Former British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone once said that corruption is a shortcut to a nation's demise. To check the veracity of this statement, let us take a look at northern and southern Europe.

The global social trend is to build welfare states in which governments share part of citizens' living cost that include healthcare, child-care and education. Welfare expenditure takes up almost the same proportion of the state budgets of northern European countries such as Germany, Finland and Sweden, as well as southern European nations like Greece, Italy and Spain. But the financial crisis is more serious in southern European countries because of the difference in the degree of transparency in governance and corruption.

For example, a corrupt government official causes much greater harm to a country than a corrupt accountant in a private company. And corrupt politicians, who take bribes and other favors to pass loose laws on social welfare management, are more dangerous than corrupt businessmen because they compromise the future of a country.

Like many countries, the Republic of Korea, too, has been battling against corruption. After its foundation in 1948, the ROK adopted republican politics even though it had no experience of democracy and was devoid of an industrial foundation. Corruption among officials was rampant at that time, and the country was racked by embezzlement of goods and military supplies received from international agencies. Besides, smuggling, drug trafficking and election frauds were widespread.

Though ROK authorities made efforts to eradicate corruption, ordinary people were too deeply engaged in the struggle to meet their basic needs to worry much about unscrupulous officials.

The ROK entered the era of industrialization in 1961 under former president Park Chung-hee. During the period of state-dominated economic development, corruption revolved around payoffs by magnates to government officials because of the complex relationship among politicians, plutocrats and administrators. And despite launching anti-corruption drives such as "New Village Campaign", the ROK authorities could not eradicate this vicious social disease because many officials were corrupt.

The era of democratization in the ROK began under another former president, Kim Young-sam. After assuming office in 1993, Kim promulgated specific laws against corruption, including one against money laundering, and introduced important reforms such as the real-name financial transaction system and disclosure of civil servants' assets. But the nexus among politicians, officials and plutocrats saw to it that some people from their midst were always part of the power structure. Moreover, corruption had spread throughout the private sector as well.

The ROK authorities' measures to root out corruption didn't meet the expected success for certain reasons. First, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors play a major role in dealing with corruption scandals involving politicians, high-profile officials or their relatives. But fearing that officials even at the highest levels could be involved, more often than not law enforcers and prosecutors go soft on such cases.

Second, on the pretext of promoting economic growth, many business tycoons bribe judicial authorities to get favorable verdicts even in non-corruption cases. The power of money thus overrides judicial sanctity, political honesty and public good.

Third, the judicial system as whole is not free of corruption. Lack of proper supervision has encouraged prosecutors and other court officials, and law enforcement agencies to build a bond of interests.

Fourth, social forces such as civil society may have emerged as another class of power calling for independent supervision and public supervision may succeed in curbing the corrupt activities of the relatives of officials, plutocrats and politicians. But they cannot check corruption as a whole given the supremacy of power and money in society.

New ROK President Park Geun-hye has pledged to eliminate corruption. She has vowed to reform the country's prosecution system by plugging the loopholes used by corrupt officials, plutocrats and politicians to abuse power. But she may find it difficult to do so because of the sophisticated relationship among politicians, public officials, plutocrats, private enterprises and civil groups.

In the era of financial globalization, trans-border corruption, too, poses a challenge to the international economic order. If one country tolerates corruption by facilitating tax evasion, then it will nullify the efforts of another country to fight corruption. Therefore, it is imperative to build a trans-border cooperation mechanism based on international consensus.

A nation's sustainable development depends on the transparency of governance and people's trust. A country cannot develop into an advanced society if its administration, law enforcement agencies and judiciary are not transparent in their functions. Conversely, corruption will prevent an administration, police department or judiciary from being fully transparent. And as Gladstone said, corruption is a shortcut to a nation's demise.

The author is chairman of Forum OH-RAE (National Policy Research Institute), and former public prosecutor of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, ROK Central Investigation Department, and former member of the National Assembly of ROK.

(China Daily USA 05/29/2013 page12)