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Chairman Lee Kun-hee was the representative entrepreneur of the Korean economy who raised the Samsung Group globally.

However, the constant political and economic relations and various corruptions gave rise to the stigma of'Samsung Republic'.



Reporter Hwa Gang-yoon organized it.



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Born in 1942 as the third son of Samsung's founder Lee Byung-cheol, Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was born in December 1987, at the age of 45, took the lead in group management.



Chairman Lee has set a foothold for Samsung to grow into a global company by shifting its focus from textile chemistry to electronics.



A full-fledged leap, centered on semiconductors and mobile phones, began in June 1993, the fifth year in office, with the so-called Frankfurt Declaration.



[The late Chairman Lee Kun-hee (June 1993): Talk to the extreme, I'm not kidding.

Wife, change everything except children.]




In 1995, when the mobile phone defect rate reached 12%, it burned 150,000 units, worth KRW 50 billion.



Samsung Group's sales amounted to KRW 13.5 trillion when he was inaugurated as the chairman, and in 2017, the 30th anniversary of his inauguration, Samsung Electronics alone reached KRW 239.6 trillion.



However, not all businesses have been successful.



Samsung Motors, which started as a technical alliance with Nissan of Japan, could not survive the IMF crisis and entered court management in 1999.



In addition, the enlarged Samsung Group has turned into an economic power that shakes our society.



In 2005, Chairman Lee had to apologize to the public after the'security and donation X-file case', which provided slush funds to major social figures such as the politicians and prosecutors.



[The late Chairman Lee Kun-hee (February 2006): I am sorry for making various fuss last year…

I think that I am solely responsible for it.

International competition was so severe that I couldn't feel (Samsung) loosening at all.]



Since then,

I

have contributed 800 billion won in private funds to the society, but the word'Korea is the Samsung Republic' came into the market.



In 2008, attorney Kim Yong-cheol, who was the head of the group's legal affairs team, revealed that he had lobbied for money and managed a large amount of slush funds under the direction of Chairman Lee.



Chairman Lee, who was convicted following a special prosecution investigation, again apologized to the public and withdrew from the front line.



Afterwards, he was pardoned for the purpose of attracting the PyeongChang Olympics, but again in the process of succession to his son Jae-yong Lee, he was socially criticized for using various expedients.