He disagrees with the Roh Moo-hyun administration’s policies of balanced national development, which are supposed to promote even development between the Seoul metropolitan area and outlying regions.
“Such an idea is very outdated,” he said. “You can dream of even development, but it’s merely a low-road strategy that has been proved a failure by past communist regimes.”
This governor, a believer in rapid growth and capitalist development, however, had in the past fought fiercely for labor and political rights. When he was in the 12th grade, Kim was kicked out of school for leading a protest against the constitutional change that former president Park Chung Hee had sought to prolong his rule. After attending Seoul National University, he lived as an activist. He had himself hired at small clothing manufacturers to promote and set up labor unions in the factories. He spent his 20s and 30s hiding from the police, then spent time in prison, suffering police torture. He met Seol Nan-yeong, who would later become his wife, a former union leader at an electronics company who provided him refuge at her home.
In 1987, he launched a left-wing party. In the general elections of 1992, his party managed to win 310,000 votes nationwide, but did not win many National Assembly seats. In 1994, he decided to join the then-governing party, headed by former President Kim Young-sam.
He was criticized as an “apostate” and a “traitor” for joining what is now the conservative group in the National Assembly. But Kim said he only chose to join the party because he supported Kim Young-sam’s ideas for renovation.
“My conclusion is that I have learned a lot since then,” Kim said. He was quiet for a while before he started to explain the ideological changes he went through. “Korean society needs people who can speak as labor rights advocates, but I believe there are important things the mainstream can also do.”
He said he was no longer an advocate of marginal groups; he is now with the mainstream.
Kim said he changed his political and ideological stances mainly due to the fact that socialism has collapsed. He said he was “shocked” to see a woman from a former communist nation come to Korea and prostituted herself just to buy a pair of denim jeans.
“I think Kim Jong-il should visit Dubai and learn something,” he said. “Dubai succeeded because it opened up, while North Korea collapsed because it closed its doors to the outside. Capitalism is on the fast track to further success. The United States has become the most powerful state in the world.
“When you finally face the reality, you learn to become responsible,” he said. Kim said he still shared the sorrows of the Democratic Labor Party and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. But his view on the problems differs a lot from the country’s two major activist labor groups.
“What was in the past is important, but I think what we have now and what’s coming up in the future is more important,” he said.
Despite being a three-term GNP lawmaker, there are questions whether the party considers him a strong enough leader to potentially become its next chairman or presidential candidate.
“I think the mainstream group within the Grand National Party took me in without problems,” he said. “Sohn Hak-kyu [the former GNP lawmaker who turned to the liberal bloc] has always said he left the party because it deserted him first – but I don’t think I am like him at all. I am a realist.”