That be the question Park Jung-hoon of the Chosun Ilbo asks. And he seems to think it’s at least possible if the next generation pulls through:
That is where recent comments from Chun Shin-ae, a former assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor, come in. Having been in charge of formulating human resource standards and policies for the U.S. government, Chun said in an interview with the Weekly Chosun that Korea’s intellectual energy exceeds Japan’s. She asked rhetorically whether young Japanese people are mentioned in any global news stories today.
Meanwhile, Korea’s young people are being profiled in the global media as they sweep the top spots in math and science Olympiads and lead the world in breakdancing, e-sports and online games. There is the Korean Wave, led by the singer Rain. Athletes like Kim Yu-na and women golfers regularly beat their Japanese competitors.
In the past, Japan was at the forefront of innovation. The older generation invented cup noodles, the Walkman and karaoke. Japan’s young generation, however, is falling behind in terms of aspiration as well as creativity. When it comes to the competitiveness of the next generation, Korea has the edge.
Yeah, but Korea has yet to produce a decent console gaming platform.
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
That seems so out to lunch it’s barely worth commenting on.
Did this guy ever hear of China? Any innovation here or Japan will be duplicated there at lower cost and be efficiently shipped through their high quality government built infrastructure.
Well… unfortunately there are not many “young Koreans” being birthed to catapult them ahead of Japan…
China won’t catch up to the standard of Japan in this century. Their economy will be bigger but their political system must also need to develop. Korea can catch up Japan if they can pull North Korea to join them. South Korean politic is already 14 years ahead of Japan.
“lead the world in breakdancing, e-sports and online games”
that’s quite a trifecta there…
1. breakdancing – how creative. and useful. just look at how the US breakdancers of the 80′s impacted the US economy.
2. e-sports – W.T.F.
3. online games – Perhaps Korea lead the world in hours wasted per capita and maybe total?
I don’t want to be hatin’ on this guy, because I also think young Koreans have a lot to offer, but . . .
what’s the difference between “e-sports” and “online games”?
Despatch From Tokyo…
I told my ‘lads’ at Sony about this and to a person they pissed themselves laughing.
You keep selling the end product and they’ll keep sending you the technology which makes that end product work.
The day that Korea runs a positive balance of payment with Japan is the day that Obama Bin Laaden get elected US President.
Hahahaha……… Koreans…..
Koreansentry may be on to something vis-a-vis the democracy angle, but with regard to China, not Japan. Korea’s democratic vibrancy and ongoing reform will give its people a flexibility that China may just not be able to match.
North Korea will be a tremendous drag on the ROK when it finally goes under. Think of millions upon millions of malnourished, stunted North Korean children coming of age, having to support a larger, aging population in the South.
‘North Korea will be a tremendous drag on the ROK when it finally goes under. Think of millions upon millions of malnourished, stunted North Korean children coming of age, having to support a larger, aging population in the South.’
that’s what you’re hoping for, no? the joining of north and south korea will only make korea stronger.
sorry if you no likee.
FACTBOX-Leading tech rivals in South Korea, Japan
SEOUL/TOKYO, Nov 11 (Reuters) – In the longstanding rivalry between Japan and South Korea, near-neighbour North Asian technology industry heavyweights, the pendulum has swung Korea’s way, helped by currency shifts, but also due to marketing and product savvy and nimbler production strategies.
*******
this isn’t about the pendulum swinging korea’s way. this is more about the fact that such a thing would ever been written about the place .
i’m proud to be korean. that’s why i don’t really give a shit about what some expat thinks about the yemaek.
it’s time for koreans to start holding their heads high.
#6, I’ve no doubt the Japanese were laughing, Japanese have never taken Koreans seriously, even now. It’s much to do with their racial belief that Koreans are inherently inferior to them. (Thus the reason why Samsung pulled out of Japan, and Hyundai selling only 700 cars this year).
The day the Koreans overtake Japanese, is the day when stupid editorials like this don’t appear on national newspapers.
I support unification of the two Koreas as quickly as realistically possible, on moral grounds, as the best way to erase the DPRK from the face of the earth and put it in a kind of holocaust museum, where it belongs. I agree that Japan has screwed itself in the past decades, although that Chosun Ilbo columnist and the triumphalist kyopo he quotes completely lack nuance.
But the social, economic and political consequences of unification is something I would worry about immensely if I were a South Korean official or taxpayer. Why do you think reunification talk among South Koreans rarely exceeds lip service, except for when it’s done by Hankyoreh editorialists and Bay Area kyopos, who appear to want the South to be absorbed by the North? Sticker shock.
You probably missed it, or failed to grasp it, pawi, but the 20th anniversary of some big event in Germany was just observed, with the same poignant lessons for the Koreans that have been chewed over since 1989 or earlier.
Short-to-medium term, a drag on the South’s economy and society. Look at the troubles 10,000 or so talbukja — tough, resourceful people virrtually by definition — have assimilating in the South.
Over the longer term, by which I mean many decades, a 50% increase of the population and a doubling of the territory will be a good thing.
Not that I want you to reproduce, pawi, but you might even get a bride with a pulse out of unification, and finally be able to give up the made-in-China inflatable love partner that may be at the root of your passive-aggressive issues with Korea’s near and far neighbors
but that’s just it, slim. i’m looking at the long term and you’re looking at the short one.
as for my passive aggressive issues, well, it’s really because you take my women.
I’m trying to think of a Korean innovation but, unfortunately, I’m coming up blank. At this point, it’s hard to imagine Korea ever “overtaking” Japan; in fact, given the population disparity and lack of a self-sustaining market, it currently appears impossible.
pawi/wjk, get help.
#14, on the same token, name one Japanese innovation that wasn’t an improvement or reverse engineered from the West.
“Can Korea overtake Japan?”
Sure she can, if only because Japan has, “[f]or 20 years… has been able to borrow cheaply from a captive bond market, feeding its addiction to Keynesian deficit spending – and allowing it to push public debt beyond the point of no return,” according to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard — It Is Japan We Should Be Worrying About, Not America.
I know that sniffing glue between comments is what has made you the intellectual force you are today, pawi, but you did not say anything about time lines and you falsely accused me of wishing Korea to fail or flounder. I don’t even really want YOU to fail or flounder, my friend. (So stop failing and floundering here!)
#17, from the article:
“It is criminally negligent that rating agencies are not blowing the whistle on this”
Yet the same rating agencies are quick to blow the whistle on Korea if it ever even gets out of line one tiny bit.
It is not the time for Koreans to compare Korea with Japan and take shallow pride in Korea. Korean society has been committing demographic suicide since 1960s and 1970s with the population control policy: South Korea’s Birthrate World’s Lowest (Korea Times, May 22, 2009).
What’s the point of boasting of the Korean youth, while they have not stop killing their children, especially girls (Korea has a lot more boys than girls because of the traditional male-preference mentality).
correction: “stop” ->”stopped”, “.” –> “?” in the second paragraph.
Mizar, thanks for noticing the WJKelephant in the room others have missed.
Peterkim = pawi with abortion issues?
Japan also has a “lack of a self-sustaining market.” Its economy is export oriented with anemic domestic demand, similar to Korea’s economy. Most advanced economies don’t have a “self-sustaining market.” The US has to import many consumer goods, energy, etc., while exporting a reserve currency, financial paper (savings in reserve currency), military security, etc.
The only countries with self-sustaining markets are Third World countries that are too poor to really import anything, and don’t have much of anything valuable to export.
Here’s a recent article about Korea’s rise as a global power, broken down as “soft” power and “hard” power. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=108537
Meanwhile as far as innovation goes, as long as Korea continues to focus on comparisons to neighbors and competitors like Japan, they will be very unlikely to lead. Keeping up with the Jones’ means you always follow.
@10, rockgoose
“the pendulum has swung Korea’s way, helped by currency shifts, but also due to marketing and product savvy and nimbler production strategies.”
but notice no note of technology? because that would be a lie. Scipio was right on this part. For raw technology prowess, that which fuels large portions Japan’s and Korea’s economies, Japan owns Korea. The largest Korean electronics company estimated a few years back that Japan’s electronics companies are about 5 years ahead of Korea’s largest electronics company. Korea overcoming Japan in raw tech know-how will help them shut down the Japanese. (Then China will eventually do the same to Korea, I predict.)
@11, cm
“…Japanese have never taken Koreans seriously, even now.”
I don’t agree. During my business trips to Japan, and while hosting Japanese here on business, they have shown a large respect for Korean companies, their work ethic, and the “Rise of Korea.” Japanese ajeossis from more than one company have told me that they completely expect Korea to surpass Japan economically in the not-to-distant future, and went on to cite reasons why they believe this.
Like pawi said, hold your head up a little higher. Get over your inferiority complex with Japan, Koreans. (…and get over Dokdo while you are at it).
@13 “as for my passive aggressive issues, well, it’s really because you take my women.”
Good one. I didn’t know you had a sense of humour.
cmm, does this have to be a zero-sum game? does japan have to go down for korea to go up? is the same true for china vs korea?
i think all three of them can be wealthy at the same time. just like europe and the us being wealthy at the same time.
anyway, have a good day.
I think some people here are forgetting a little diddy by GS:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/10/01/per-goldman-sachs-unified-korean-economy-can-be-bigger-than-japans/
Also, North Korea may have between $3-6 trillion, that’s TRILLION, in untapped natural resources… wow.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/10/28/north-korea-s-untapped-mineral-wealth.aspx
I’m beginning to think that reunification is painful in the short term but will be an epic win in the long term.
Simple mathematics here, South Korea + North Korea = resource depended economy + resource export economy = more profitable economy, can easily over take Japan.
Also, Korean population would like 72 million that’s about half of Japan’s population. Do your simple maths, who will be enjoying high standard of living?
Even with unified Korea, Korean population still be smaller among Asian countries. GDP/GNP per capita would be highest in Asia.
Dumb Nazi members like cmm & Mizar5 would never understand.
sock puppet.
# 23 Peterkim = pawi with abortion issues?
I wish I could speak and write fluent colloquial English as “pawi” did. “Pawi” writes more like a person who speaks English as his mother tongue, even though he claims he is a Korean. I doubt he is a Korean-Korean like me. Native Koreans rarely write like “pawi” does.
For those who want to be more bothered to find what I have written, here is my blog: http://totustuusegosum2000.blogspot.com/
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