Lee Myung-bak
Lee Myung-bak (Korean: 이명박; /ˌmjʌŋ ˈbɑːk/; Korean: [i.mjʌŋ.bak̚]; born 19 December 1941) often referred to by his initials MB, is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th (17th election) president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the mayor of Seoul from 2002 to 2006.
In this Korean name, the family name is Lee.
Lee Myung-bak
Lee Jong-chan
Proportional representation
Independent (2017–present)[1]
I Myeongbak
Yi Myŏngbak
Ilsong
Ilsong
He is married to Kim Yoon-ok and has three daughters and one son. His older brother, Lee Sang-deuk, is a South Korean politician. He is a Christian attending Somang Presbyterian Church.[4] Lee is a graduate of Korea University and received an honorary degree from Paris Diderot University in 2011.[5]
Lee altered the South Korean government's approach to North Korea, preferring a more hardline strategy in the wake of increased provocation from the North, though he was supportive of regional dialogue with Russia, China and Japan. Under Lee, South Korea increased its visibility and influence in the global scene, resulting in the hosting of the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit.[6][7][8] However, significant controversy remains in Korea regarding high-profile government initiatives which have caused some factions to engage in civil opposition and protest against the incumbent government and President Lee's Saenuri Party (formerly the Grand National Party).[9][10] The reformist faction within the Saenuri Party was at odds with Lee.[11] He ended his five-year term on 24 February 2013, and was succeeded by Park Geun-hye.
On 22 March 2018, Lee was arrested on charges of bribery, embezzlement, and tax evasion alleged to have occurred during his presidency.[12][13][14] Prosecutors accused Lee of receiving bribes totaling 11 billion won and channeling assets of 35 billion won to an illicit slush fund.[14] Shortly before his arrest, Lee posted a handwritten statement on Facebook denying the charges.[13] Lee's arrest occurred roughly a year after the arrest of former president Park Geun-Hye, who was arrested on charges stemming from the 2016 South Korean political scandal. Lee was convicted on 5 October 2018 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.[15] On 29 October 2020, the Korean Supreme Court upheld a 17-year sentence against Lee given to him by an appellate court.[16] On 27 December 2022, President Yoon Suk-yeol granted Lee a special pardon, cancelling the remaining 15 years of the sentence.[17]
Early life and education[edit]
Lee Myung-bak was born 19 December 1941, in Osaka, Japan. His parents emigrated to Japan in 1929, nineteen years after the Japanese annexation of Korea. Lee's father, Lee Chung-u (이충우; 李忠雨), was employed as a farm labourer in rural Japan, and his mother, Chae Tae-won (채태원; 蔡太元), was a housewife. He was the fifth of seven children.
In 1945, after the end of World War II, his family returned to his father's hometown of Pohang, in North Gyeongsang Province, then an American-occupied portion of the Korean Peninsula.[18][19] Lee's sister, Lee Ki-sun, believed that they smuggled themselves into the country to avoid having the officials confiscate the property they acquired in Japan. However, their ship was wrecked off the coast of Tsushima island. They lost all their belongings and barely survived. Lee personally witnessed the deaths of his older sister and a younger brother, who were killed in the bombardment of Pohang, during the Korean War.[20][21]
Lee attended night school at Dongji Commercial High School in Pohang and received a scholarship. A year after graduation, Lee gained admission to Korea University. In 1964, during his third year in college, Lee was elected president of the student council. That year, Lee participated in student demonstrations against President Park Chung Hee's Seoul-Tokyo Talks, taking issue with Japanese restitution for the colonization of the Korean Peninsula. He was charged with plotting insurrection and was sentenced to five years' probation and three years' imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Korea. He served a little under three months of his sentence at the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul.[22]
In his autobiography, Lee wrote that he was discharged from Korea's mandatory military service due to a diagnosis of acute bronchiectasis while at the Nonsan Training Facility.[23]
Business career[edit]
In 1965, Lee started work at Hyundai Construction, the company which was awarded Korea's first-ever overseas construction project, a $5.2 million contract to build the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway in Thailand. Shortly after he was hired by the company, Lee was sent to Thailand to participate in the project, which was successfully completed in March 1968. Lee returned to Korea and was subsequently given charge of Hyundai's heavy machinery plant in Seoul.[24]
It was during his three decades with the Hyundai Group that Lee earned the nickname "Raging Bulldozer". On one occasion, he completely dismantled a malfunctioning bulldozer to study its mechanics and figure out how to repair it, only to run it over with another bulldozer that was often operated by Lee himself.[25]
Lee became a company director at the age of 29, five years after he joined the company. He later became the CEO at age 35, becoming Korea's youngest CEO in history. In 1988, he was named chairman of Hyundai Construction at the age of 47.[24]
When he began work at Hyundai in 1965, the company had 90 employees; when he left as chairman 27 years later, it had more than 160,000.[26] Soon after the successful completion of the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway by Hyundai Construction, Korea's construction industry began to focus its efforts on encouraging the creation of new markets in countries such as Vietnam and the Middle East. Following the decline of construction demands from Vietnam in the 1960s, Hyundai Construction turned its focus toward the Middle East. The company continued to be a major player in construction projects with the successful completion of international projects including the Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard, the Diplomatic Hotel in Bahrain, and the Jubail Industrial Harbor Projects in Saudi Arabia, also known as "the great history of the 20th century". At that time, the amount of orders received by the Korean construction company exceeded US$10 billion, which contributed to overcoming the national crisis resulting from the oil shock.[27]
