Seoul, the Blue House presidential residence located in the northwest of the city.
Early on Saturday morning, Kim Young-sam, the current president of South Korea, whose heart strings had been tense for several days, was woken up by his subordinates and brought some newspapers that had just been released today.
Jin Yongsan, who was still wearing pajamas, just read the headlines of a few newspapers and couldn't help but cursed. He pointed at a subordinate and yelled: "Who leaked the news? You idiots, you are all idiots." , and these newspapers, they should all be hanged, hang them."
This was followed by a burst of banging and cracking sounds.
After destroying an entire reception room, Kim Young Sam calmed down a little, but lost any appetite for breakfast. He urgently summoned the Cheong Wa Dae staff team to try to discuss a response strategy.
However, there was no way to wait for the Cheong Wa Dae to respond effectively. As soon as the sun came up, the news in newspapers and TV today that the current government would seek bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on humiliating terms spread throughout the streets. lane.
Even though the country's economy has been in turmoil recently, most of the public did not actually know what the IMF was before. However, in various situations such as "Cheong Wa Dae conspired to betray the motherland, the IMF will take over South Korea's financial sovereignty", "The "Eulsi Treaty" is repeated, South Korea will once again face the The public's emotions are still easily stirred up by sensational headlines such as "The shame of the next century" and "It would be better to be a piece of jade than to introduce the IMF."
In particular, the "Eulsi Treaty" frequently mentioned in newspapers and TV has touched the hearts of Koreans.
In 1905, after winning the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese government signed the unequal "Otomi Treaty" with the Korean Peninsula, which had been completely abandoned by China and Russia, and included the entire peninsula as a condition for forcibly lending 10 million yen to North Korea. Japan's protectorate category.
Five years after taking over the peninsula's economy, in 1910, Japan, which was gradually encroaching, completely occupied the country and completely included the peninsula from the so-called "protectorate" in the beginning to the category of "colony", which lasted for 35 years until After the end of World War II, the Korean Peninsula was able to regain its sovereignty.
In the newspapers and TV news in South Korea on Saturday, a large section was used to exaggerate that seeking assistance from the IMF was equivalent to signing the second "Eulsi Treaty". At the same time, the analogy was made with Thailand, which had already received assistance from the IMF. Suddenly, ignited the anger of the Korean public.
The public's thinking is very simple.
No matter how difficult your country is, there is absolutely no reason to sell your motherland.
Rather Stick to your guns.
So, on Saturday morning, when they discovered that someone was demonstrating outside the Blue House on live TV, a large number of people in the Seoul area took the initiative to walk out of their homes and began to gather at the presidential palace in the northwest of the city.
By noon, the initial spark of a few hundred people outside the Blue House had quickly swelled to hundreds of thousands, and the number continued to increase. The public held signs and shouted slogans, demanding that President Kim Young-sam We must make a public statement. No matter what, we must not seek poisonous assistance from the IMF at the expense of betraying the country.
If it were other times and other events, Cheong Wa Dae might still be able to deal with it calmly.
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Exactly now.
No one knows the critical state of the country at this time better than South Korea’s top leaders. South Korea as a whole, not to mention the stock market, not to mention currency, just short-term foreign debt that needs to be repaid within a year, is close to 90 billion US dollars, one-third of which needs to be repaid. Repayments must be made before the end of the year. However, the Bank of Korea has less than US$8 billion left in foreign exchange.
Unless the government defaults on repaying these debts, once they are due and unable to repay these debts, the only result will be national bankruptcy.
The result of corporate bankruptcy is liquidation or layoffs, while national bankruptcy is just one of them. The loss of national credit leads to unlimited currency depreciation, which is simply not something South Korea can afford, because it is equivalent to a country’s accumulated wealth over decades. All wealth will be lost.
Just like Russia did after the ruble devalued indefinitely a few years ago.
The former Soviet Union was able to compete with the United States for half a century. Even if its economic size could not be compared with that of the United States, the initial wealth left by the disintegration for the former member countries was still very rich. As a result, due to currency devaluation, the economy collapsed and the former Soviet Union The tragedy in many countries is no less severe than the Great Depression in the United States.
Therefore, if the country goes bankrupt, there is no doubt that South Korea will at least fall into a Great Depression of unknown duration. By then, companies will go bankrupt on a large scale, public unemployment will rise rapidly, and even social order will collapse.
The real apocalypse.
Rather than avoiding this doomsday scenario, seeking bailout from the IMF is almost South Korea's only option without violating international rules.
As for breaking the rules and forcibly cheating, this is also a way.
But, will other countries allow it
Don’t forget, the capital of South Korea is home to tens of thousands of powerful U.S. troops!
It is always easy for the people to be self-paralyzed and selectively ignore it, but South Korea’s upper echelons will not ignore it. It is true that these military forces can protect South Korea from foreign invasion at critical moments, but under certain circumstances, a forced military takeover of South Korea will only take a moment. things can happen in between.
Even the sovereignty is not complete, how can you cheat? !
In addition to the economic level, Cheong Wa Dae also faces another important political issue.
general election.
1997 is South Korea's 15th presidential election year. This year's election will be held on December 18.
According to South Korea's Constitution, Kim Young-sam can only serve as president for one term and cannot be re-elected. However, another candidate of Kim Young-sam's ruling party, Lee Hoi-chang, is still fighting for the top position.
The sudden appearance of the media will damage Kim Young-sam's support, which will inevitably affect Lee Hoi-chang, who was already lagging behind another candidate Kim Dae-jung in the general election. Moreover, once he loses the election, according to South Korea's political rules, the entire ruling party will be Groups can quickly lose ground.
dilemma.
In the end, after only one day of confrontation with the people, Cheong Wa Dae quickly chose to compromise. After all, this was an urgent matter. If the trouble continued, it was hard to say what would happen. In the afternoon of that day, Kim Young-sam personally gave a televised speech and publicly stated that he would not accept IMF bailout.
At the same time, he called on the people to unite as one and overcome the difficulties together.
The turmoil in South Korea quickly spread internationally.
In the face of the attention of the international community, after Kim Young-sam’s public statement, the current IMF Chairman Michael Camdessus said in an interview with reporters at the IMF headquarters in Washington that the IMF is a neutral international financial institution and will not forcibly issue funds to any country. Unnecessary loans.
However, Camdessus also emphasized that in order to ensure that the International Monetary Fund's loans can be used rationally, the IMF's loans to any country will come with appropriate additional conditions, and the IMF will not give in without a bottom line.
Such statements by both parties actually mean that the aid negotiations originally planned by the South Korean government with the IMF have ended before they even started.
While the Korean people celebrated the victory the next day, international speculators also began to increase their plans for South Korea.
Because everyone understands that South Korea has clearly rejected the IMF's bailout this time, which means that South Korea's domestic foreign capital will accelerate its flight, South Korea's foreign debt market will also usher in a selling frenzy, and the stock market's plunge will also continue, and the more direct and serious consequences will be, That is, the depreciation of the Korean won will accelerate.
All in all, the country will continue its slide into the abyss.
It is only one step away from complete collapse.
Deep behind the curtain invisible to ordinary people, Simon's layout still continues.