‘Three Megas’ Launched Regional Balanced Development - 경향신문

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The three mega projects are an ultra large scale initiative worthy of being called ‘the largest since Dangun’. Yet this initiative, centered on semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, and physical AI, is riddled with problems the more one looks. It is a textbook case of ‘runaway development’ and ‘developmental dictatorship’, bulldozing ahead as a speed race and total mobilization while ignoring numerous issues such as democratic deliberation, climate·ecological limits, labor rights, and the right to a livelihood for farmers.

Even so, local reactions are favorable. Polls also show more than half evaluating it positively. It seems the banner of ‘regional balanced development’ has worked. Solving chronic regional disparities with the immense wealth that semiconductors and AI will create sounds fantastic. Then many problems may hardly register. If so, whatever else, this at least must be examined carefully. “Will regional balanced development be achieved through the three mega projects?”

If Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix build four semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs), will the Honam region ‘develop’ like the capital region today? Will the lives of local residents improve? Then what form does the ‘development’ that semiconductors have brought to the capital region take? Amid a super boom in semiconductors, at some point our national economy turned into a ‘Samjeonnix’ economy. Thanks to semiconductors, growth and exports have risen sharply this year, and the government projects an economic growth rate of 3%, exports ranking among the world s top four, and per capita national income of $40,000.

However, employment indicators are on a downswing. The Middle East war has had an effect, but it is largely because the semiconductor business has a very low job creation effect. The more the semiconductor industry advances, the more ‘jobless growth’ increases, with young people bearing the brunt. As imbalances between semiconductors and other industries deepen, K shaped growth becomes increasingly pronounced.

Thanks to the mega project, controversies over power and water at the Yongin semiconductor industrial complex have subsided, and it even secured the bonus of completion up to 12 years ahead of schedule. If ‘Yongin semiconductors’ join in as well, our economy may change into a condition where when semiconductors cough, the entire economy comes down with the flu. This is the reality of the ‘superlattice’ semiconductor industry.

The light and shadow of K shaped growth fall squarely on workers. Thanks to the astronomical operating profits of ‘Samjeonnix’, workers here have been hit by a ‘money windfall’. Those who bought shares also took a solid cut. Yet there are far more people for whom this money feast is ‘someone else s affair’. Worsening income polarization leads to asset imbalances, increasing and entrenching inequality. It is especially serious among the young. According to the Korea Development Institute s ‘Nara Economy’ released last July, the asset gap between the top 20% and bottom 20% of youth incomes is 19 times. Although wealth has surged through the semiconductor industry, regions, industries, and individuals have all become more unbalanced. This is extreme unbalanced development. Doing the same thing, Honam semiconductors will be no different. So is this development?

In both the Chinese characters (發展) and in English (development), ‘development’ means that what is inside comes to the outside. Like a flower blooming from a bud, development in which potential turns into reality gives a natural and positive impression. But as the term development came to be used in economics, development became synonymous with growth, and growth became a natural imperative like development. Growth ism, the idea that ‘growth equals development’, emerged. The development of nations, regions, and individuals alike is measured by the same yardstick called gross domestic product (GDP). However, development cannot be confined to growth that is expressed in numbers. When development is reduced to growth, its meaning is tainted and distorted. Ideally, development is the full blossoming of the potential inherent in the lives of all people, the enjoyment of a ‘good life’, or, as Pope Francis puts it, ‘integral development’.

The purpose for which capital seeks out regions is not regional development but ‘more profit’. The life of the region and nature are not matters of concern for capital. Samsung and SK capital is also ‘capital’. A surge in regional gross domestic product (GRDP) from attracting semiconductor plants and the fruits of growth actually cultivating regional development are separate issues. For regional balanced development to be even, above all a majority of local residents, especially those in the hardest situations, must also benefit from growth. Regional balanced development encompasses balance both ‘between regions’ and ‘within regions’. The responsibility to make this happen lies not with capital but with politics and administration. This is all the more true of the ‘Three Megas’, which say they will build a national total mobilization system to provide support.

No project that accelerates ecological destruction and the climate crisis can be ‘development’. Mega projects must also be designed and pursued within climate and ecological limits. How will we meet the power and water required immediately for the ‘Three Megas’? The government again mentions new nuclear power plants, but given construction periods, in reality there is a high likelihood of using fossil fuels. For water, it says it will raise dam heights and mobilize industrial·domestic·power generation·agricultural water as well. The president takes the lead in ordering that environmental impact assessment periods be shortened as much as possible. All of this is a reckless and overreaching way of thinking that damages development.

What matters now is not speed. If the approach is wrong, the faster the speed, the greater the disaster. If it is pushed through like this, there will be ‘unbalanced development’ but no regional balanced development. The ‘Three Megas’ will amplify imbalance and inequality and fail.