"If you want to go to a developed country, buy ticket to South Korea's Park Chung-hee " is the talk of the town around the world.

particular, developing countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America are looking Korea with wonder for its Han river miracle and giant leap from the most poor country to today’s developed one in such a short period of time.

They want to know how Park Chung-hee could make a developed country, what secrets are hidden in it? They are wondering if they could learn the secret if they buy the ticket of Park Chung-hee for developed country..

Secrets? Result of Hard work?

They believe that there must be some miraculous know-how and secret hidden in the ticket of Park Chung-hee. But we, the Korean people, believe that it is not a secret, but the result of hard work; blood, sweat and tears.

What's the secret they're thinking?

It is true that the Korean people are always open-minded to share the secrets, and even have a sense of duty to share them.

Because we have experienced the same poverty like them in the past therefore we can understand their pain. And as a fundamental matter, we believe that as a human being living in the same era, there should not be a corner of the world where people have to go through life without satisfying the basic human needs like food and clothing.

Turning a blind eye to their poverty and suffering should be criticized as a reflection of the dereliction of duty, abdication of responsibility, and selfishness of the leaders and wealthy people in the advanced civilizations of the 21st century.

70 years ago, so was my country.

For 5,000 years, our people have never been out of poverty. In addition, we have been invaded by our neighboring countries more than 950 times, and the majority of our people have lived a life of slavery at the behest and exploitation of the rulers.

Then, in the end, they met the incompetent leader (king) and lost the country to Japan and lived as a people without sovereignty until the United States won World War II and freed them from Japanese colonial rule.

Hoewever, the joy of liberation was not long. The country was divided, and in 1950 the Soviet-backed North Korean leader Kim Il-sung invaded the South Korea leaving it in ruins. After three years, the war was finally ceased, but North and South Korea remained under tight confrontation.

In the springtime, many people starved to death and unemployed people filled the streets. Moreover, the domestic situation was turbulent, and demonstrations swept through Seoul day and night.

What is the way to survive in a country divided into North and South Korea, with war and social chaos going on day and night?

5.16 Rise of the Revolution

Finally, on 16 May 1961, Army Major General Park Chung-hee led 3,500 elite troops across the Han river to seize power. The so-called May 16 Revolution.

The Revolutionary Army proclaimed a six-point pledge: "To urgently resolve the hardships of life on the brink of despair and starvation and to make every effort to rebuild the country's independent economy (Article 4)."

To fulfil this pledge, President Park Chung-hee dedicated his 18 years in power.

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Park Chung-hee laid a foundation stone, erected the pillars, and began to build the house, topping it with girders and rafters, in order to rebuild the ruined country, but he had no idea where to start.

The first priority was to save the farmers and fishermen reaching 80-90% of the population. He studied how to bring the idle rural population into the workforce.

It is common sense that to create workplaces, you need to build factories, and to build factories, you need seed money and technology---but we didn't have any.

Export  Promoting Policy

People sold everything that could be sold for seed money. They cut their mother's and sister's hair to make wigs, seaweed from the sea, wakame, midges, etc. They borrowed money from foreign countries to build factories. But who would lend money to a poor country that couldn't pay back? (More on this story next time...Editor's note) With the hard-earned seed money, factories were built, and the idle labour that had been languishing in the primary industry (agriculture) was absorbed into the secondary industry (factories)and the number of unemployed began to decrease.

From Light Industry

At the time, the government prioritized the construction of light industrial factories. It started with industries that were labor-intensive, could be done with relatively small capital, had relatively short capital turnover, and were less technology-intensive.

less technology-intensive industries.

They were textile, plywood, shoe, and wig factories, all industries that were suitable for our country.

It was a great success. We, the diligent, sincere, and skillful factory workers worked hard day and night. Personal income increased, and enterprises began to accumulate industrial capital.

5 Years Economic Development Plan

In 1962, the government adopted the 1st 5 Year Plan for Economic Development. At that time, our per capita national income was less than that of Ghana in Africa and one-third of our neighboring Philippines. Export targets were set for each year, and the public and private sectors joined forces to devote all national capabilities to export promotion. Economic growth increased dramatically. During the first 5 years of economic development, the growth rate averaged 8.4%.

During the second 5 year period, growth rates ranged from a low of 9.1 percent to a high of 14.6 percent, even higher than the first. Our rapid growth rate surprised the whole world.

Signed the Korea-Japan Agreement

There were two external factors that contributed to Korea's economic growth during the 1st and 2nd economic development plans. They were: the signing of the Korea-Japan Agreement and the deployment to Vietnam. The Korea-Japan Agreement, which received a total of $800 million in paid and unpaid aid, including $300 million in free aid, was used to fund the construction of Pohang Steel. The construction of Pohang Steel has many meanings. President Park Chung-hee had a special attachment to the steel industry,  called the "rice of industry."

It was this attachment that led to the completion of Pohang Steel, and the iron and special steel produced there were crucial to the development of the automobile and shipbuilding industries, as well as the Korean arms industry, the defense industry, and the heavy chemical industry. It is no wonder that Korea-made weapons have become the foundation of the global arms market today.

This is quite in contrast to the Philippines, which was in the same situation as us at the time, and invested in its consumer goods industry.

Deployment to Vietnam

The deployment to Vietnam was the first decision to send troops to another country in Korea's 5,000-year history. As described above, Korea has been invaded hundreds of times by Japan and China, but has never attacked another country or occupied land. The Koreans are good and peace-loving people. Although U.S. troops were stationed in Korea under the U.S.-Korea mutual defense treaty, which was signed at the request of President Syngman Rhee during the 1953 armistice, the U.S. troops often threatened to withdraw.

The withdrawal of U.S. troops is like inviting North Korean troops---- We already have the experience that the withdrawal of the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea at the time of liberation by the so-called Atchison Line, decided by U.S. Secretary of State Atchison, invited the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Therefore, we know from experience that the presence of U.S. troops is an essential element of war deterrence. However, President Carter of the United States often talked about the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and President Park Chung-hee was too sensitive against his statement.

And then, a stroke of luck? As the situation in Vietnam war heated up, the United States requested the deployment of Korean troops to Vietnam. This was done in exchange for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Although our young people sacrificed a lot due to the deployment, it should be highly appreciated that they made a great contribution to the construction of the national economy with the dollars earned there. The issue of withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea was raised from the beginning of President Park's revolution. In fact, a significant number of U.S. troops were even withdrawn. When President Park came to power in a military revolution in 1961, it was said that President Kennedy was very unhappy. At the time, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries had already taken power through military coups, and it was difficult for him to accept the idea of a military government in Korea.

Fostering Heavy Chemical Industry

The successful completion of the two Economic Development Plans gave him some confidence, but not to the full satisfaction of Park Chung-hee. The January 21, 1968, storming of the presidential palace Chungwadae and the constant calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea kept him awake at night.

Park called for self-defense. With the slogan, "Let's work while fighting and fight while working," he conducted civil defense drills and focused on strengthening security.

He then announced measures to foster the heavy chemical industry, which is essential for strengthening the national defense.(1973) The heavy chemical industry, which is a medium-sized and grandiose industry, requires advanced technology and huge funds to be invested, and the turnover period of capital is long, so it takes a quite long time to get the fruits of investment.

In other words, it is an industry with a lot of investment risk, so no country can dominate it.

This is why Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc., which were called the four dragons of Asia at the time, could not get down to heavy chemical industry to this day.

Yushin Declaration

When the policy to develop the heavy chemical industry was announced, the opposition parties and other political groups opposed it. The construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway was also strongly opposed by opposition representatives, and since the 1971 presidential election was a bitter experience, President Park judged that it would be difficult to pursue the policy as it was, and declared a restoration of the government in October 1972. He dissolved the National Assembly and changed the presidential election to a direct election system. Of course, the opposition waged a fierce struggle against the move, claiming that it was a way of securing permanent power. However, Park resolutely pushed through. With political stability secured, President Park pushed ahead with the development of the heavy chemical industry in unison. He vigorously pushed for the development of industries that were essential to becoming an advanced nation, such as steel, machinery, shipbuilding, automobiles, electronics, petrochemicals, and non-ferrous metals.

President Park called the heads of chaebol companies to the Blue House for a face-to-face meeting and designated industries for each company, and listened to their difficulties, such as funding, and promptly resolved them. He also provided legal support. For the steel industry, he enacted the Steel Industry Development Act, a special law with a time limit, for the machinery industry, the Machinery Industry Development Act, and special support laws for all industries such as automobiles and electronics, removing obstacles such as electricity price cuts and administrative regulations.

He created specialized industrial site for each industry and built vocational high schools to train skilled workers to supply their factories. In Changwon, he created a machinery park complex and built a machinery industry high school in the complex to train skilled manpower to be sourced locally. In Gumi, he built an electronics industrial complex and established Gumi Electronics High School, in Pohang, he built Pohang Iron High School, and in Ulsan, he ordered to train skilled workers for shipyards. These industrial workers honed their skills in turning, assembly milling, and precision machining according to their specialty. They competed in the annual World Skills Olympics, winning gold medals for Korea for consecutive years. As these skilled workers grew older, they became first-class technicians, and their products became the basis for Korea's dominance in the global market. They became the cornerstone of Korea's industrialization.

10 billion, $100 billion - the world's seventh largest trading nations

As a result of this export-oriented policy, Korean exports reached $10 billion in 1977 and $100 billion in 1995. Prior to this, the government designated November 30, 1964, as "Export Day" when exports exceeded $100 million, and created and awarded the "Tower of Export" plaque to companies with outstanding export performance each year to boost morale. Now, the country has grown to become one of the world's seventh largest trading nations. It was only possible through export and import that Korea, a country with no resources, no technology, and only labor, escaped from backwardness and entered into one of  the developed countries, and if there is a secret hidden in the ticket of Park Chung-hee, it would be the answer.