What are the OOP's goals? My guess is that they are turning Japanese.

I missed this because the the Nork train explosion but the OOP (Our Open Party, Uri) had a workshop on Monday to put together an agenda for the 17th National Assembly. At the meeting, they decided to put forth a party line favoring "pragmatism" over "reform." Basically, the OOP leadership has decided not to operate under any ideological standards. Here are a couple of interesting quotes from party chairman Chung Dong-young :

"The Uri Party is a pragmatic party in which progressive conservatives and progressive reformers co-exist... We don't agree with pragmatism premised on ideas that forbid reform, nor do we agree with reform that thinks everyone should think the same as the progressives....."

"We're talking of 'conservative' and 'progressive,' but ideology can change from person to person and from situation to situation... In the end, one mustn't be confined by ideological fences; one must become free from ideological rigidity....."

"We must take our parliamentary power, secured by the democratization generation, and increase both the participation and authority of the citizens... For this, if you think we need legal and media reforms, we must start them, but before that, we need the support of the people, and we need to regulate positions and speeds."

Chung's course makes sense considering the shakey nature of the bonds which join the various OOP factions together. It means that an OOP break-up in the short term is less likely. Furthermore, by the time those internal tensions become more pronounced (I guess by the end of the year), the party's power structure will be too entrenched to be easily cast out and I doubt that even seriously frustrated members would want to give up their share of the majority party.

So we have a non-ideological "reform" party which has tried to place itself outside of the normal range of political debate in a bid to take the politics out of politics so it can become a permanent majority party and which has several factions which will forever compete for control of that non-ideological party. I think I have heard of that before but where? Hmmmmm......

Let me think.....

Hmmmmmm......

Oh my God! The OOP is becoming Korea's Liberal Democratic Party!

For those not familiar with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), it has been the ruling party in Japan for something like 47 of the last 50 years. Like the OOP, it is all over the board ideologically (although with a little more conservative base than the OOP currently has) and has several factions which vie for control. Here is a little more:

As politics in Japan is based more on political patronage than ideology, the LDP has no strict program. It is conservative in the sense that it is strongly probusiness in fact, it was founded to keep Japan from falling under Socialist rule. But the LDP has instituted environmental programs that are radical by Western standards and has adopted welfare policies away from its socialist rivals.....

Despite the elaborate official party structure, the LDP is in fact run by a system of around 12 political factions. Each of the factions is led by a handful of Diet members who vie for power in the party and the government. Members of various factions are usually represented in the government, and the main objective among the factions is the party presidency. The party president serves as the prime minister as long as the party stays in power. While the prime minister is the highest public official in the land, under LDP rule he or she is usually under the power of the party faction leader.

That last sentence is revealing. When President Roh recently announced that he was going to join the OOP, he stressed that he was not going to challenge Chung's leadership. That puts them more in league with the LDP than western parliamentary systems, where the party head becomes the prime minister or the United States, where the President is always considered to be the head of the party.

Interestingly enough, Chung also tried to cast the Grand National Party (GNP) as non-ideological as well:

If you look at Western ideologies, progressives and conservatives are delineated in accordance with the level in which they believe the state should involve itself in the economy; in our country, it has been the Sunshine Policy that has been used as the ideological yardstick to separate progressives from conservatives... Yet the GNP has come out in favor of providing cash aid to North Korea in connection with the Ryongchon Station disaster and is moving toward changing its confrontational attitude toward the North, so the Sunshine Policy's utility as an ideological yardstick is becoming less clear than in the past."

He said, "The GNP is a far-right Cold War party, not a conservative party... The Uri Party is a sincere reform party in which moderate conservatives and moderate progressives healthily co-exist."

To a degree, Chung is right about the GNP. They also are a collection of different ideologies that were united in the past by their desire to be near the centers of power, including the chaebol (conglomerates) and authoritarian rulers. The GNP needs to get its house in order and become a real opposition party. There are a lot of problems with the OOP's agenda but they will get away with it if the GNP is not ready to call them out. In other words, the GNP needs to be ready to be Frazier to the OOP's Ali.

Her are a couple of potential planks for a GNP platform:
-Maintain a pro-business environment. Koreans are an entrepreneurial people. The government should not over regulate the economy.
-On dealing with North Korea, one word: reciprocity. What will North Korea do to open up in return for the South scraping the National Security Law? In a broader sense, inter-Korean relations need to involve more give-and-take.

The OOP has already shown that it will try to avoid committing itself to any ideology. It is up to the GNP to call them out and make them declare their basic ideals. If the GNP can't do that, then they should be ready to be a minority party for a long, long time.

Comments

[jtb]

Excellent logic, easy to follow... and the first ray of sunshine I've seen on this subject since 1997!!

After all, while the Japanese are inherently annoying (always polite, no straight answers, etc.), they are very sincere capitalists, in their own hierarchical way...

And if the ROK politicos emulate their "hated" neighbor to the East, there may be less chance of their emulating the "beloved" neighbor to the North...

Of course, I'm just a gringo... what do I know...

[Sugar Shin]

jtb,

I can't say if the Japanese are really "sincere capitalists". Their export-orientated international conglomerates (keiretsu)are very competetive, but the small and middle businesses are protected by the Japanese market through bureaucratic obstacles from foreign competition. I think since the Asian financial crisis in 1997/ 1998 the Korean market has openend up more radically than the Japanese with their accumulated wealth from many decades of "milk & honey"-profits before the "lost decade" of recession. They haven't felt the financial pain as much as the Koreans, who where forced to reform or go bust. And yes, the consensual Japanese are very polite and civil, but I don't know how Koreans could or should emulate them. They have a very different mentality. You can't turn an hot-tempered Italian into a stoic German and not vice-versa. I think, we all have to live with and accept the differences between societies.

Btw, you're a "gringo" with a Korean wife (right?), so you know more than any other average gringo without a Korean wife.

[Infidel]

When I studied IR, comparisons between Japan and the Soviet Union were thicker than any mention of Japan's committment to capitalism. There is a school of thought which downplays Japan's ideological committment to anything but stability. That same perspective ignores anecdotal references to cultural habits for sloggingly cold number-crunching and bureaucratic paper chasing.

I disagree that Japan has not felt the pain after '97. Tokyo just has more resources to play with and cook the books with, but no one can deny that Japanese industry and political parties have not had to learn new tricks. Banks and businesses have gone bankrupt, outsourcing has retrenched and relocated, suicide rates are higher, and are finally being publicized, and Tokyo has had to scale down its international aid programs. Interest rates, Nominally at zero, in Tokyo affect the region intimately, and Tokyo pours in yen to stall the depreciation of its currency. Foreign takeovers have tailed off, too.

I agree, though, that South Korea has opened its markets more than they are given credit for. Tokyo's example, though, provides a yardstick by which to judge South Korean parameters. By that perspective, South Korea still has a ways to go if its not to become like Japan. It still looks more like Japan than a liberal economy. That's why Andy's analysis is so disturbing, because the OOP could reverse all the good done since '97.

I agree with Andy, that Seoul needs a cold blast of competitive ideologies to keep reforms going toward a competitive economy.

I wish Sugar Shin sounded so rational and informative everywhere he commented, instead of the fabian tactics and bluster he deploys on other boards.

[Sugar Shin]

It depends on my mood, Infidel.

But what do you mean with "fabian tactics", if you accuse me of "bluster". Isn't it contradictionary?
Btw, you don't criticize many other American K-blog commentators, who spread far worse comments or outright insults in the comment sections. Why is it so, that you seem to have selected me out of the crowding herd?
And I want to add, that Roman general/ consul/ dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus was quite successful with his tactics as a "Cunctator" against Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca in the Punic War.

For your point, that Japan has also changed economically, I can support it. I only wanted to express in my post above, that Japan hadn't felt the urgent need or crisis to liberalize its market in a hasty manner like the Koreans, who had to turn to the IMF and World Bank to get bailed-out. A recent restructuring success story is as an example Nissan Motor Co. (taken over by French auto-maker Renault) under the leadership of Carlos Ghosn (Brazil-born, France-educated), who had turned a nearly bankrupt, inefficient basket case through radical, "un-Japanese" business methods into a money machine.

Sugar Shin ad portas. :)