CX Li | University of Oxford (original) (raw)

Drafts by CX Li

The Change Magazine , 2021

Imagine a country which, as the first graduate from the developing world since 1964, has worked i... more Imagine a country which, as the first graduate from the developing world since 1964, has worked its way out of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy while suffering from severe resource constraints and geopolitical insecurity. Then imagine a country which topped the suicide rates among OECD countries, fell to the world's lowest fertility rate, and gave birth to the "Three Giving-up Generation" who give up courtship, marriage and having kids at all. The success and miseries coincided in the very same country-South Korea, widely referred to as the "Miracle on the Han River" through which scholars hope to extract lessions for developing countries. However, Korean people have benefited yet suffered from the rapid growth, for many of whom the "pains" seemed to have exceeded the "gains" and the "Economic Miracle" turned out to be a "Hell Joseon". A Rising Star with a Tragic Past: How Did South Korea Rewrite its Development Story? Joseon, literally means "Land of the Dawn", used to be the name of two kingdoms that happened to be the first and the last in the Korean history. However, unlike the brightness hinted by this name, South Korea (hence Korea) only found itself in endless darkness until the end of the Korean War: geopolitical insecurity, severe resources constraints, high level of illiteracy and absence of a decent industrial base. For postwar Korea, rapid development was still beyond its wildest dreams. In the 1950s, despite of a deeply troubled economy, Korea has accomplished two important tasks which laid foundation for its future growth: land reform and education expansion. The dismantling of landed elites by land reform, together with improved social mobility by education universalisation helped reshape the social structure, without which South Korea's "growth with equity" would just be pie in the sky. The turning point only showed up in the 1960s when Park Chung-hee, an army general, came to

The Change Magazine , 2021

Imagine a country which, as the first graduate from the developing world since 1964, has worked i... more Imagine a country which, as the first graduate from the developing world since 1964, has worked its way out of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy while suffering from severe resource constraints and geopolitical insecurity. Then imagine a country which topped the suicide rates among OECD countries, fell to the world's lowest fertility rate, and gave birth to the "Three Giving-up Generation" who give up courtship, marriage and having kids at all. The success and miseries coincided in the very same country-South Korea, widely referred to as the "Miracle on the Han River" through which scholars hope to extract lessions for developing countries. However, Korean people have benefited yet suffered from the rapid growth, for many of whom the "pains" seemed to have exceeded the "gains" and the "Economic Miracle" turned out to be a "Hell Joseon". A Rising Star with a Tragic Past: How Did South Korea Rewrite its Development Story? Joseon, literally means "Land of the Dawn", used to be the name of two kingdoms that happened to be the first and the last in the Korean history. However, unlike the brightness hinted by this name, South Korea (hence Korea) only found itself in endless darkness until the end of the Korean War: geopolitical insecurity, severe resources constraints, high level of illiteracy and absence of a decent industrial base. For postwar Korea, rapid development was still beyond its wildest dreams. In the 1950s, despite of a deeply troubled economy, Korea has accomplished two important tasks which laid foundation for its future growth: land reform and education expansion. The dismantling of landed elites by land reform, together with improved social mobility by education universalisation helped reshape the social structure, without which South Korea's "growth with equity" would just be pie in the sky. The turning point only showed up in the 1960s when Park Chung-hee, an army general, came to