Issue Korean strength: Compressed development experience

Summary

KDI describes Korea as virtually the only country to have moved from an agrarian economy to an advanced manufacturing power, and from authoritarian industrialisation to democracy, within a single generation. What this left behind is more than physical capital. The report points to state administrative capacity, the ability to execute in a crisis and an accumulated memory of managing abrupt structural change. Export-led growth, economic stabilisation, restructuring after the Asian financial crisis and the COVID-19 response are cited as cases of collective crisis management. The report says this asset is hard to quantify but should not be underestimated, and it partly explains why the Agile Pioneer scenario is an analytical possibility rather than a hope.