Is Protectionism good or bad?
I didn't know, until I visited South Korea and noticed that ALL their cars are made in South Korea, even though they are a close ally of the United States.
I bet 95% of cars South Korea were made in South Korea.
CADTM - South Korea : the miracle unmasked
The World Bank claims that South Korea is an undeniable success story.
In the World Bank’s version, the country’s authorities have used external loans efficiently, have attracted foreign investments and used them to set up a successful development model based on export substitution.
The new industrialists made thriving business, not thanks to their own investments, for they hardly had any equity, but thanks to tax incomes and U.S. subsidies that the dictatorship generously handed out. Morevover a strictly protectionist policy protected them from foreign competition. Later the Park Chung Hee dictatorship (1961-1979) would create industrial and financial conglomerates called chaebols.
General Park Chung Hee implemented an accelerated industrialisation policy underpinned by the strictest planning. The first five-year plan was launched in 1962. Korea took a firm protectionist stand with regard to its agricultural production (a ban on rice imports) and industrial output. In the mid-60s, Korea already had a number of light industries supplying the domestic market and winning market share abroad. These industries were basically making products - using a massive cheap labour force - by processing or assembling goods imported from abroad. 
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