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Regulatory authority officials in Korea have been considerably strong enough to affect citizen’s intentions and alter their incentives to take new challenges. But, from the result of steady regulation reform, absurd bureaucratic interventions have been sharply reduced. Corruption in the process of rent seeking has decreased too. It is impossible to exercise regulatory authority that infringes on the essence of the freedom of the people because people who live in a democratic society would not accept these absurd practices.

This chapter introduces some key features of the regulatory management system in South Korea as well as the challenges that need to be overcome. In particular, the bureaucracy has worked hard to chip away at past regulations that produce rents for various private interest groups but provide little to society at large. Regulatory quality is tied closely to democracy as maintaining a fair and even playing field for entrepreneurs is a key freedom. Introducing checks and balances into the regulatory system can be an important way to facilitate this goal. The Regulatory Reform Committee (RRC) facilitated to strengthen the logic of regulatory necessity and the logic of improving regulation which increased the level of its institutionalization.

Since South Korea gained a substantial degree of political and economic development, the South Korean government has tried to eradicate corruption by introducing institutional frameworks in addition to a number of new laws and institutions. As a matter of fact, the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index score of South Korea is improving over time, but it still far behind other leading countries. The purpose of this chapter is to review the South Korean government's efforts at curbing corruption. This chapter first reviews the development of major anti-corruption infrastructure such as the anti-corruption legislation and the South Korean government's independent agency for anti-corruption, followed by discussion of the development of major anti-corruption measures, the international evaluation on corruption, and the role of civil society in curbing corruption. After that, there is a discussion of policy implications and the conclusion.

The Hanbo (meaning Korean treasure) scandal or “Hanbogate” occurred on January 23, 1997, with the bankruptcy of Hanbo Iron and Steel Company, the second largest steel company and 14th largest conglomerate in South Korea, as its debt had accumulated to US$5.6 billion. Hanbo's bankruptcy triggered an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office that resulted in the imprisonment for 15 years of Hanbo's founder, Chung Tae-Soo, for bribing politicians and bankers to pressure banks to extend hugh bank loans to Hanbo. Nine other persons were also convicted including Chung's son, who was jailed for three years for bribery and embezzlement, and Kim Hyun-Chol, the second son of President Kim Young-Sam, who was sentenced to three years jail and fined US$1.5 million (New York Times, 1997).

Corruption is a serious problem in many Asian countries, judging from their ranking and scores on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). To combat corruption these countries have relied on three patterns of corruption control. The first pattern relies on the enactment of anti-corruption laws without a specific agency to enforce these laws. For example in Mongolia, the Law on Anti-Corruption that was introduced in April 1996 is jointly implemented by the police, the General Prosecutor's Office, and the courts (Quah, 2003a, p. 44)¹. The second pattern involves the implementation of anti-corruption laws by several anti-corruption agencies. In India, the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) is implemented by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), and the anti-corruption bureaus and vigilance commissions at the state level (Quah, 2003a, p. 66). Similarly, the Philippines has relied on 18 anti-corruption agencies to enforce the many anti-corruption laws since the Integrity Board was formed by President Quirino in May 1950 (Batalla, 2001, p. 47; Oyamada, 2005, pp. 99–101).

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contextual differences and causes of police corruption in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan and to assess their governments’ effectiveness in minimising this problem.

The paper begins by identifying the contextual differences in the five countries before analysing their major causes of police corruption and their governments’ effectiveness in minimising it.

Police corruption is a more serious problem in Indonesia and the Philippines because of their more difficult governance environments, low salaries of police officers, red tape, lack of meritocracy in recruitment and promotion, and lack of accountability of police officers. By contrast, the perceived extent of police corruption has declined in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in recent years because of the improvement in the salaries of their police officers and the implementation of various police reforms.

This comparative analysis of combating police corruption in five Asian countries will be of interest to policy makers and scholars concerned with minimising this problem.