Did South Korea Benefit From Syngman Rhee’s Reign?

Syngman Rhee a nationalist with a burning hatred of communism.  He was in exiled from Korea and lived in the U.S. for decades.  He was educated by the Westerns and even went to Princeton and earned his doctorate (1).  Overall, a good portion of his life was spent in a democratic nation.  With that in mind, he was also the only Korean at the time that the U.S. knew that was heavily anti-communist.  Thus, the U.S. believed he would make a  perfect candidate  to be the head of South Korea.  With the help from the U.S. Syngman Rhee became the first president of South Korea in 1948.  However, little did they know that Syngman Rhee was far from what the U.S. had anticipated.  Rhee was seen more than just seen as a president, he was seen as a dictator during his reign.  He is described by one historian as an “ineffable charm and outrageous crudity–an icy Confucian demeanor of utter self-control and dignity at one point, giving way to show of raging insanity or puerile inanity,” (5).  During his rule South Korea had a poor economic and was majority an agricultural country.   He did very little if anything to improve South Korea’s economic.  ” Rhee had no economic vision and the country lived off American handouts. When presented with the first long-term economic plan, developed by officials looking to get the country on its own feet, Rhee dismissed it with a comment that Five-Year Plans were a communist idea,” (1).  He did not care for the welfare of his people.  One detail that describes his love for the people is during the first days of the Korean War, instead of trying to defend Seoul, Rhee ran away (2).  It was tragic for South Korea because Rhee returned and still had his autocratic desires.  All he cared about was getting rid of communism from the south, retaining his power, and killing politicians who could potentially take his place.  In his later years of rule, he took his desires to heart.

When Cho Pong-am, the very same man Rhee had given a position as his first agriculture minister won 2.2 million votes in 1956 as a candidate of the progressive party, Rhee was concerned about losing his position (5).  Two years later, Rhee arrested Cho and other leaders of the Progressive Party on false crimes of espionage and eventually Cho was executed (5).  In addition, he reformed a rule that if anyone was caught sharing fake details that could aid the enemy in any way, they would be imprisoned for 5 years.   In the first year 188,621 people were arrested (5).  Adding on to this, “he was the man behind the Cheju 4.3 Massacre, the Daejun Massacre, the Suwon Massacre, the blowing up the Hangang Bridge, assassination of Kim Ku and Yo Woon Young and countless other killings of Koreans,” (3).    It was for the better when he was removed from office in 1960 by the Korean citizens for election fraud.  So, in the end South Korea did not benefit from Syngman Rhee’s reign. He was an egoistic and cruel leader who didn’t even do the minimal amount to improve the country.  “Until the mid-1960’s the North Korean economy outperformed that of South Korea; from 1954 to 1965, industry soared bout 25 percent a year; from 1965 to 1975, it continued at a torrid if lesser pace of 14 percent annually,” (6).  Though Kim Il Sung was just as cruel Rhee if not worse, at least he was able to improve North Korea’s economics for some time.

1.  Breen, Michael.  “Fall of Korea’s First President Syngman Rheein 1960”.  The Korea Times, April 18, 2010.

2.  Lankov, Andrei.  “Tragic end of communist-turned-politician Cho Bong-am.”  The Korea Times, January 9, 2011.

3.  Rang, Lee.  “Who Was Reef Syngman?”.

4.  Schoppa, Keith.  East Asia: Identities and Change in the Modern World-1700 to Present.  New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2008.

5.  Schoppa, East Asia, 383

6.  Schoppa, East Asia, 381

image URL:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Rhee_Syng-Man_in_1956.jpg