A Study On New Countryside Movement In Korea

In the1910s, Korea became the colony of Japan, the national political andeconomic arteries were grasped by the Japanese and all kinds of resources became theplundering goal of Japan, therefore, its industrial and agricultural production level waslow and the masses lived in deep water. After Japan surrendered in1945, Korean Warbroke out, which destroyed the restorative economic construction severely again.Korea was still one of the poorest countries in the world until the mid1950s. Theeconomy was on the verge of collapse and grain issue was severe, therefore, thegovernment had to adjust the agriculture policy so as to cross the difficult barriers andstabilize the domestic social order with the financial assistance of America. In the early1960s, Korea began to carry out the five-year plan of economic development andapplied non-balanced development strategy with heavy chemical industry andlabor-intensive light industry development as the center, and then the Korean economydeveloped greatly after nearly10years’ efforts, which laid a good foundation for thedevelopment of industrialization and expansion of service industry, offered a mass ofemployment opportunities and provided objective condition for the rural surplus labormigration. However, at the same time, the severe imbalance of industrial andagricultural development appeared, the rural problem was prominent, the differencebetween urban and rural areas became greater and the rural economics was behindhandwhich had a strong impact on the economic development.In order to alter the situation, Korea launched “New Countryside Movement” in1970and then the construction of modern agriculture and rural economics began. TheNew Countryside Movement in Korea stimulated the diligent, self-help andcooperative spirit and positive values of the peasants through improving their ethicalthoughts and cultivated basic-level leadership so that the peasants could participate in the comprehensive development that aimed to improve rural social economy, culturallife and environmental conditions actively and voluntarily. The objectives of NewCountryside Movement in Korea were reflected in three aspects:1, attitude change ofethical life, including cultivating the self-supporting, self-help and cooperative spirit,infusing modern life style and healthy life attitude and improving and changing ethicallife.2, economic development, including enhancing rural income, realizingmechanization and technological innovation, changing structure of agriculturalproduction, enlarging land exploitation scale and developing farming industry.3, socialdevelopment, the New Countryside Movement in Korea became a nationwidedevelopment movement afterwards, including constructing railways, popularizingelectricity utilization, perfecting communication facilities, building cultural facilitiesand expanding social welfare system on a national scale.The initial project of New Countryside Movement in Korea was established byDepartment of the Interior and the first project was to mobilize the peasants toparticipate in the reconstruction of villages and improvement of rural livingenvironment. The Korean Government planned more than20kinds of constructionprojects so as to improve the rural living environment, such as building bridges andmending roads, reconstructing houses and building toilets, rehabilitating drinkingwater and laundry tray and constructing river levees and New Town Hall. The KoreanGovernment distributed a certain amount of free cements and reinforcing bars to thevillages as the construction of village public utilities in the construction project of NewCountryside Movement.Korean government divided the35,000villages into basic villages, self-helpvillages and self-supporting villages. The Korean government distributed the freegoods and materials to the self-help villages and self-supporting villages and the basicvillages should reconstruct by themselves so as to strive for the resource support of thegovernment. The New Countryside Movement in Korea mobilized the initiative ofpeasants to make contributions and then in1980, the Korean government invested2.7571trillion KRW for the New Countryside Movement, built44,000km village roads, extended40,000km village roads, constructed35,950New Town Halls andrealized cars to every village. In addition,4,440km drinking water was transformedand the villagers could use running water. The traditional thatch roof vanished and therural income greatly increased. The New Countryside Movement in Korea wasdominated by government in the early stage, however, the villages were built throughvillage self-governance and the prosperity was achieved through hard work, which wasa successful model of new rural construction. The New Countryside Movement notonly improved the rural environment, shortened the gap between urban and ruralplaces and alleviated social contradictions, but also promoted production developmentand mental attitude changes. The successful experience of New CountrysideMovement in Korea told us: the industry repaying agriculture could be realizedwithout powerful industrial base; the industrial development offered a good deal ofjobs so that the rural population did not hinder the economic development and theproblem of rural labor transfer was solved. The successful agricultural modernizationand rural economic development and construction road in Korea provided thereference material for many developing countries in the world, especially the countriesthat were lack of resources and had large population density.In this thesis, based on the theories of rural and agricultural economics, traditionalagriculture, agricultural modernization, rural governance and rural surplus labormigration, the background and impetus process of New Countryside Movement inKorea, the main contents and characteristics of New Countryside Movement, the waysand means to implement New Countryside Movement Policy and the effective resultsand shortcomings are analyzed, and on this basis some specific ideas and suggestionsare posed after combining with the current situation of new socialist countrysideconstruction.