Shown is a file photo of the headquarters of the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. in southern Seoul. Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo said on Jan. 2, 2015, that the company will build a 105-story building on the KEPCO land as part of a global business center that incorporates its affiliates, a hotel and an auto theme park modeled after Germany’s Autostadt by 2020. Hyundai Motor Group won a bidding war against Samsung Electronics Co. last year to buy the land by offering 10.55 trillion won (US$10.14 billion). (Yonhap)
Unsurprisingly South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, one of North Korea’s useful idiots, has sided with North Korea over the current controversy between Hyundai and North Korea’s joint tourism projects:
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met with Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun on Sunday to discuss a spat between the company and North Korea over a tourism project Hyundai Asan operates in the Kumgang Mountains.
A source connected to the matter said Wednesday the two discussed North Korean demands to reinstate Hyundai Asan vice chairman Kim Yoon-kyu, who was ousted over corruption charges, but the differences in opinion were wide. That suggests Chung asked for the disgraced executive to be reinstated.
It was the following day that Hyun posted a statement on the Hyundai Asan homepage saying that Kim had been removed due to corruption and rejected calls to reinstate the man who had for many years coordinated the tourism projects with the North.
I am beginning to like Chairwoman Hyun more and more. It is about time someone stood up to the Norks and blew off Chung.
It appears that the Hyundai tours to different North Korean locations may end:
Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun on Monday publicly rejected a North Korean demand to reinstate Kim Yoon-kyu, the disgraced vice chairman of Hyundai Asan who had dealt with the North for many years in arranging their joint tourism projects. “I now seem to stand at a crossroads of whether to continue or quit our North Korea projects,” she said. Since Hyundai’s ouster of Kim, Pyongyang has applied pressure on the group by slashing the quota for the Asan’s Kumgang Mountains tours and blanking requests for negotiations on stalled projects to Kaesong and Mt. Baekdu. When Hyun visited the Kumgang Mountains, she says, authorities forced her to open her handbag, a gesture she interpreted as contempt, and she concluded, I’ll choose honest conscience rather than opportunistic servility.”
It is standard practice in inter-Korean economic cooperation to put up with Pyongyang’s demented behavior. That makes Hyun’s statement all the more significant. Her resolve not to allow North Korean pressure to meddle in her corporation’s managerial rights is the natural choice for a top executive, but in the reality of inter-Korean relations things rarely take their natural course.
I think this is great that someone is finally taking a stand and not kissing the North Koreans butts continuously. The Korean government can learn something from Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
