Lee Gives Charity Millions

Donation Could Boost the South Korean President's Image

TOKYO, July 6 -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has good reason not to be in a charitable mood.

Nearly 10 times a day, the official state news agency of neighboring North Korea insults Lee, calling him a "stooge," "lackey," "fascist," "dictator" and other names. He has been disrespected 1,700 times so far this year, according to a study released this month.

He also gets little love at home, with approval ratings hovering around 20 percent and seven out 10 South Koreans telling pollsters that they think he caters to the rich.

Yet charity -- in whopping doses -- is precisely what Lee doled out in Seoul on Monday, donating $26.2 million worth of commercial property, about 80 percent of his total personal wealth, to a new foundation for needy students. He said his wife and four children supported the donation.

Lee promised before the 2007 presidential election to donate all his wealth -- acquired over a 27-year career as a construction industry executive -- to society, save for one family house. He announced Monday that he could now deliver on that pledge.

"Today is a wonderful and joyous day," he said in a statement. "Looking back, I realize everyone who has helped me become who I am now were people who were poor. I believed one way to return the favors they afforded me was to use my wealth for a good cause."

Lee, 67, was elected president in large measure because his rags-to-riches life story resonated with South Koreans, whose country has traveled a similar trajectory, rising from destitution and dictatorship at the end of the Korean War to become the world's 15th-largest economy as well as a vibrant democracy.

Lee was born in Osaka, Japan, at a time when Koreans were ruled by the imperial Japanese government. After World War II, when his family sailed home to Korea, the ship carrying all their possessions sank. As the fifth of seven children, he put himself through school by helping his mother in a vegetable market and by hauling garbage.

Although he left his position as chairman of Hyundai Construction to go into politics in the early 1990s, Lee's persona as a self-made corporate millionaire has stuck with him. It helped him win votes initially but has since turned off many constituents.

Lee has struggled to escape the perception that he remains a captive of the conglomerate culture (Samsung, Hyundai, LG Electronics) that made him rich and that continues to dominate South Korea's economy.

At the funeral of his populist predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, who committed suicide in May while being investigated in a bribery scandal, Lee was personally berated by mourners, who accused him of hounding Roh into jumping off a cliff to his death.

But Lee's charitable gift could help change his image. It differentiates him from a pack of super-rich South Korean business leaders whose financial scandals rarely result in prison terms and whose family wealth is often funneled to heirs in convoluted ways that evade taxes.

For a sitting head of state, the value of Lee's gift "is unprecedented in the history of politics," the president's spokesman said. The claim was not immediately verifiable.

Money for the scholarship fund will initially come from the rent now paid on three office buildings that Lee is donating to the new foundation. That will amount to about $869,000 a year, his office said.

To raise more money, the office said, the foundation may sell some of the buildings.