Riding the Tiger: How South Korea Gradually Bet Its National Fate on Memory Chips

At the same moment, the National Pension Service (NPS), which manages the retirement funds of the entire Korean population, was watching the value of its largest domestic stock holdings—Samsung at 7.84% and SK Hynix at 7.50%—evaporate at a rate of tens of billions of Korean won per second. Three weeks ago, the committee had just decided to raise the domestic stock allocation target from 14.9% to 20.8%. The reason wasn't optimism for the market, but rather, if they didn't adjust it, by the rules, they would have to sell trillions of won at the top—which would directly crash the market.

If they don't sell, the risk keeps snowballing; if they do sell, they end up triggering the collapse themselves.

This is what it means to be 'riding a tiger and unable to dismount.' And what put Korea on the tiger's back wasn’t Samsung’s chips or SK Hynix's HBM, but one well-intentioned policy document after another drafted in Seoul office buildings.

Looking back, every step had a 'reasonable' justification. But all these reasonable steps combined have turned into absurdity.