The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [229]
On January 28 Hwang left Pyongyang to deliver the main address at a symposium in Japan sponsored by the Cho Chongryon, the proPyongyang residents' association. He was closely guarded in visits to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nagano, during which he extolled juche and paid tribute to Kim 11 Sung and Kim Jong 11. He flew to Beijing on February 11 for an overnight stop before his scheduled train trip to Pyongyang the following afternoon. Instead, he left the North Korean Embassy on the morning of February 12, pleading that he needed to go shopping for gifts. A short time later he took refuge in the South Korean Consulate.
Hwang's defection posed a difficult issue for the Chinese government, which sought to maintain good relations with both Pyongyang and Seoul, until North Korea dropped its initial claim that Hwang had been kidnapped and announced that "a coward may leave" if he really wanted to defect. Still, in order to ease the embarrassment to Pyongyang, China did not permit Hwang to leave the ROK consulate in Beijing for five weeks, and then only for a third country rather than directly to South Korea. Under an arrangement worked out with Seoul, the Philippines provided a temporary refuge for Hwang before he was permitted to travel to Seoul on April 20. As he and Kim Duk Hong stepped out of a chartered Air Philippines jet at a military airport, the two defectors raised their arms in the air three times and shouted "Mansei!" a Korean expression of triumph and good wishes. The South Korean public, watching raptly on live television, suspended its mixed feelings about Hwang, at least for the moment, and warmly welcomed his arrival.
THE TWO KOREAS IN TIME OF TROUBLE
By 1998, half a century after the creation of separate states following the division of the peninsula, the two Koreas were radically different, but both were facing serious difficulties.
South Korea, although far more advanced economically and politically and awash with riches when compared to the North, was beset by problems that would grow dramatically at the end of 1997. In November, the financial and economic crisis that had begun in Southeast Asia spread without warning to Korea. By December 31, South Korea's currency, the won, had lost 40 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar as investors fled the country, and the value of securities on the Seoul stock market had dropped by 42 percent. To avoid defaulting on the international debts of its banks and businesses, the country that in 1996 had joined the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), known as the club of the world's richest nations, was forced to go hat in hand to the International Monetary Fund for $57 billion in loans-the largest international bailout on record, up to that point-in return for acceptance of stringent economic requirements. Bankruptcies and unemployment soared, with massive social and political consequences.
Amid this turmoil Kim Dae Jung, the longtime opposition leader, was elected president in the December 18 national election. "We're just entering a dark IMF tunnel," he told the public in a televised "town hall" meeting. "The real ordeal will begin from now on." As the Republic of Korea celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding on August 15, 1998, its economy was still struggling to find the path to recovery. The economy bounced back dramatically in 1999, but began to slip back again in the second half of 2000, as it became clear that underlying problems in the banking and corporate structure were more serious and more damaging than had been anticipated.
Kim Dae Jung's policies toward the North were very different from those of his predecessor and rival, Kim Young Sam. From his first years in national