge backlash, but the situation became favorable for him when the public perceived the incompetency of the incumbent government which let the nation's economy collapse in the Asian financial crisis just weeks before the presidential election. Allied with Kim Jong-pil, he finally defeated Lee Hoi-chang, Kim Young-sam's successor, in the election held on December 18 1997, and was inaugurated as the fifteenth President of South Korea on February 25 1998.

The preceding presidents Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, and Kim Young-sam all came from the relatively wealthy Gyeongsang region. Kim Dae-jung was the first president to serve out his full term who came from the Jeolla region in the southwest, an area that traditionally has been neglected and less developed, at least partly because of discriminatory policies of previous presidents.

Kim's swearing-in marked the first time in Korean history that a ruling party peacefully transferred power to a democratically elected opposition victor.

Presidency

Kim Dae-jung took office in the midst of the economic crisis that hit South Korea in the final year of Kim Young-sam's term. He vigorously pushed economic reform and restructuring to revitalize the economy, yielding some noticeable results in the South Korean economy.

His policy of engagement with North Korea was called the Sunshine Policy. In 2000, he participated in the first North-South presidential summit with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il, talks for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kim completed his 5-year presidential term in 2003. A presidential library was built to preserve Kim's legacy, and there is a convention center named after him in the city of Gwangju, the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center.

See also

• Liberalism in South Korea
• 1973 Kidnapping of Kim Dae-Jung
• North-South presidential summit corruption allegations

External links

• Official Nobel page for Kim
• Kim Dae-jung Presidential Library
• BBC article on his legacy