"So now we are pushing economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform. So we can finish that reform this year, in September or October. Then our economy may be much more, you know, normalized"
About this Quote
There is a telling modesty in the phrase "you know, normalized" - a leader reaching for the least ideological word available to sell the most invasive kind of change. Kim Dae Jung is talking like a technocrat, but the stakes are existential: he is trying to compress national trauma into a calendar.
Context matters. As South Korea's president in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Kim inherited an economy shaken by collapsed conglomerates, a humiliated currency, and the disciplining presence of the IMF. "Economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform" is triage framed as inevitability. By listing reforms in a clean sequence, he turns a messy political battle - layoffs, corporate restructuring, liberalization, and new rules for chaebol power - into a program with a beginning, middle, and end. That rhetorical order is itself a tool of governance.
The intent is to create a horizon. "This year, in September or October" signals urgency, but also reassurance: pain will be finite, and the government has a timetable. It's crisis management as narrative management. The subtext is consent-building. Kim is implicitly asking a public to endure contraction now in exchange for stability later, while also signaling to global markets and lenders that Korea will behave "normally" - meaning transparent banks, accountable firms, and less cozy state-business collusion.
"Normalized" also carries a quiet admission: the previous normal was unsustainable. Kim is not promising a return; he's promising a reset that can be described as common sense, not revolution. In a moment when legitimacy is fragile, understatement becomes strategy.
Context matters. As South Korea's president in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Kim inherited an economy shaken by collapsed conglomerates, a humiliated currency, and the disciplining presence of the IMF. "Economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform" is triage framed as inevitability. By listing reforms in a clean sequence, he turns a messy political battle - layoffs, corporate restructuring, liberalization, and new rules for chaebol power - into a program with a beginning, middle, and end. That rhetorical order is itself a tool of governance.
The intent is to create a horizon. "This year, in September or October" signals urgency, but also reassurance: pain will be finite, and the government has a timetable. It's crisis management as narrative management. The subtext is consent-building. Kim is implicitly asking a public to endure contraction now in exchange for stability later, while also signaling to global markets and lenders that Korea will behave "normally" - meaning transparent banks, accountable firms, and less cozy state-business collusion.
"Normalized" also carries a quiet admission: the previous normal was unsustainable. Kim is not promising a return; he's promising a reset that can be described as common sense, not revolution. In a moment when legitimacy is fragile, understatement becomes strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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