Korea Must not Miss the Train Teaching a Proper View of History Chosun Ilbo Marks 60th Anniversary of the Republic How to Mark S.Korea's 60th Anniversary?

2008 marks our departure into the vast, blue ocean, changing the direction our country took over the past 10 years. The year also marks the 60th anniversary of the Republic of Korea, and the 20th anniversary of Korea’s hosting of the Summer Olympics, which gave our country the opportunity to shake off the image of poverty and war,” replacing it with the glow of achieving the “miracle of the Han River.”

Over the last five years, we experienced first-hand just what path a government fueled by negativism and hatred could lead the country down. The first change of leadership in 10 years is the result of the will of the Korean people to change the country’s energy from negativism and hatred to positivism and progress.

A drummer on Monday rehearses to ring in the New Year on Mt. Achasan in Gwangjingu, Seoul.

The 60-year history of the Republic of Korea offers a beacon of light for Koreans; they had to spend the last five years worrying about the future of their nation amidst economic stagnation, declining respect in the international community, lack of improvement in the quality of life, and political, social and cultural chaos and division. If Koreans can regain positive and progressive energy, the anxieties they felt will disappear.

It’s been 60 years since the Republic of Korea was established in the South on Aug. 15, 1948, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the North on Sep. 9. Over this period, South Korea has risen to rank with the world’s top 10 economies, trading nations and industrial powerhouses. From a poverty-stricken country with a per-capita annual income of US$60, it transformed itself into a modern industrial powerhouse with a per-capita annual income of more than US$20,000. In the textbooks of developmental economics, the Republic of Korea is hailed as a role model. The fuel that powered resource-deficient Korea to this level is the strength of positive thinking and the progressive energy shared by the country’s leaders and the public. North Korea, which used negativity and hatred as its energy, devastated the Korean peninsula by invading the South on June 25, 1950 and is now spending the remainder of its doomed existence as a nuclear state that starves its own people, and the only country in the world that passes on the leadership from father to son.

The first mission of the new president will be to rekindle that positive and progressive spirit in the hearts of the public. To create that spark, the hearts of the public must be warmed first. It would be a lie to say that the president elect, who was the target of unprecedented attacks during more than one year of campaigning, does not hold any grudges. But if he submits to hatred, he will be unable to rekindle that energy in the hearts of Koreans. The public has already soothed any grudges the president elect may have by presenting him with the widest margin ever for a Korean presidential candidate. And that public is now ordering the president elect to reach out and embrace others.

Only the toughest issues await the new president. It is difficult to even grasp where to begin in repairing the damage done to the country’s sense of law and order. Unless Korea’s economy finds new growth engines, then it will be swept away in the wave of an aging society, unable to keep itself from shrinking and degenerating into a “worker’s paradise” and haven for pensioners. Korea faces difficult conditions internally and externally. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il with his nuclear weapons will try to test the will and strategy of the new president, just as he has done with Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. Since the end of last year, China and Japan started cooperating in both politics and the economy. This also poses a challenge to Korea’s national strategy. On top of that, starting in January, the president elect faces a probe by the independent counsel, and the Samsung Group faces a similar probe. The results of National Assembly elections in April will determine whether the new president will be able to take wing or face hurdles in his attempt to lead his country into a new era.

Korea’s geopolitical location in between China and Japan has always called on the country’s leader to exercise a delicate response to new situations. Korea’s leaders have no choice but to take the lead in finding new ways out of difficult situations. China boasts a population 26 times larger than Korea’s, and Japan’s is 2.5 times larger. China has a land mass 100 times bigger than Korea’s, and Japan is four times bigger. China’s GDP is three times the size of Koreas, and Japan’s is six times larger.

There is only one way for us. We must develop the abilities of each and every Korean to a level four times better than China’s and three times better than Japan. The fate of our country rests in the quality of education. China and Japan are homes to universities that rank within the world’s top 100, and the leaders of those two countries are about to bet everything on the quality of the education they can offer their children. We have no time to treat our educational system as a place to apply egalitarian and socialist ideologies. We must arm ourselves with the critical sense that educational reform is essential to the very survival of our country.

The Lee Myung-bak administration will be judged according to the amount of resources it will be able to amass in advancing the country by reforming and improving the quality of education. In 2008, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Republic Korea and the 20th anniversary of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, the new president must take on the challenge of these national tasks.