The South Korean economy has some serious issues of it's own, and until very recently they had strong export controls on currency.

In the event of a financial crisis, I would not be the least bet suprised if they do as Malaysia did in 1997-98, and implement curreny controls to prevent capital flight.

I have a friend who's a Korean bureaucrat (apparently a good thing back home, Confucius and all), and he managed to get his money out of Chinese stocks before things went sour on the Shanghai exchange.

Late last year he said he had doubled his investment in the 6 months he had it in.  So he always wanted to get the check when we went out. We'd always talk politics when we went out. South Korea has some serious issues with their economy, and they have a rising union movement.  The problem is that many of the "dirty" industries that they Japanese allowed to be shifted to Korea, are now being shifted from Korea to China.

And while there's hope that they can expand their share of the world auto market, they seem to be headed down the same path as the Japanese did.  Towards economic stagnation. And the chaebol are making heavy investments in China, and unliked Japan where there was a strong social safety net, there's not the sense that a company should retain staff through downturns.

South Korea is probably past its prime to be honest.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg