Gresham's Law
Gresham's Law. To some, this situation would have been deeply troubling. Those who believed that even the smallest speck of compromise on a righteous cause spelled disaster would have erupted in anger and stormed out. Yoo Jae-won was not one of them.
Though he emphasized ethical consciousness and environmental protection that set his businesses apart from ordinary corporations, it was not because he followed moral textbooks without question. He knew full well that acting this way would become a tremendous advantage in the twenty-first century. The day would soon come when doing what was right would also mean wielding great power. Yet he refused to naively assume that good intentions alone would guarantee success, nor did he suffer from an obsessive perfectionism that feared even the tiniest blemish. "I've seen plenty of people ruined that way."
Ethically, it was wrong. But history had proven that there were moments when one had to accept a little dirty water splashing on oneself. This was precisely such a moment.
Strictly speaking, Kim Young-chol's assistance was unnecessary for the lawsuits Kim & Jung Law Firm was pursuing on behalf of comfort women and forced laborers seeking compensation from Japan. No legal logic could ever grant immunity to the Japanese government and war-criminal corporations. Yet reality was different. The victims, as plaintiffs, had already lost in court, and overturning those rulings would require enormous time and the efforts of countless people. It was a disaster born of a judiciary that operated far removed from the common legal sense of the majority of citizens.
Yoo Jae-won had both seen this through the news and experienced it firsthand. It had led him to conclude that the logic governing the judiciary belonged to those with power. He had thought this time would be different. But when the first-instance ruling he had expected to deliver a positive outcome was delayed indefinitely, he realized nothing had truly changed.
Should he simply stand by and watch? He had flown all the way to Washington DC precisely to prevent that. He intended to speak directly with President Kim and make his request. There was no reason Kim Young-chol could not do the same.
Once he reached his conclusion, Yoo Jae-won spoke at once.
"Oh? Really? If you're willing to go that far, I'm grateful. Then I'll speak well of it to the former prime minister as well."
"As expected of Chairman Yoo."
Kim Young-chol, whose eyes had carried a trace of tension, brightened immediately. It was understandable. When he had requested this meeting, he had come to America only to realize that Yoo Jae-won's presence here was far greater than he had imagined back in Korea. The ID Group logo was prominently displayed on Times Square, where advertising rates were notoriously high, and the moving billboards continuously featured the group's flagship products—Nextcomcast, Android, and others. In American political circles, there was no one who did not know Yoo Jae-won. When he turned on the television, news about the hundred-million-dollar donation following the Security Challenge was playing. Seeing that, Kim Young-chol had been struck by inspiration. It was an extraordinary method of gaining fame through massive philanthropy while simultaneously drawing users to one's own company.
That assessment had been completely overturned the moment Yoo Jae-won turned around sharply in the hotel's private meeting room under the intervention of his bodyguard. It would not have been an exaggeration to say Kim Young-chol had nearly had a heart attack. He had never expected his own bodyguard to create such a scene. He had thought he could use Jeon Jae-jun to pick up some scraps, but the meeting had been intended for multiple purposes: not only to receive something personally from Jeon Jae-jun, but also to summon him to Yeouido, turn him into a pro-Democratic Liberal Party figure, and drive a wedge into the Unification National Party. If Jeon Jae-jun left so decisively, it would be a disaster.
Hearing Yoo Jae-won's words of gratitude finally allowed Kim Young-chol's tension to ease.
"Please, I'm counting on you. They're dragging it out for reasons that make no sense, and I can't understand it at all. Lately, rumors have even been circulating that we'll lose, and everyone's spirits have been completely crushed. Hearing that Director Kim is stepping in feels like receiving an army of ten thousand."
Yoo Jae-won showered Kim Young-chol with praise. Naturally, the compliments were heavily laced with intent. If by some chance they lost the case, Kim Young-chol would also feel the heavy burden—that was the message.
The next day.
Having finished his schedule in New York, Yoo Jae-won moved to Washington DC and surrendered himself to the lavish protocol. Though he was President Kim's guest, his close relationship with President Clinton also elevated the treatment he received. Above all, President Kim's visit to the United States had been upgraded from a mere official visit in his previous life to a state visit at President Clinton's invitation, resulting in an even grander event.
Yoo Jae-won attended the banquet following the summit and became a living symbol of friendship between Korea and the United States. In America, he represented the ongoing reality of the American Dream; in Korea, he embodied the pride that a nation risen from the ashes after the Korean War had produced a corporate leader at the forefront of cutting-edge IT.
Though this meant being called here and there frequently, Yoo Jae-won did not find it bothersome in the slightest. The people invited to the banquet were all extraordinary individuals, and building relationships with them was highly desirable from a business standpoint. Of course, he did not miss the most important reason for attending this invitation—the meeting with President Kim.
President Kim still seemed to harbor considerable feelings toward Yoo Jae-won and grumbled at first. It was understandable. The three-party merger had been a political decision—and a collusion—undertaken for the sake of the presidency. The aftereffects of such a massive political realignment had been enormous. Most of his comrades from the democratization movement had turned their backs on him, even branding him a traitor. Yet the Democratic Liberal Party, born through such difficulty, had failed to secure a majority in the first general election because of the sudden rise of the Unification National Party.
The success of the hastily assembled Unification National Party had been something President Kim had never anticipated. And everyone knew that Yoo Jae-won's powerful support had played a role. When he saw the Unification National Party's commercials on television, even President Kim had found them so compelling that he could hardly look away. He had thought it impossible, but the impossible had become reality. Jeon Myeong-heon's momentum had carried all the way to the presidential election. The party's analysis had claimed that Korea's short-lived enthusiasm would not last until the election, but that prediction had been completely wrong.
What troubled President Kim even more were the daily public opinion survey reports sent separately by the Central Opinion Research Institute run by his son, Kim Young-chol. During the previous general election, when the party had confidently predicted a landslide victory, Kim Young-chol had been the only one to forecast defeat, earning him President Kim's deep trust. Now, that same Kim Young-chol's presidential election survey reports had detected danger. After the general election, Jeon Myeong-heon had continued to close the gap at a frightening pace, eventually reaching parity. It had been a tremendous stroke of luck that Jeon Myeong-heon's health issues had significantly blunted his momentum, allowing them to strike a deal and induce his voluntary withdrawal. Had things continued as they were, his own path to the presidency would have been in jeopardy.
The danger was still ongoing. Having ceded the prime minister's position and shared a portion of National Assembly power with the Unification National Party, the situation remained unstable, forcing him to remain conscious of both Jeon Myeong-heon and Yoo Jae-won. Feeling far too uneasy, he had used the pretext of his visit to America to create an opportunity to gauge Yoo Jae-won's intentions.
At this meeting, Yoo Jae-won could have clashed with President Kim, but he set it aside for the bigger picture. Instead, he treated President Kim with the utmost courtesy. Though Yoo Jae-won's mental age was greater, on paper he was far younger, so the scene did not feel awkward in the least.
"There is one thing I would like to ask you, Mr. President."
Thinking the time had come, Yoo Jae-won finally brought up the main subject. Normally, he would have gone straight to the point the moment the conversation began, but given who his counterpart was, it had taken considerably longer.
"If this is about the Japan-related case, I heard about it yesterday. I don't understand why the court is dragging its feet on a matter that should have an obvious outcome. I'll look into it properly after returning home, so rest assured, Chairman Yoo."
Moreover, it seemed Kim Young-chol, whom he had met the previous day, had put in a good word, for President Kim answered before Yoo Jae-won could even raise the topic. Meeting Kim Young-chol yesterday had not been in vain after all. Thanks to that, though the trip to the East Coast had been troublesome, the result was solid.
In return, having received a definite answer from President Kim, Yoo Jae-won returned to his hotel immediately after the banquet and called Jeon Myeong-heon. It was to request Jeon Jae-jun's pardon. Jeon Myeong-heon still seemed to harbor resentment toward Jeon Jae-jun and was not particularly inclined to agree. He remarked that this level of punishment would not be enough to make Jeon Jae-jun come to his senses. Instead, Yoo Jae-won found himself being questioned. When asked precisely why he was suddenly calling to ask for forgiveness for Jeon Jae-jun, he explained the matter involving Kim Young-chol. Jeon Myeong-heon said he understood and then shifted the conversation to another topic.
It remained unclear how Jeon Jae-jun's disposition would change going forward, but Yoo Jae-won had certainly fulfilled Kim Young-chol's request.
The next topic was, as expected, politics. Naturally, it concerned the recently concluded Korea-U.S. summit.
Yoo Jae-won began with his usual feigned reluctance. The inter-Korean summit between President Kim Young-sam and Kim Il-sung was an unprecedented event that had never materialized before, so it inevitably belonged to the realm of speculation. Still, he made predictions grounded in history. The Korea-U.S. FTA and rice market opening had been events that triggered enormous political upheaval at the time. Especially now, when the influence of activist groups was strong in the National Assembly and universities, an exaggerated sense of fear had been created, far beyond reality, generating quite a significant wave.
Yoo Jae-won could not help but voice his concern at this point. Jeon Myeong-heon held rosy illusions about investing in North Korea, but it was not always a good thing. There were more than a few companies that had invested in North Korea only to go bankrupt. Even Mirae Group in his previous life had suffered significant losses.
"Hmm, is that so?"
Unfortunately, Yoo Jae-won's sense of crisis did not seem to reach Jeon Myeong-heon properly. Yoo Jae-won could not speak more forcefully than this. To lend weight to his voice, he needed evidence, but the situation did not yet allow him to speak of it.
After finishing his call with Jeon Myeong-heon, Yoo Jae-won went straight to bed and closed his eyes. Normally he would have worked on the computer for a while before sleeping, but he had expended considerable mental energy over the past two days and was exhausted, so he fell asleep immediately.
Yoo Jae-won returned directly to San Francisco the next day. The Korea-U.S. summit schedule had ended yesterday, and now it was time to do things for himself. Though it was a leased aircraft, having a private jet made travel convenient. Incidentally, the private jet Yoo Jae-won would not be using for the time being was said to have usage rights issued to those who truly needed it, regardless of position. Executives with frequent business trips would likely use it the most, and the intelligence team would also use it from time to time. To this list, Yoo Jae-won added one more team of people who could request use of the private jet—his personally formed special team. Their mission was to collect evidence of the atrocities committed during the Japanese Empire era, which Japan was desperately trying to erase. Naturally, this involved considerable travel. Having a private jet would allow them to focus more on their work.
Having organized his surroundings this way, Yoo Jae-won was finally able to begin an ordinary daily routine for the first time in a while. He woke up early, showered, ate a simple breakfast, and sat down at the computer desk in his study. He did not forget to turn on the custom computer he had assembled himself, which sat beneath the desk, using his toe. Though the New Egg 2 boasted the highest specifications for personal use and had a good design, it still fell short for Yoo Jae-won, who worked in the professional domain. As chairman of ID Group, a New Egg 2 sat on his desk, but the computer he actually used for practical work was the custom-built one. It featured a server-grade motherboard capable of housing four CPUs, 512 megabytes of memory, and hard drives with a total capacity of eight gigabytes—an ultra-high-performance machine. The operating system installed was the Enterprise version of Android, with additional tuning applied to match the hardware specifications.
Even so, Yoo Jae-won was not yet satisfied. The slow boot speed and loading times were holding him back. He had configured SCSI hard drives in RAID to achieve the fastest possible transfer speeds, but it was still far from matching the SSDs that would appear in the early twenty-first century. Since flash memory chips were being produced at the second factory of Mirae Electronics, he could have forced an SSD into existence. However, the AP responsible for controlling the SSD had only just begun development. Moreover, the low integration density of the flash memory chips meant that creating high-capacity drives would result in something larger than the main unit, so he decided to wait a few more years.
Once the computer finished booting, multiple alarms sounded. Yoo Jae-won no longer startled at them. On the contrary, he had reached the point where the absence of alarms made him feel uneasy. He began sorting through the alarms displayed on the screen one by one. Then something caught his eye.
"Oh! A reply from Jerry!"
The most meaningful meeting from last week had been the one with Jerry and David. He had been waiting to see what choice the two would make, and finally, an answer had arrived. Yoo Jae-won immediately opened the email.