Is Korea climbing back from economic collapse?
SEOUL — As South Korea continues its shaky climb back from the economic collapse of late 1997, widespread strikes combined with a stock market rebound tell the two sides of the country’s story of recovery. Until last week, soaring share prices have seemed to signal the beginning of the end of the economic disaster that hit Korea in November 1997, as foreign capital fled and the International Monetary Fund imposed harsh conditions for aid. The fragility of that rosy scenario became evident on July 19, when Daewoo — one of Korea’s biggest conglomerates — narrowly avoided bankruptcy by pledging $8.6 billion in assets to persuade lenders to roll over debts it could not pay. Daewoo’s crisis spread to the financial sector, then led Korea’s stock market to plunge by more than 10 percent in two days. Yet even as pundits were cheering the earlier stock run-up and forecasts of as much as 7.5 percent growth for this year, strikes since late April at subways, hospitals, auto plants, television
