코리아타임즈 Tycoon's Warning

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Tycoon's Warning Nation Should Look Decades Ahead for Economic Survival

Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee rarely opens his mouth in public without making headlines. On Friday, he said, ``Not only Samsung but also the entire nation could get into big trouble in four to six years unless we take special care.’’ In January, the normally reticent tycoon also lamented Korea’s economic difficulties being ``sandwiched between frontrunner Japan and latecomer China.’’ The messages are not new, but to whom they are directed draws our interest. To some, Lee’s remarks would sound rather abstract and ambiguous. The nation’s richest man neither explained why he thinks so by citing concrete data nor offered any solutions. He may not have felt it necessary, however. Korea’s five major export industries _ cell phones, semiconductors, cars, steel and shipbuilding _ are reeling from sluggish shipments and falling profitability. While advanced countries are running away, developing ones are chasing closely. New growth engines are hard to find. The 65-year-old magnate’s warning appears aimed _ firstly and mostly _ at his own struggling conglomerate, which accounts for 20 percent of Korea’s total gross domestic product. Lee made his famous ``Frankfurt remarks’’ in 1993, calling for Samsung executives to ``change everything except your wives and children’’ and heralding its second birth. Lee sometimes directed his sharp tongue outward: In 1995, he rated Korean business as second class, government as third class and politics as fourth class. Lee’s latest comment also seems directed in part at overall society, particularly politicians, bureaucrats and unionists. Hidden in his message may be the business community’s complaints about an anti-business _ or anti-chaebol _ climate, led by what they see as a leftist government. President Roh Moo-hyun and his aides in the administration and governing party, many executives think, have tried to curb the chaebol’s power in the name of reform. Roh’s populism also cooled corporate zeal and slowed growth, they believe. There is surely some logic in what they say. From what most outsiders see, however, the business circles are no less problematic. The family-controlled conglomerates have long been the target of criticism, here and abroad, for outdated corporate governance. They have also lost much of their entrepreneurship by hoarding cash rather than spending it on R&D and other productive activities, citing only administrative red tape. Samsung’s intolerance of unions keeps it from being a model corporate citizen. Neither side can be entirely right or wrong. But Lee and business community at least have one thing over political circles: They are concerned about what to live on a decade in the future, while politicians are just talking big with little to back them up. Whoever becomes the next president, he or she should be the one who can transform this atmosphere of mutual blame and criticism into encouragement and cooperation.