LAST month, when South Korean officials announced that they were investigating a mid-sized conglomerate for corporate malfeasance, the news took many observers by surprise. Reports of poor corporate governance have become increasingly uncommon in South Korea in recent years.
LAST week marked the 100th anniversary of South Korea’s defeat and subsequent colonisation by Japan. But as the local and international media ran stories on the continuing efforts of both countries to put the past behind them, few observers took time to assess the extent to which South Korea now has the potential to out-perform its former colonial master.
Park Geun-hye, daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, won the December 19 presidential election. She has the support of the ruling conservative New Frontier Party, but as a woman in a deeply patriarchal society, she may have to work hard to assert her authority in government.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
My name is Dr Bruce Gale and I am a senior writer with the Singapore Straits Times. I studied at LaTrobe University (BA Hons) in Melbourne and later at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Monash University (MA). My PhD thesis, which focussed on Malaysian political economy, was completed at the Malaysian National University (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) in 1987.
From 1988 to 2003 I was Singapore Regional Manager for the Hong Kong based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).
I have written several books and articles on Southeast Asian affairs, including Political Risk and International Business: Case Studies in Southeast Asia (Pelanduk Publications, 2007). Books on language include Mastering Indonesian: a guide to reading Indonesian language newspapers (Pelanduk Publications, 2008)