Three Pillars of a Smart War
President Kim Dae-jung’s eyes lit up with anticipation at the mention of three things. “Yes. The first is the internet.”
Yoo Jae-won spoke the word calmly while watching the president’s face. A flicker of disappointment crossed the older man’s expression. It was a markedly different reaction from the past. In his previous life, when SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son had hammered home the word “internet” three times, the president had understood instantly without further explanation. Now the lukewarm response was simple to explain: Korea already possessed the world’s finest internet infrastructure.
In the greater Seoul area, pilot programs were delivering a staggering 100 Mbps via fiber-to-the-home connections branded as GwangLAN. Nationwide, the most common service was 8 Mbps ADSL, while cities enjoyed 40–50 Mbps VDSL. Even remote mountain villages had internet access through a government-supported satellite service. Dokdo, Ulleungdo, and the islands of the West Sea relied on the same satellite network because laying cable was impractical. Thanks to this aggressive build-out, Korea’s average connection speed led the planet at 12 Mbps—more than double Japan’s second-place figure.
Under these circumstances, further speed gains would require running fiber into every home. No wonder President Kim looked disappointed when Yoo Jae-won simply said “internet.”
Yet Yoo Jae-won’s own expression barely changed. He had expected the reaction. “The internet I’m referring to is not merely infrastructure.”
“It isn’t?”
Yoo Jae-won continued in the same measured tone. “The world praises Korea as an internet powerhouse, but in my view it is an empty boast. Korea is a nation of internet consumers, not creators. Every piece of equipment that built the network is foreign. The content delivered over those lines is equally basic. And we have produced almost no truly innovative services that harness the internet’s potential.”
His calm words landed like precise strikes. In his previous life, the greatest regret had been the complacency that followed the title of “fastest internet nation.” No preparations had been made for what came next.
“Even if we continue using foreign equipment up to 100 Mbps, I want the next generation of infrastructure built with Korean-made gear. And the internet is not only wired. Wireless internet is a field with enormous market potential, and it too requires government-level attention.”
“I see what you mean now,” President Kim said, finally grasping the point. Despite his age, his openness to new ideas remained one of his greatest strengths.
“We must also focus on developing services that run on this infrastructure. While the United States leads in internet equipment, the realm of internet-based innovation is still wide open. Whoever seizes it first will reap enormous rewards.”
“We already offer internet services. Are they insufficient?”
“Very much so.”
The most heavily used service on high-speed connections was information retrieval. Checking weather and news through portal sites had become routine. Nextcom dominated this space in Korea, the United States, Europe, and Asia. By launching high-quality content early and localizing rapidly, it had achieved overwhelming market share from the very beginning of the internet era. Latecomers struggled to catch up no matter how hard they tried. Nextcom’s exclusive strength lay in premium paid content: Korean webtoons and American comics were distributed worldwide through the platform, and e-book sales were thriving. Winners of the Million Dollar Challenge were being translated for the North American market; quality content, after all, knew no borders. The biggest hits were webtoons—visual storytelling traveled effortlessly across cultures.
“Yet the service generating the strongest response is real-time stock price tracking.”
Real-time quotes were Nextcom’s most profitable paid offering. While free users waited thirty minutes, a modest monthly fee of 3,300 won granted instant access to exchange data. Additional features included price alerts delivered via ID Talk and news notifications tied to specific stocks.
“We have gone further. If a user maintains a brokerage account with ID Investment, they can buy or sell shares with just two or three taps through the integrated system.”
ID Investment’s own innovations were still unfolding. Its primary purpose remained managing Yoo Jae-won’s personal capital; even now it was constructing a portfolio designed to weather the events of September 11, 2001. While the bulk of the fund was still his private wealth, substantial private capital had also been raised, and further expansion was planned. One result of that expansion was the HTS trading program, which allowed individuals to execute trades directly through ID Investment’s platform. Linked with Nextcom, it created the real-time quote system.
“The problem is that these carefully developed services remain impossible to use fully in Korea. Real-time quotes work, but integration with HTS is still difficult.”
“Because of regulations?”
“Exactly.”
Yoo Jae-won’s answer was brief. ActiveX and accredited certificates—the greatest shackles on Korea’s earlier internet environment—did not exist here. One might have expected online banking and securities trading to flourish without those obstacles, yet visible progress remained elusive. The mindset of financial institutions had not changed. Their instinctive response to any online incident was still to shift blame onto the consumer. The result was an endless thicket of identity-verification procedures. In the United States, setting an alert allowed a single tap to complete a trade; in Korea, multiple confirmation steps rendered the word “real-time” meaningless.
Because the Korean market closely tracked U.S. indices, the collapse of the IT bubble had produced audible groans on the KOSDAQ as well. Conversely, when Nasdaq bottomed and began to rise, a second IT rally had started in Korea. Trading volume surged, yet retail investors could not respond nimbly because of the regulatory constraints.
“Then we simply need to remove unnecessary regulations on stock trading?”
“That is only one example. In the future, the internet will merge with mobile devices to create enormous innovation. One-touch stock trading is already possible; soon the same simplicity will appear in e-commerce payments. Every time, regulations will become obstacles.”
Yoo Jae-won was not pleading for favors. ID Group was not an insatiable appetite. He had no intention of entering fintech himself. He simply refused to watch internet technology fall behind China because of regulatory drag.
“The second pillar is culture.”
“Culture?”
“Popular culture, to be precise.”
Yoo Jae-won had already claimed many of President Kim’s future achievements, but this one belonged solely to the president. “The internet is tangled in regulations, yet popular culture is even more tightly bound.”
“Indeed!”
President Kim, who had listened attentively during the internet discussion, reacted immediately when the topic shifted to culture. Compared with the web of restrictions surrounding popular culture, the internet’s problems seemed trivial. Although overt censorship had eased, games, films, and every other medium remained shackled by rules. Importing foreign content through official channels was still arduous.
“The world is now connected by high-speed internet. Dramas, music, and movies travel instantly across broadband networks.” Most of that traffic, of course, moved through illegal channels. “Raising regulatory walls higher will only make the domestic environment more difficult.”
It was the same outcome as the military regimes’ aggressive chaebol policies: protected markets had turned Korean companies into hothouse flowers that sold easily at home without needing technological improvement.
“If we boldly dismantle regulations and open the market, we can create an environment where domestic content can grow strong. Korea’s latent strength will become even more formidable.”
“Bold opening. Where should we begin?”
“There is an advanced nation right next door—Japan.”
“Japan?”
President Kim reacted at once. In the original timeline, opening Japanese culture had been one of his most farsighted policies. Yet even now, as 2000 drew to a close, the door to Japan remained largely shut. The reason was a variable Yoo Jae-won himself had created: the court rulings ordering compensation for forced labor and comfort women during the colonial period. Anti-Japanese sentiment had run high during the lawsuits, and Japan’s backlash had chilled relations between the two countries more severely than even inter-Korean ties. Moreover, Yoo Jae-won’s successful penetration of the Japanese market had inflicted enormous losses on Japanese corporations, further souring bilateral relations. Under such conditions, President Kim could hardly advocate opening Japanese culture.
Still, the situation had not deteriorated into outright crisis. Japanese companies involved in the lawsuits had issued apologies and paid compensation. Nippon Steel, in particular, had taken the lead—largely because of Yoo Jae-won’s influence. As the largest shareholder through Shin-Nihon Investment Bank, ID Investment had replaced the company’s right-wing executives with more pragmatic leaders. The Japanese media, from Sankei to Yomiuri, had erupted in protest, but the change was justified on grounds of management failure, and the evidence was solid. With Nippon Steel’s largest shareholder being a Korean-controlled entity, the old guard had no political or media leverage to reverse the decision. Furthermore, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi maintained a pro-Korea stance and had expressed remorse for colonial rule during his summit with President Kim, preventing relations from collapsing entirely.
“Would it really be all right?” President Kim asked, his usual confidence noticeably diminished. His hesitation stemmed in part from the aftermath of the RATM and former LSM copyright lawsuits. Before those cases, plagiarism suits had rarely escalated. The cost of litigation had been high, the potential rewards modest, and the process lengthy. After LSM’s loss, however, the landscape changed. With larger damages now possible, dormant rights holders began to stir. The Korean music industry descended into chaos. Japanese works accounted for a substantial portion of the emerging lawsuits, spanning drama soundtracks to popular songs, variety programs, and novels. Opening Japanese culture under these conditions naturally raised fears that the country would be flooded with Japanese-style content.
“Yes. The beginning may be difficult, but our culture will quickly develop its own vitality. And I can say with certainty that it will spread across the world through the internet.”
Given a little time, the famous Winter Sonata would appear, followed by Dae Jang Geum. K-pop would follow the same path. Having witnessed these developments firsthand in his previous life, Yoo Jae-won spoke with absolute conviction. President Kim’s concerns eased considerably.
“Then what is the third and final pillar?”
“Artificial intelligence.”
“Artificial intelligence…”
President Kim had readily agreed on the internet and culture, yet the final item gave him pause. Yoo Jae-won, however, decided to press his advantage. If the president accepted his proposal and laid the groundwork for AI development and application, history itself would shift—and Yoo Jae-won would save himself enormous effort in the process.
He spent the remainder of the meeting explaining artificial intelligence in detail while President Kim listened intently. Whether this single conversation would alter Korea’s trajectory remained to be seen, but Yoo Jae-won had extended every possible courtesy within his power.
Ding!
Inside the car returning from the Blue House, Yoo Jae-won powered on his T-Touch Phone. Dozens of messages appeared. The first he opened came from the semiconductor FT team at the Daejeon plant.
Yoo Jae-won’s face brightened at once—until he read the second line. The reason for his sudden shift was simple: “J3” meant the sample had been produced entirely from Japanese raw materials.