General Park was a dictator. S. Korea became prosperous only after the death of Park. Maybe or maybe not Park was the proper person for S Korea at the time. What we see now is incredible economic activity for S Korea. I have no idea what the changings in a few words in S. Korean textbooks have to do with S. Korea. Stalinist or non-Stalinist type BS. Perhaps, now that they are free they don’t have to claim that they are free?!
General Park and his wife were both assassinated. His daughter became South Korea’s first female president in 2013 and never finished her term as she is in jail as of 2017. She was impeached on bribery charges, which many argue were politically motivated and highly trumped up..Her prison sentence is 24 years and her health has been ailing.
She also took a far harder and hawkish line on the North. And in my opinion her imprisonment is the elephant in the room in terms of North Korea talks and US/South Korean relations. South Korea’s current leftist government is on overdrive consolidating every segment of society from media to schools around their agenda and numerous figures have either been silenced, fired, or jailed. Lest they interrupt the ultimate goal which is reunification with the North. President Park Geun-Hye being the most high-profile one.
I think the “democracy” semantics are complicated maybe because of Korean-English language barrier making direct translations difficult.
The north is officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, so let’s hope it’s not an attempt to soften up the people for reunification.
(And to clarify, I am not saying reunification is bad goal. But that the current SK government’s terms may be more appeasing than is healthy.)