This paper examines the significance held by the 1950s for the history of the Republic of Korea (ROK)’s postwar economic development. It focuses on points of continuity and discontinuity between the 1950s and the ROK’s economic development from the 1960s onward, from the perspective of the US Eisenhower administration’s (1953–1961) policy toward the ROK and the response of Syngman Rhee’s administration (1948–1960). In this era, the US applied its economic development policy toward Northeast Asia to Japan, Taiwan, and Okinawa, and created the beginnings of postwar economic development in Japan and Taiwan. As a result, similar changes connected to economic development in the 1960s also became visible in Korea. However, the application of the US policy was, as an exception, flawed in the ROK. Since this ‘exceptionality’ appears to relate to the discontinuity between the 1950s and 1960s, this paper seeks to explain the process and reasoning that created this ‘exceptionality’.
The paper analyzes US–ROK relations in the 1950s in terms of: (i) trade promotion policy in the Eisenhower administration’s economic development policy toward Northeast Asia; (ii) the ROK’s response to US economic development policy; and (iii) the US’s pattern of policy-making.
The officials from both the US and the ROK recognized the necessity of exporting labor-intensive products and gradually undertook measures to achieve this from the mid-1950s. In addition, US officials in the ROK simultaneously came to recognize the necessity of readjusting the ROK’s exchange rates to a realistic, single rate for export promotion. The Eisenhower administration’s emphasis on trade was one significant reason for these changes in recognition.These changes appear to demonstrate continuity in US–ROK dialog during the process of shifting the ROK’s economic policy to export-led growth in the 1960s. However, US economic development policy in Korea appears flawed when the Korean case is compared with other cases in Northeast Asia.This circumstance resulted from Syngman Rhee’s resistance to the US policy of import-substitution, and its complex intertwinement with US recognition of the need for economic and price stabilization, political instability in the ROK, and the ROK’s standing in the Cold War.
抄録全体を表示