In the first half of his life, Lee Myung-bak could be called "young and promising, grassroots counterattack, middle-aged proud, and high-spirited"; but the dragon slayer eventually became an evil dragon, and the second half of his life can definitely be called "lost in his original intention, a puppet of capital, and scolded by everyone."
The reason why Lee Myung-bak was able to come to power smoothly at the beginning was largely because when Roh Moo-hyun was more and more powerless in the later period of his administration, Lee Myung-bak came out "in time" and drew a big pie with his head held high to the South Korean people.
As a result, the answer sheet he handed in failed at all, and not only became the spokesperson of the chaebol, but also forced Roh Moo-hyun to death.
As the saying goes: "Zhou Gong is afraid of rumors, Wang Mang is humble and not usurped, Xiang Envoy died at the beginning, who knows the truth of his life?" If Lee Myung-bak was not president, perhaps not so many people would have scolded him, and he would not have ended up in a bleak old age.
Grassroots counterattack
The class solidification in South Korea is quite serious, there is an obvious resource and information gap between the classes, it is quite difficult for the working masses to rely on personal struggle, and the differences between seniors and juniors, superiors and subordinates are also very emphasized in social life, and the honorific "Smecta" must be added to the speech.
Therefore, Lee Myung-bak's youth when he counterattacked from the bottom is often regarded as an example of struggle by Korean descendants.
In 1941, Lee Myung-bak was born in Osaka, Japan, and was the fifth in his family.
After Japan's surrender, Lee Myung-bak returned to his hometown of Gyeongju, and since then poverty has followed him all the time, Lee Myung-bak's second brother was admitted to the Seoul University Business School, and in order to save tuition, the family almost gave up letting Lee Myung-bak go to high school.
At that time, Lee Myung-bak showed perseverance beyond ordinary people, he promised his mother that he would not ask for a penny from the family, and begged not to terminate his studies. With the consent of his family, Lee Myung-bak went to clean up the garbage before dawn every morning, making six round-trips.
In the end, he barely paid his tuition with the money he earned from cleaning up garbage, and was admitted to the night school of the local high school with the first place, and was the first place for three consecutive years, and then got his high school diploma without spending a penny of his family's money.
At the age of 20, Lee Myung-bak took the college entrance examination, and a month before the exam, he stayed up late to review and use sleeping pills to regulate sleep, but three days before the exam, he still fell ill, but still insisted on taking the exam.
When the results came out, Lee Myung-bak himself was shocked, and he was admitted to the Faculty of Commerce of Korea University.
After entering the university, Lee Myung-bak showed an amazing "personal charm" and was elected president of the student council of Korea University.
You must know that South Korea's student union president is not easy to do, and his election often requires gangs and a lot of financial investment, and it is surprising that Lee Myung-bak, a grassroots student from a night school, can attract a large number of fans after a few ordinary speeches empty-handed.
Lee Myung-bak was in college at the beginning of the Third Republic, and the student movement was very strong, and Lee Myung-bak, as the president of the student union, also participated in it, and he led the students to the streets to oppose Park Chung-hee's pursuit of normalization of diplomatic relations with Japan, and was arrested and imprisoned on the spot.
As a result of this prison experience, Lee Myung-bak was barred from employment after graduation, and he could not find even the most humble job.
But Lee Myung-bak did not want to give in and boldly wrote a letter of protest to Park Chung-hee, denouncing this unreasonable employment policy: "If the state prevents a young man from becoming self-reliant, the country will always owe him!"
After reading the letter, Park Chung-hee was not angry, and even felt that what Lee Myung-bak said had some truth, so he approved to his subordinates: Give this young man a chance to be self-reliant!
In 1965, Lee Myung-bak joined Hyundai Construction Co., Ltd. and quickly demonstrated his incredible talents, rising to team leader two years later, becoming director at the age of 29, and becoming the group's CEO at the age of 36, the youngest leader in the company's history.
His legend became the "salaryman myth" of the miracle era of the Han River.
When asked what his secret was, Lee Myung-bak said, "I have never had a public holiday, and I work more than 18 hours a day, which means that I was promoted to president after 24 years, so I can't say that it was too fast." ”
During his meteoric ascension, Hyundai Group also quickly grew from a small and medium-sized enterprise to South Korea's leading chaebol, and Lee Myung-bak no longer bothered with money. According to statistics, before he stepped down, his assets exceeded 33 billion won, equivalent to about 270 million yuan.
In 1988, the establishment of the Sixth Republic promoted the democratization of South Korea, and the Hyundai Group also wanted to get involved in politics, but the founder, Chung Joo-young, wanted to run for president himself, while Lee Myung-bak wanted to join Kim Yong-sam, and the two had a disagreement.
After the dispute failed, Lee Myung-bak resigned in 1992 and was elected to the National Assembly of the Great Kuomintang in politics, while Chung Joo-yong failed to run for the presidency, and the Hyundai Group was also dealt a heavy blow during the Kim Yong-sam era.
Ten years later, Lee Myung-bak was promoted again and became the mayor of Seoul.
And he did three most important things during his tenure:
The first is the management of Cheonggyecheon.
Cheonggyecheon is a river in the center of the city, but due to the development of the city's industrialization, it has gradually become a stinky ditch, and during the Park Chung-hee era, a four-lane viaduct was built here, causing serious air pollution and noise problems.
After Lee Myung-bak became mayor, he spent 900 billion won and spent 2 years and 3 months to demolish the viaduct of Cheonggyecheon and re-excavate the river. Although it has caused a certain traffic impact, it has succeeded in improving the living environment of the citizens here.
The water is clear and flows all year round, making it a major tourist attraction, and the project has earned the reputation of "the real beginning of the urban revolution of the 21st century". Lee Myung-bak was even named an "environmental hero" by Time magazine in the United States.
The second is the construction of the Han River Park on Xudao Island.
It is a tourist attraction that combines a comprehensive cultural observation space, a musical fountain, and a rose garden, which is currently a must-visit destination for tourists in South Korea, and has greatly boosted the local consumer market.
Third, in 2005, it was announced that the Chinese translation of the capital "Seoul" would be changed to "Seoul".
This is considered by many South Koreans to be a major achievement of Lee Myung-bak.
After transforming South Korea's capital, Lee Myung-bak's next goal is to transform South Korea, and he ran for president in 2007.
The most tense contest in the election is not from the 12 candidates with the largest number of candidates in history, but from the opposition Grand National Party, with Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.
Fate is so wonderful, 40 years ago, Park Chung-hee's sentence "Give this young man a chance to be self-reliant, so that the country will not owe him anything!" pushed Lee Myung-bak to get this earth-shattering wealth.
Forty years later, Lee's biggest rival turned out to be Park Chung-hee's daughter, Park Geun-hye.
After a heated exchange of views within the party, Lee Myung-bak defeated Park Geun-hye and became the Grand National Party's presidential candidate. Afterwards, the media joked: 'Park Chung-hee doesn't owe Lee Myung-bak anything, but owes his daughter too much, leaving her such a competitor.'
After that, Park Geun-hye also went all out to canvass for Lee Myung-bak.
At this time, Lee Myung-bak had almost no rivals to speak of, and the support of the remaining 11 candidates combined was not as high as he alone.
On December 19, 2007, the results of the 17th presidential election were announced, and Lee Myung-bak won 50.3% of the vote, far greater than the 26% support of Chung Dong-yong, the candidate of the United Nations and the Democratic New Party, and won the presidency.
If the time is fixed on December 19, the South Korean people's good impression of Lee Myung-bak may continue to be retained.
But history has no ifs, and an ugly show of politicians begins.
"Diplomacy in the DPRK"
Lee Myung-bak labeled himself as an "economic president" of the pragmatists, and also proposed the "747 Economic Development Plan", that is, an average annual economic growth of 7%, and 10 years to make South Korea one of the world's seven economic powers.
Just three months after the pie was drawn, Lee Myung-bak, who claims to be the "CEO of the Republic of Korea," saw his approval rating plummet to 16 percent, because no one expected him to compromise with the United States on the issue of imported beef.
This has to start from the Roh Moo-hyun period.
On December 23, 2003, the first case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington State, USA, which made the world "talk about cow color" for a while.
People who eat BSE beef tend to be insane, their brain function deteriorates, and in severe cases, it can lead to death. Beef is the main meat on the Korean table, so as soon as the mad cow disease incident broke out, the Roh Moo-hyun government immediately terminated the import of American beef.
In 2006, South Korea and the United States launched FTA negotiations, and the United States offered South Korean rice to threaten them, and finally the Roh Moo-hyun government also made a certain compromise, promising to import only deboned beef under the age of 30 months, because studies believe that this kind of beef is not easy to infect.
But in October 2007, on the eve of Roh Moo-hyun's ouster, South Korea stopped importing American beef again after a spine bone was found in U.S. beef imports.
However, after Lee Myung-bak came to power, he completely ignored the potential safety hazards that may arise for the South Korean people to eat unsafe beef, and instead worried about the economic impact of the South Korea-US FTA on the rocks, and hastily lifted the ban.
During the Roh Moo-hyun era, the beef issue was not negotiated for several years, and Lee Myung-bak announced the full opening of the door to the United States in only seven days, which caused indignation among the South Korean people.
Soon, angry South Koreans took to the streets in protest, shouting, "Lee Myung-bak is the contemporary Lee Wan-yong!" and that Lee Wan-yong is a notorious "Korean traitor" on the Korean Peninsula and is regarded as the number one traitor in South Korea today.
Some South Korean media also accused Lee Myung-bak of "humiliation diplomacy" and "tributary diplomacy" toward the United States.
In the midst of the overwhelming scolding, Lee Myung-bak publicly apologized, admitting that he had ignored public opinion, but he remained unrepentant, stubbornly emphasizing the important role of the South Korea-US FTA in the economy, refuting the "mad cow disease" theory, and continuing to insist on opening the market.
So on the 107th day of Lee's rise to power, the 40-day mass protests reached a climax, with millions of people taking to the streets in a candlelight procession, and the widespread cry of "I'd rather eat poison than American beef."
In the end, Lee Myung-bak had to renegotiate with the United States, only import deboned beef that was less than 30 months old, and asked Han Deok-so, then South Korean Prime Minister, to resign as a "man of the blame", which gradually calmed down the public grievances.
"Plutocratic puppets"
The biggest black spot of the Lee Myung-bak government is that he almost ceded control of the South Korean government to the chaebols, and he himself was at the mercy of the chaebols like a puppet, forcing the death of former President Roh Moo-hyun as a typical example.
As we said in the previous issue, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the chaebol further expanded, but it would be a big mistake to understand that Roh Moo-hyun and the chaebol colluded with each other to engage in power-for-money transactions. In fact, the relationship between the Roh Moo-hyun government and the chaebols is complex and contradictory.
Due to Roh's limited ability to govern and the long-term turmoil in the appointment and dismissal of personnel within the government, conservative officials gradually took the lead, and Roh Moo-hyun did not have a deep understanding of economic issues, so he had to turn to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, which was full of experts at the time.
The end result is that Samsung has subtly shifted the direction of the South Korean government's economic policy from "reform" to stability.
Samsung has also benefited itself a lot.
But Roh Moo-hyun only wanted to use the chaebols as a tool for economic development, and on the other hand, he actively suppressed the chaebols, that is, to build a clean government, strictly investigate the political black money of the chaebols and the government, and curb the real estate speculation of the chaebols. This made the major chaebols very unhappy.
And when Lee Myung-bak came to power, the chaebols saw a perfect agent. The chaebols demanded that Lee Myung-bak liquidate Roh Moo-hyun, and Lee Myung-bak immediately grabbed Roh Moo-hyun's various pigtails and finally forced Roh Moo-hyun to death.
Lee Myung-bak then slammed the steering wheel to the right, giving the chaebol the green light in all aspects.
The first is the tax cut, which is supposed to reduce the burden on the people, but in fact it is the chaebols who need to pay huge taxes.
The second is to revise the Anti-Monopoly Law and relax the regulations on the expansion of enterprises.
As a result, 332 start-ups were merged by chaebols, and Lotte Group grew most rapidly during this period, with the number of subsidiaries increasing from 46 to 79 and total assets rising from 49.2 trillion to 95.8 trillion won.
The third is to use the presidential pardon power to shelter the chaebols who were vigorously pursued during the Roh Moo-hyun era, including Hyundai President Chung Mong-gu and Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee. After that, he almost blatantly indulged the chaebol to accumulate wealth, saying that there was no dirty deed behind it, and no one believed it.
How much benefit did Lee Myung-bak make in the process?
It wasn't until Moon Jae-in liquidated him 10 years later that the truth came to light.
In March 2018, Lee Myung-bak was arrested for accepting bribes, illegally misappropriating funds, evading taxes, abusing power, illegally hiding documents, and violating the election law, among which the amount of bribes received was as high as 11 billion won.
The author said
Roh Moo-hyun, who was also born as a commoner and rose to the top of the presidency, always stood with the people, but Lee Myung-bak betrayed his class early.
Let's see what he does with labor.
In November 2009, 16,000 railway workers in South Korea went on strike to protest working conditions and wages, resulting in a complete paralysis of rail traffic. In response, Lee Myung-bak said that he would never give in, and accused the workers of being unreasonable and selfish, which made people unacceptable.
When Lee Myung-bak left office, he claimed to be the "happiest worker" and spared no effort to publicize his "great achievements", but what he didn't expect was that the South Korean people finally waited for the day when he stepped down, and the cursed spitting stars soon drowned out the narcissistic him.
There are two main reasons why the Korean people generally have a bad impression of him:
First, he cornered Roh Moo-hyun and sent someone to take revenge on the warrior who demanded his apology after Roh Moo-hyun's funeral;
The second is that he claims to realize the "747 Plan", but he has made a mess of economic governance, and GDP growth is not as good as during the Roh Moo-hyun period.
In February 2013, Lee Myung-bak left the presidential palace after a meeting with then-Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and ended his term.
But the story of South Korean politics always surprises people, and just when you think you're at rock bottom, no matter how you go, a president who is even more outrageous than Lee Myung-bak appears - she is the daughter of Commander Park, Park Geun-hye.