So, the elections have finished and a winner has been declared! The election results have been discussed in detail in the Korean media, with breakdowns of the results by region and in terms of the age and sex of voters.

According to data published by the Korean Electoral Commission following the counting of votes, elector turnout was 77.1%, 0.1% less than in 2017. According to the television and radio broadcasters KBS, МВС, SBS and the Korean Television and Radio Broadcasters’ Association, Yoon Suk-yeol was elected with 48.4% of the votes.  Lee Jae-myung received 47.8% of the votes. The gap between the two leading candidates was less than the statistical error margin.

In general, voting patterns were consistent with the traditional regional sympathies in Korea. Lee Jae-myung won the support of “his” Gyeonggi Province (where he served as governor) and the Honam region (Gwangju and the South Jeolla and North Jeolla Provinces), a traditional opposition stronghold.   Equally predictably, Yoon Suk-yeol won the support of traditional Conservative regions – the Yeongnam region (North Gyeongsang and Daegu, Park Geun-hye’s home city).

As expected, Sejong City voted in favor of Lee Jae-myung, or rather against Yoon Suk-yeol. Since the government is currently trying to transform that city into an administrative centre by relocating ministries and other bodies there, the city’s vote can be seen as an expression of the sympathies of Korea’s civil servants.

In general female voters supported Lee Jae-myung, probably as a result of the Conservative Party’s promise to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and the Family, which many young people see as supporting reverse discrimination.

Men’s voting choices are also worth looking at. Yoon Suk-yeol was supported by men in their 20s and pensioners. People over 60 traditionally tend to support the Conservatives, and this was the only age group in which most women voted for Yoon Suk-yeol, but the voting choices of Koreans aged between 18 and 29 are interesting. In addition to protest voting and social justice, another factor is also relevant: this generation was born after South Korea became a developed nation. According to Park Sung-min, President and founder of MIN Consulting, “they have never experienced poverty or lived under a dictatorship… They are very critical of China and North Korea, and very positive in their attitudes to the USA and Japan.” Unemployment, especially among young men, has also led to anti-feminism and anti-migration sympathies, which helped to boost the vote for Yoon Suk-yeol.

There has been a lot of focus on the 586 generation, who were born in the 1960s, took part in the protests against the dictatorship of the 1980s. On the whole, this cohort voted for Lee Jae-myung. Those in their thirties or in their fifties tended to be evenly split between the two leading candidates. Within those age groups, the closer voters were to the age of forty, the more likely they were to vote for Lee Jae-myung.

Some conservatives have already started making a fuss about falsifications, but since Yoon won the vote anyway and they lacked support, the Democrats have accepted their defeat, fearful of a scandal should there be a recount. While the present author attributes this to a conspiracy theory, it may also be due to other mistakes made by Lee Jae-myung and his supporters, who were too indulgent to Yoon Sook-yeol.

Lee Jae-myung himself disassociated himself from his election team and party leadership during the campaign. He may have believed that his personal charisma was enough to win him the vote, but he had little support from Song Young-gil or Lee Nak-yon, leaders of two other Democratic Party factions.  Moon Jae-in also failed to lend him his full support, seeing him merely as the lesser of two evils. Thus, while Yoon Seok-yeol held difficult but ultimately successful talks with Ahn Cheol-soo and Lee Jun-seok and was able to unify his party, Lee Jae-myung, despite not having to deal with any external scandals, was left on his own as a result of party infighting.

Some people believe that if Lee Jae-myung had managed to persuade Sim Sang-jung to withdraw from the race then he could have won, although probably by a similarly narrow margin to that by which he lost. But the present author doubts whether she would have agreed to do that. Firstly, the Justice Party is a left-leaning group that does not get involved in party-political intrigues of this sort. Secondly, the Democrats stole a number of her election promises to use in their own campaign. And thirdly, the Justice Party had not forgotten about how their performance in the 2020 parliamentary elections was undermined by the creation of a number of “satellite” parties, thus – according to some experts – reducing their vote by two thirds.

One can therefore see Yoon Seok-yeol’s victory not so much as a swing towards the right, but as a protest against recent political maneuvering and an expression of hope that an honest public prosecutor can restore a culture of justice and fair play. However, his image was also damaged in the mutual mud-slinging that characterized the campaign, and a number of commentators expressed dissatisfaction with both of the main candidates.

Following the election, Yoon Seok-yeol was congratulated over the phone by US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and the Russian President Vladimir Putin sent him a telegram complimenting him on his victory. Xi Jinping did not call him in person but during a regular press conference Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian congratulated him on his election victory and expressed the hope that relations between the two nations would continue to develop. Yoon Seok-yeol later had a meeting with ambassador Xing Haiming, who passed on the congratulations of the Chinese premier. Unusually, the North Korean media also reported on Yoon Seok-yeol’s victory – in the past they have refrained from commenting when Conservative presidents have been elected.

This is the first time in the country’s history that a president has been democratically elected without first serving as a lawmaker or minister. The new president has inherited a considerable number of problems, including, to name but a few, the challenge of dealing with the rampant COVID-19 epidemic, foreign policy challenges, particularly in relation to North Korea, and economic pressures (especially in relation to social support and housing shortages).

Yoon Seok-yeol will officially become president in two months – his inauguration is scheduled for May 10, 2022 – and under the Constitution, his term of office will be five years.

As you may have noticed, he seized his victory at the last moment, and while the election result is far from inconclusive, the narrow margin makes it clear that the divisions in Korean society have yet to be overcome. And it is one thing to win an election, it is quite another to govern well and fulfil one’s campaign promises. The new president has a difficult journey ahead of him, and will face significant resistance from his defeated opponents. As a result one can be sure that the next season of Korea’s “Game of Thrones” will be every bit as entertaining as the previous ones have been.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After publishing the materials about the traces of shamanism in Yoon Suk-yeol’s case, the author received many comments asking him to clarify this case in more detail. Therefore, it was decided to offer some more insights on such issues as shamanism and politics in South Korea.

Despite traditional role and popularity in the society, the social status of a shaman in South Korea has been always low. Two more important aspects complicate this situation:

Firstly, Koreans, similarly to Japanese, confess a certain type of syncretism, which means that you can visit a shaman, go to a Protestant church, and to a Buddhist temple. However, shamanism does not have a status of a religion, and most shamans describe themselves as Buddhists, especially as in some temples, near the Buddha statues there are also statues of mountain spirits.

Secondly, in religious issues Koreans behave like consumers or pagans, which can be expressed along the lines of “I’ll light a candle in your name, and you give me a salary raise and help my son enter the university.” If the problem looks important enough, it is allowed to light and candle in a church and bring a gift – a pork head – to a shaman.

In addition, for most shamans such things as contacting the spirits of their ancestors or exorcising the spirits of illness are not their core competence, as they are mostly engaged in fortunetelling and predictions about the future, and are in effect akin to personal growth coaches, by simply issuing “differently encoded” recommendations. This is the reason why visiting shamans, on the one hand, is considered a sign of being a superstitious and dark person. On the other hand, many people visit shamans. And as a result, it works out to be like with bribery cases, when a person is brought to trial not so much for stealing, but for getting caught or attracting attention under the existing political conditions.

Some experts and researchers of Korean political culture emphasize that along with authoritarianism, hierarchy, clientelism, etc., another important element of this culture is a kind of fatalism which means that people prefer to rely on good luck, or the intervention of external forces instead of putting in hard work. It is commonly believed that people may plan certain events, but it is up to Heaven’s will to let those plans become real, and the outcome of an event is not a result of cause-effect relationship, but the result of good or bad luck or destiny.

This leads to an increased role of superstitions and increased trust in shamans and other occultists, whose competence is not about planning events, but to predict the reaction to them. The hope for a magical solution to the problem is based on faith in fate and the help of some external forces, including representatives of the authorities. So when you address your request to an official, it is almost the same as addressing supernatural forces in the person of a shaman: both of them are expected to ensure good outcome. It is not surprising that university graduates visit shamans with a list of their potential employers to help them choose which job to apply for, businessmen often ask supernatural forces which investments to make, and young people see this as a way to gain confidence and psychological comfort.

The data about the number of practicing shamans in Korea varies. According to the Korean Statistical Office in 2019, there are 10,745 prophets and shamans in the country. It is believed that there are much more of them than the official statistics shows, because many shamans work without any licenses: only ‘supernatural power’ is needed and some training with those who already know the craft. This is why “during the economic recession more and more people choose to become shamans or fortunetellers,” and, according to The Economist and Korea Economic Daily reports in 2018, the market of mystical services at the time reached USD 3.7 billion.

According to Baek Yoon Sang, the head of the Korean Association of Fortune Tellers, there are more than 300,000 fortune tellers and 150,000 shamans in the country. For comparison, the headcount of the Korea’s Armed Forces is 610,000 persons.

Not only ordinary citizens, but also some decision-makers are among the clients of shamans. In the shamanist community, it is said that it was shamanism which played a role in Park Geun-hye’s political games. It is worth noting that during the military regime shamans were out of favor.

Some say that shamanism in Korea’s political life dates back to the country’s first president – Syngman Rhee (1952-1960), who was believed to have changed his name following the advice of some shaman, as he wanted to “become president at the advanced age” and he really became president at 73. Also, shamans had allegedly predicted the death of President Park Chung-hee 20 years before he was killed by one of his closest aides in 1979. And the President Chun Doo-hwan’s mother had three of her front teeth pulled out after a monk had told her they would hinder her son’s future career.

Of course, people tend to expect shamans to bring luck and ignore real life circumstances. For example, the history says that President Kim Dae-jung, who lost the presidential elections three times, was elected in his fourth attempt in 1998, after he had moved his father’s grave to a place which was better from the geomancy point of view. The financial recession and the split in the ruling party side remained out of focus, as did the fact that his contemporary and well-known conservative leader Lee Hoi-chang lost the presidential election race even after he moved the graves of his ancestors several times. The shaman Shim Jin Song became famous when he predicted the death of North Korean President Kim Il Sung in 1994 and the election of President Kim Dae-jung. However, after some bad forecasts his popularity drastically dropped. Other famous Korean fortunetellers could not guess that Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, Lee Myung-bak and Roh Moo-hyun would be elected.

However, during the military regime, shamans were given the cold shoulder, and many politicians began to visit shamans and fortunetellers only after democratization and liberalization. According to the former Environment Minister Yun Ye Jung, Korean politicians and businessmen consulted with shamans “almost without exception.”

The political commentator Park Sang-byung said that shamanism has naturally penetrated the Korean institutional culture, and “… visiting a shaman cannot be prevented because it is the freedom of the individual. … However, this is problematic and causes public distrust.”

The most interesting thing is that Choi Soon-sil, Park Geun-hye’s friend, who is usually introduced as a shaman herself, was in fact only the daughter of a shaman. However, the propaganda of the Democrats presented her as the second Rasputin, and they played on the people’s annoyance described above, despite the fact that at the time when Choi “had especially strong influence on her friend, the president,” she was living in Germany.

In this context Yoon Suk-yeol is being made look like a puppet of shamans, taking into consideration the well-known telephone conversations – when his wife Kim Keon-hee said that she would move to the Blue House if she became the president’s wife, because the shamans advised her to do so. She also met her husband, who is 12 years older than her, following the advice of a Buddhist monk.

This is the basis to accuse Yoon and his wife of their close relations with religious figures who allegedly gave them advice on the verge of interfering in politics.

In January 2022, the Segye Ilbo newspaper “reported on the suspicions” about an incident in February 2020, when Yoon (at that time the Prosecutor General) refused to execute the order of the Minister of Justice on the repressions against the Shincheonji religious sect in connection with the fact that its members spread the coronavirus (there was a clear instruction to dig the dirt about the sect and show them as guilty in the disease spread), and he refused to do that because the shaman Chong Gong Jin allegedly told him: “Don’t get your hands dirty with blood.”

The same person allegedly took part in the work of Yoon’s election center – the so-called network headquarters, which was disestablished after the above news.

Then the representative of the Democratic Party, Kim Yoo-geum, said that back in 2018 (when Yoon was the prosecutor General), Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife were involved in a dubious religious ritual conducted by a shaman who informally participated in Yoon’s election campaign as a consultant.

Kim showed photos of the ritual held in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, where tags with the names of Yoon and his wife and some Conservative Party members can be seen. Participation in the ritual is very expensive, and the ritual includes skinning a cow and hanging it on the altar wall next to a pile of 10 slaughtered pigs.

In response, the opposition party stated that in the same videos and photos from this ceremony, there are tags with the names of some prominent figures of the ruling party, including President Moon Jae-in and Lee Si-jong, governor of North Chungcheong Province.  After that this conviction was not mentioned anywhere in the news.

Thus, this seems to be an attempt to reproach Yoon Suk-yeol for doing things everyone else was somehow engaged in, playing on those fears that were artificially created during the candle revolution. However, most voters are dissatisfied with the close relationship that some politicians maintain with shamans. According to the two-day survey by the Southern Post when 1,002 persons were interviewed at the CBS’s request in January 2022, 60.7% of respondents said that relationship with shamans would have a negative impact on their attitude to Yoon Suk-yeol.

It is up to you to decide what effect this had on the outcome of the elections.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The South Korean presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol recently stated that he thought a preemptive strike against the DPRK would be justified, since, if the latter were to launch a rocket armed with a nuclear warhead against Seoul, it would be almost impossible to intercept itю The only option would be to forestall the attack.

This statement triggered a great deal of heated discussion, and the left-leaning daily Hankyoreh published an article in response, quoting Otto von Bismark’s famous dictum that “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”

Nevertheless both the US and Israel have at various times launched attacks that they described as preemptive strikes. Given the situation on the Korean peninsula there appears to be a real risk that an attack on the DPRK’s missile launchers could trigger a full-scale war – but in other parts of the world the principle that “attack is the best form of defense” seems more justified, at least in relation to the bases of terrorist groups.

But the concept of a preemptive strike raises a number of problems, some of which relate to ethical issues, as will be discussed below.

In principle, a preemptive strike can be a viable strategy: “Strike first and do not let your adversary strike you back.  In a fight between a weaker and a stronger party, where a first blow by your enemy or an extended struggle would manifest your defeat, the best way to turn the situation to your advantage is to strike first.” In the US and many other countries, this principle is applied by law enforcement officers, who frequently shoot first when faced with suspicious activity.  In a country where citizens have the right to bear arms, if a suspect puts their hand in their pocket during an arrest, then the police officer is likely to assume they are reaching for a gun. The officer will naturally shoot first, before it is too late.

Although in theory a preemptive strike is a first blow, in practice it is a last resort, adopted only when a fight seems inevitable. But if the fight is NOT inevitable then the preemptive strike closes off all other options for resolving the conflict, leaving force as the only option.

That leads us to the first problem: the need to have a proper justification for such a strike. Whether it is a conflict between individuals or between states, it is essential to have cast iron proof that the party against which the strike is directed was staging an attack.  Otherwise the result will be the same as so often happens on American streets when the police get involved. The “suspicious” activity turns out to have been misinterpreted, but it is too late – the shots have already been fired.

To make things more difficult, the decision to strike preemptively is often made in a split second and in response to incomplete information, and, at least in a political context, what Dick Cheney referred to as the “one per cent doctrine” also comes into play. As Mr. Cheney put it: “if there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis… It’s about our response.”

In terms of what could be called the “bodyguard’s reflex” (a quality common to security professionals all over the world – it’s in the nature of their job) that approach is justifiable – a one percent risk may represent a significant threat if we are talking about what Cheney refers to as low-probability, high-impact events.

For example if there is a 1% risk of a car accident due to technical failure it is essential to check all parts of the vehicle and ensure that everything is working properly. A 1% risk of an epidemic would justify strict quarantine measures against a person who may be infectious – even if it turns out to be a false alarm.

The US Patriot Act allows official to block potential terrorists’ bank accounts and their telephones without need for any proof, in order, on the off chance that he really is a terrorist, to prevent him from carrying out an attack. And if it turns out that he is not a terrorist and protests about these measures, no harm is done – in relation to such a serious threat, it is better to be safe than sorry.

That is why, for example when the US started looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it paid no heed to the potential consequences for that country: “We need to be absolutely certain that you do not and cannot obtain such weapons, and any suspicious or dual use technology will be taken as proof of our suspicions, and any reluctance to cooperate (or failure to comply in full with all our instructions) will be treated as indirect evidence and an indication that you have got something to hide.”

This bears some explanation. Certain media outlets have promoted the theory that the US knew right from the beginning that Iraq did not have any WMDs, and that it fabricated the data it needed in order to launch the invasion. But in fact it is now clear that the reality was rather different, and perhaps even worse. In view of Saddam Hussein’s reputation, the US was convinced (or better, convinced itself) that it was impossible that such a tyrant did not have a WMD program, and the lack of evidence simply meant that the program was well hidden – it was just a question of carrying on the search. And there was no need to check that the information was true as a pro-democracy defector could not possibly be lying!

The bodyguard’s reflex is based on the idea that it is better to arrest 10 potential terrorists, even if they then turn out to be innocent, rather than miss one real terrorist whose actions would cause far more harm than the unpleasantness suffered by the ten mistakenly arrested individuals. Which is better, to be cautious but earn a reputation for infringing civil liberties, or to fail to take action and thus allow a catastrophic attack to occur?

But there is another, much darker, side to the coin. Any fast-track procedures such as those provided by the Patriot Act or other special regulations can streamline processes and minimize bureaucracy, but they can also make it easier for the authorities to abuse their powers, as the normal checks and balances have been weakened. It is not surprising that government critics and conspiracy theorists see such measures as primarily aimed at making such abuse easier.

That approach also erodes the distinction between likely and unlikely scenarios, which can result in self-fulfilling prophecies. This response, however, is clearly insufficient. This combination – demonizing the enemy and applying the 1% doctrine – is doubly dangerous: firstly because we assess the likelihood of a scenario (often using such phrases as “it is impossible to exclude the risk of X”) based on our a priori assumption that the enemy regime is evil, and secondly because the 1% doctrine allows us to treat a small likelihood in the same way as a certainty.

Moreover, the public reaction to a preemptive strike will inevitably be mixed: generally people approve of government actions when they are a response to another party’s conduct. Following a terrorist attack, the government strikes back and those responsible are punished. But when measures are taken, not in response to events that have occurred, but to prevent something that thus never happens, then many people question whether the measures were morally justified. Was the preemptive strike really proportionate to the danger? Or was it just a provocation?  What if the claims that the attack was a preemptive strike are just an attempt to justify the decision to strike first?

The present author could cite a number of unpleasant situations in which people are forced to choose between two versions of the truth, their choice being determined in each case by religious considerations or their political views.

Once such dilemma has become quite common thanks to the #MeToo movement. A woman accuses a man of raping her many years ago, and apart from her own claim there is no evidence of the alleged crime. As a result, we have two conflicting presumptions: the presumption of an accused person’s innocence, which is a foundation of the criminal justice system, and the widespread presumption that a person accused of rape is guilty.  If the accused defends himself he is often seen as slandering his accuser, but in reality it is often the case that the only evidence for a rape is the woman’s accusation. There is no satisfactory solution to this dilemma.

Here’s another example. States are often accused of torturing political dissidents, and then using the confessions extracted under torture against them. In many cases the torture is impossible to prove, due to the lack of any physical evidence – we just have to take the victim’s word for it. Thus we again have two presumptions: the presumption of innocence, and the presumption that the regime is guilty – as there are many types of torture which leave no physical mark on the victim.

But public opinion will always favor simple solutions. People want a universal rule like “if the state is accused of using violence, it means it used violence,” or “if he was tortured, it means he is innocent.” In the absence of such simple solutions, people resort to the logic of “us and them” – they are terrorists, and we are freedom fighters. Or – he is a rapist, and we are victims.

The problem is the same with preemptive strikes: it is often hard for society to accept that the events that we have averted would have been worse than what has actually happened. After all, what has happened is a certainty, while what might happen could be just a 1% chance, or it could be more. No one would fall for the argument that “this cute puppy would have grown up into a killer dog, so we shot him to stop this happening.” We need other arguments.

Especially if people generally believe that “the authorities are hiding the truth,” or if distrust of the government takes some other form, in which case the regime is inevitably assumed to be guilty: “Of course they attacked innocent civilians and then accused them of being terrorists for some political reason or other self-serving motive.” And, naturally, dead militants, or persons accused of being militants, cannot say anything – they were killed by a preemptive strike before they could launch an attack.

This article will necessarily lack a clear conclusion – as normally dilemmas of the types discussed above have specific features that allow us to make a balanced rational assessment in each case, without having to resorting to a crude rule of thumb. The present author simply wishes to draw attention to these kinds of conflicting presumptions, and point out the importance of carefully assessing the circumstances and causes in each individual case.

 Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

For only so long, the author did not pay attention to the third candidate, but now the time is ripe to talk about Ahn Cheol-soo. This is already the third election that this 59-year-old former doctor and software entrepreneur takes part in. In 2012, he ran for president as an independent candidate but dropped out of the race less than a month prior to the election day throwing his political weight behind Moon Jae-in, then-opposition candidate.  Ahn Cheol-soo apparently believed that after landing within the same party he would capitalize on Moon’s failures and would gradually sideline him from leadership. However, after the opposition lost mid-term parliamentary elections in April 2014, he started to push for inner-party reforms, laying the blame on Moon for everything, after which Ahn Cheol-soo broke off and created The People Party in December 2015 — with not much success though, since he was sidelined Kim Dae-jung’s long-time allies. For a while, Ahn even resigned as a party leader; however, in the 2016 parliamentary elections, the People Party won 38 seats.

In 2017, Ahn ran again for president as a People Party candidate.  For a while, he was even outpacing Moon Jae-in in polls, but failed in debates and came third mustering 21.41% of votes.

In February 2018, the People Party unified with the right-center Bareun Party dominated by such break-away former members of the main conservative party as Yoo Seung-min. But soon Ahn left the leadership (or he was dismissed), considering that former allies of Kim Dae-jung refused to unite with the right, breaking away and heading for the Party for Democracy and Peace.

Nonetheless, Ahn set sights on the post of Seoul mayor in June 2018, but he lost the election at which point in September 2018 he “took a time-out” and went abroad to “study.” He came back in 2020 just in time for January 5 when the conservatives led by Yoo Seung-min left again for “the main party.” At this point, Ahn initiated another crackup on January 29, 2020, exuding his supporters from the Bareun Party to another People Party.

In the 2021 Seoul mayoral election, Ahn lost in public opinion polls and withdrew his candidacy. Then he was seeking to unify the People Party and the People Power Party with the idea that the conservatives, in the absence of dominant leaders, will nominate him as a common opposition candidate as “the only prominent and unbesmirched figure.”

Even when on November 2, 2021 Yoon Seok-yeol joined the People Power Party, Ahn said that political transition and ushering of a new era in the nation’s history would be possible only if the presidential candidate from the main opposition party agrees to nominate a single candidate, or, rather, abdicates in his favor. At the same time, as early as on November 3, Ahn Cheol-soo said that he was not interested in unifying the candidacies calling it an “impossible deal.”

Since late 2021 and early 2022, amidst the growing frustration with the two main candidates, Ahn’s polling numbers surged floating around a two-digit figure in January, which gave impetus to certain ambitions as the conservatives started to look upon him more favorably, with Kim Chong-in himself pointing out that “we should wait and see, but a coalition will be helpful to some extent.” On the other hand, Lee Jun-seok, the party’s leader, voiced strong objections against alliance with Ahn.

On January 11, 2022, Ahn gave up on the idea to consolidate with the People Power Party and to nominate a single presidential candidate. Moreover, on January 25 he dismissed Yoon Seok-yeol as unfit to be a nominee who had just capitalized on the incompetence of Moon Jae-in’s administration.

On February 6, 2022, Ahn Cheol-soo signaled once again that he would partake in the presidential race to the very end, thus refuting speculations about a single nominee.

At the same time, on February 13, 2022, Ahn Cheol-soo came up with an official proposal addressed to Yoon Seok-yeol to unite their nominations to secure a “landslide victory” over the ruling party. To choose the man in the driver’s seat, Ahn suggested to rely on public opinion polls, just the same way it used to be in 2021. He argued that the elections based on the poll would do justice for both candidates, their supporters and public, still unsure whom it should back up.

Indeed, such a strategy is typical for Ahn: he runs as a third candidate in terms of significance and then withdraws in favor of one of the two front-runners. This was the case when he abdicated in favor of Moon Jae-in at the previous elections; acting along the same lines, he joined the conservatives when the mayoral election was at stake. While not all Ahn’s supporters would welcome this merge, a single conservative candidate will have 7-8% more votes allowing him to prevail, although with a slight margin. Thus, Ahn may become that proverbial last straw to break the camel’s back.

However, in this case Ahn had a much more ambitious objective in mind, suggesting a referendum at which voters will decide themselves who is more dear to their heart — Ahn or Yoon. At the same time, Ahn had two factors in back pocket that would allow him to dream of victory.

Firstly, both Lee and Yoon are reeling under the weight of controversies since both parties heavily relied on smear campaigns. Ahn stayed on the sidelines of this mud-slinging; for that reason he may count on the public chosing him as the least besmirched person.  January polls (amidst all problems in Yoon’s camp) showed that if Yoon and Ahn form a coalition and choose the latter as a single candidate, he will overrun Lee with a score of 42.3 – 28.9%. If Yoon is the only candidate the margin will be only 34.4 – 33.6%. Moreover, 49.3% poll-takers distinguished him for his ethics and skills.

Secondly, an across-the-board public opinion poll is not equal to a vote taken inside the conservative party. All this paves the way to entanglements since Ahn can be supported by the conservatives that do not like Yoon and those representatives of the democratic party that are too aware of the fact the Yoon’s ascension to power will entail an attempted crackdown on the Moon’s government and his intimate circle.

The would-be merge has its own disadvantages. Firstly, Ahn does not have a feasible vision program either. As far as Ahn’s talking points are concerned, his attempt to pose himself as a third force (neither democrats, nor conservatives have the right to rule South Korea in terms of morality and competency) meets the eye, as does his pledge to step down immediately after his rating falls below 50%.  Ahn also announced his intent to change the Constitution and induce redistribution of powers and authority from the president to the prime-minister by allowing the former to stand for reelection, but cutting the term to 4 years. Apart from this, he slammed Moon Jae-in’s administration for destroying democracy and economy, mishandling COVID-19 vaccines and hypocrisy.

Secondly, what use does Yoon have for Ahn? Ahn has said that a single nomination will be the only way for any of the candidates to win the election and to showcase overwhelming public support for showing the door to the nation’s leadership and political transition, especially given that the ruling Democratic Party of Korea has a strong majority in the National Assembly. Even if an opposition candidate beats the ruling party candidate, it is highly likely that the president would have little power. But the problem of the parliament where the democrats have almost a supermajority remains REGARDLESS of which opposition candidate becomes president while three votes that can be offered by Ahn are not that important from this perspective.

Finally, for conservatives already struggling with factionalism Ahn and his ambitions are a huge pain in the neck.  That is why Yoon said that he “positively views the proposal to unify candidacies in terms of the great cause of changing the government, but there is a disappointing consideration,” and instead of public opinion polls he suggested primary voting inside the People Power Party, bearing in mind that last time during massive ballot democratic supporters voted for his opponents whom they deemed to be more convenient adversaries.  At the same time, some conservatives explicitly expressed hope that “candidate Ahn Cheol-soo would make a courageous decision.”

On February 9, Yoon Seok-yeol said that he would not engage in talks with a secondary candidate Ahn Cheol-soo on the unification of their candidacies, leaving a window of opportunity for a merge by a surprise deal.

On February 15, Ahn Cheol-soo urged Yoon Seok-yeol to respond to his candidacy unification proposal as soon as possible since this was a proposal addressed from one presidential candidate to the other.

Meanwhile, according to polls conducted in late February, shall Yoon and Ahn join their efforts, Yoon would beat Lee 43.1% to 36.2% while Ahn would prevail with only 38.5% against 33.1%.

Yoon Seok-yeol kept silence for a week, and on February 20 Ahn Cheol-soo publicly dismissed the idea of putting forward a single candidate. Ahn said that he intends to “follow his own way,” blaming Yoon Seok-yeol and the People Power Party for the coalition breakdown.

Although Ahn Cheol-soo’s ambitious plan faltered, the author still believes that this “bird of passage” might throw a curve ball. If Ahn comes to an arrangement with Lee, the democrats may be the ones who are in for a victory with a slight margin, although there is no much time left, with a front-runner still unknown while anything can happen.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

As the author has written many times, the 2021-22 election race in South Korea is breaking records in terms of the amount of mud slung at both candidates, and clearly whoever saves the tastiest stuff for last has a better chance of success.

It seemed that the scandals surrounding Yoon Seok-yeol’s wife drew attention to the Conservative candidate, but soon the score was at least even.

As recently as a few years ago, the conservative party raised the suspicion that Lee Jae-myung, as mayor of Seongnam, had forced several companies to sponsor the city’s professional football club in exchange for solving their problems, mainly related to land use and building permits. At the same time, Lee was president of the club. As a result, between 2015 and 2017, six companies offered a total of 16.05 bn won ($13.3 million) to the team under the pretext of sponsorship and advertising fees. The police had investigated the charge since 2018 but dropped the case in September 2021 for lack of evidence. The prosecutor’s office filed a protest, but the case is now being handled by Seongnam Chief Prosecutor Park Eun-jeong, who attended the same university as Lee Jae-myung and played an active role as a Justice Ministry inspector in November 2020 in seeking disciplinary action against Attorney-General Yoon Suk-yeol.

Meanwhile, if it turns out that donations to the football club were made in exchange for services not approved by the government, it could be a crime of commercial bribery. Now the scandal has intensified again after Deputy Prosecutor Park resigned, claiming he was obstructing the investigation.

Next, Lee Jae-myung’s eldest son is suspected of receiving special treatment in the army as the son of the mayor of a major city. He joined the army in August 2013 and was admitted to the Armed Forces Capital Hospital in Seongnam for 52 days from July 29, 2014 without a proper military order.  To be more accurate, the hospitalization order was signed retroactively a month later, so technically Lee-junior was AWOL the whole time. Moreover, a year after his hospitalization, Seongnam City Hall (i.e. Mayor Lee Jae-myung) increased the maximum area on which the Armed Forces Capital Hospital is located so that an Armed Forces trauma center could be built there, which was built as a four-storey building rather instead of three storeys thanks to the approval of the city authorities. A coincidence? Conservatives, of course, think otherwise.

Lee’s campaign headquarters acknowledged the prolonged hospitalization and said it would disclose the relevant order. But it was later “discovered” that due to an error on the part of the person in charge of personnel matters at the time, the order had not been issued, which according to Lee’s detractors, is unconvincing. It is unimaginable in the army for a soldier to be hospitalized without orders, and not in a regional hospital, but in a hospital in the capital.

But the strongest attack on Lee, like that on Yoon, turned out to be on his wife. It must be remembered that in Korea “attacks on a candidate’s family” have more killing power than anywhere else. First, he who cannot keep order in the family is considered incapable of running a state, and second, Korean politics is fond of moralizing, despite a popular expression roughly translated as “with others it is treason, with me it is love.”

And now SBS TV channel has reported that when Lee was governor, his subordinates had been running errands for his wife, Kim Hye-kyung, which amounts to abuse of power. A so far anonymous male official from the secretary’s office of the provincial government, who received orders from his supervisor in the department of general affairs surnamed Bae, has spoken, showing as evidence phone records from April to November 2021. In fact, it turns out that Lee officially hired Bae as his secretary as a matter of protocol for foreign visits, but she effectively worked as his wife’s private secretary.

Bae in this situation tried to take as much blame as possible. Lee Jae-myung also apologized and added that he would ask the auditing agency to investigate strictly whether there was any evidence of abuse of power.

Democratic Party chief Song Young-gil tried to stand up for Lee and said civil servants were performing routine secretarial duties, but his remarks were immediately met with harsh criticism.  According to government regulations, spouses of heads of local authorities may not assign officials to carry out their personal tasks.

Hyun Geun-taek, a spokesman for Lee’s election committee, has attracted all the more attention for questioning the integrity of the whistleblower’s revelations.

But there is still no serious evidence against Lee – the Seongnam-gate trial has begun, but no charges against the mayor have been heard from this side. It is possible to inflate what has been described into serious abuse as part of a political struggle, but anything the Yoon and Lee camps have poured on each other so far is more likely to tarnish their reputations in the public eye than to warrant a serious criminal case.

But while the two main candidates go head to head, the importance of the third, who is playing his own, rather devious games, increases. But that is a story for another chapter.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

In his previous material about the tricky relations between China and South Korea this author already mentioned how a demonstration of the traditional Korean clothes was viewed in South Korea. However, this is worth telling in greater detail as this story illustrates the conceptual difference between the two countries’ national policies.

So, South Koreans took offence at what in their opinion constituted China’s claim at hanbok, a traditional Korean clothing, on February 4, during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. At the beginning of the ceremony, people representing 56 ethnic groups from all over China carried the Chinese national flag into the stadium. One woman, representing ethnic Koreans in China, wore a hanbok. Moreover, she was an ethnic Korean (Chaoxianzu, Kor. – Joseonjok).

The depiction of a hanbok-clad woman angered many South Koreans, who argued that China was trying to promote hanbok as its own cultural product., which supposedly is in line with China’s vast claims to the Korean culture and history as a part of their own ones.

On the next day, the South Korean Culture Minister Hwang Hee (who was also dressed in a hanbok), representing the Republic of Korea at the Olympic Games, said that the depiction of ethnic Koreans as a minority group could create mutual misunderstanding in the two countries. “When you refer to people as a minority, it often means they haven’t evolved into a sovereign country. “We are among the 10 or so largest economies in the world located right next to China.” When Hwang was asked if he had any intention to lodge an official diplomatic protest with the Chinese government, he said he “does not deem it necessary,” adding, however, that he may deliver Korea’s domestic sentiment to his Chinese counterparts.

On the same day, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea emphasized that “[t]here is no room for dispute in the fact that hanbok is one of our representative cultures that are recognized by the entire world,” and the Government would continue their efforts to “publicize” hanbok. South Korea has kept delivering its position to China that it needs to respect other countries’ cultures and enhance its understanding based on “cultural diversity,” the official added.

Later on, the Foreign Ministry published a statement saying that “we have submitted to the Chinese party our position that they need to respect cultural uniqueness and diversity to facilitate mutual understanding.”

Both political camps snatched this opportunity to speculate on the pressing issue. Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, wrote on Facebook that he was opposed to China’s “cultural appropriation” of elements of Korean culture.

A representative of the campaign headquarters, Park Chan-dae, was more straightforward: “We express our regret over the practice of depicting hanbok as if it were Chinese traditional attire during the opening ceremony, and demand that China stop its cultural claims on Korea”.

The People’s Party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo said, “The hanbok is Korean culture. To the authorities in China, I say this: it is ‘hanbok,’ not ‘hanfu’.

PPP presidential campaign spokesman Hwang Gyu-hwan called the incident a clear cultural pillaging of a sovereign country, and a disrespectful practice that undermines the Beijing Games’ slogan of “Together for a Shared Future.” Of course, the Moon Jae-in government was criticized for an insufficiently vigorous protest. And the head of a Conservative non-government organization Lee Jong-bae even lodged a complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office against Hwang Hee, for his remark that the Korean government does not need to lodge an official protest against China.

Seo Kyoung-duk, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University and an activist promoting South Korean culture, also got his 15 minutes of glory, “South Korea should do a better job letting the rest of the world know that hanbok is traditional Korean attire. China has already made too many claims to hanbok as its own to count, notwithstanding the fact that hanbok is mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as traditional Korean attire. For example, a scene with dancers clad in hanbok appeared in the promotional video released by China to mark its application for the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, and the largest Chinese online portal Baidu asserts that hanbok originated from China. Moreover, many Chinese Internet users leave comments on social media saying that Korea stole hanbok from China.”

The US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Christopher Del Corso also joined the campaign. He posted on Twitter his photo in a hanbok accompanied by the phrase, “What comes to mind when you think of Korea? Kimchi, K-Pop, K-dramas… and of course Hanbok”.

Many actors and singers produced their photos in hanboks “confirming its Korean origin”, thereby causing a war in the comments between their Chinese and South Korean fans.

The general attitude of the conservative and even moderate media was well expressed by an extract from the editorial in The Korea Times dated February 7, stating that “it may be natural for the woman in hanbok to attend the ceremony representing ethnic Koreans as part of the 56 minorities in China. Yet it was inappropriate as it might give the impression to global audiences that the hanbok is part of China’s unique culture despite Korea’s own sovereignty.”

The conservative Chosunilbo fueled the flame by publishing photos of the Chinese blogger @shiyin.w wearing a hanfu – the Chinese traditional attire of the period of the Ming Empire (XIV – XVII centuries), looking very much like a hanbok. The comment under the photo says that hanfu is the traditional Chinese clothes worn at the periods in the Chinese history when the country was ruled by the Han people, as well as that this type of attire becomes increasingly popular among the Chinese youth.   Shiyin is known for her statements regarding the influence made by the Chinese clothes on forming the hanbok, though some users of the Chinese Internet go even further saying that it is not China that appropriates the Korean culture, but on the contrary, hanbok has its origins in hanfu, and it is, in fact, hanfu.

Only the moderately left Hankyoreh sinmun took a more reasonable approach. It reminded that there was a Korean ethnic community in China and “the hanbok isn’t just ours, but theirs as well”.

Nevertheless, an upsurge of Sino-phobic feelings continues in the media and social media of South Korea. Apart from the attempts “to steal our hanbok,” there were recollections of a similar story regarding Kimchi, attempts to “write into the history of the PRC” the Korean state Goguryeo (based on the fact that half of its territory had been located in the present China), some far-right nationalists talked themselves to the point of the PRC’s interference with the elections.

Against this background, the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of Korea noted in its special statement that “it is the wish and right of the representatives of China’s nationalities to wear national costumes and participate in international sporting events such as the Beijing Winter Olympics…. Ethnic Koreans in China have their origin in the same bloodline as the South and North Koreans and share the same culture including the traditional clothes.”

To sum up, Seoul’s claims are limited to the following two points – “how dare they demonstrate hanbok as a part of the Chinese culture” and “how dare they call Koreans an ethnic minority while they have their own state.”

Actually, the key to this dispute lies in entirely different models of nationalism professed in China and South Korea. China, notwithstanding the fact that its 1.4 billion population includes a mere 120 million representatives of ethnic minorities not related to the Han people, has always emphasized that it is a multinational country and the five stars on its flag are also the symbols of the main ethnicities apart from the Chinese. Some of these ethnicities live only in the PRC, however among China’s ethnic minorities who have their own states are Mongols, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and even Russians who are officially recognized as one the Chinese ethnic minorities (they are the descendants of those who settled in Manchuria or Xinjiang in early 20th century; in one of the locations of their habitat in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the Enhe Russian Ethnic Township, consisting of 8 rural settlements, was formed). And, as can be noted, none of the aforementioned countries had any hysterical fits regarding cultural appropriation.

The Korean diaspora in China consists of about 2.5 million ethnic Koreans, and is thus one of the country’s largest minorities. Prior to a certain period of time it was the most numerous Korean diaspora, and only at the turn of the 21st century did the American [Korean] diaspora edge it out. There exists the so-called Yanbian – Korean Autonomous Prefecture, where, pursuant to the Constitution of the PRC, the Law on Regional National Autonomy and other resolution, there are not only education and signboards but also its own TV in the Korean language.

As noted by the newspaper Hankyoreh sinmun, the word “Chaoxianzu” is an official term in China. However, as the word “Joseon” has a reference to the PDRK, “Joseonjok” is rather a slang or pejorative term in South Korea, and the left-wing media make it clear that, unlike the American Koreans, persons originating from China (as well as from Central Asia countries) are often discriminated as “second-class” citizens.

While a Russian reader will understand the differentiation between the term “Russian” and the term “Russian national,” in China there exists a similar differentiation between the notions of “Han” (ethnic Chinese) and “Zhonghua,” meaning all residents of the Central State. When the Beijing propaganda speaks about the Chinese nation the term “Zhonghua” is used. It was within the framework of this trend that at the 2022 Olympic Games the Chinese flag was carried out by people wearing clothes of all the ethnic minorities representing the entire multinational China.

Korean nationalism is of a different type as Korea used to be a multinational country during a long period. The only more or less large diaspora was the Chinese, however during the rule of Rhee Syngman and, especially, of Park Chung-hee, the squeezing out of that diaspora to China began, and some respondents of the author compared this process with squeezing out the Jews in Poland during the rule of Gomulka.

On the one hand, South Korea pursued and pursues the policy of prevention of forming stable minorities with their own interests in its territory. On the other hand, it has actively worked with Korean minorities in other countries’ using great efforts to turn them into lobbying structures. This propaganda is aimed not only at “the right understanding of the Korean culture” but also tells that ethnic self-identification must have priority over the national one. Roughly speaking, if you are a Korean, your true homeland is South Korea, and whenever it is that you live in is just a place of your stay. It should be noted that this strategy rather failed in respect of the Russian and Chinese diasporas, though in the 1990s there even were attempts to lobby the idea of return of Koreans to the Russian Far East and creating a respective autonomous region or autonomous district there.

That is why for a Russian national South Korean claims are borderline nonsense and chauvinism. Really, don’t ethnic Koreans of China have the right to be proud of their culture in a multinational country? As noted by the British-American scientist and University professor Scott Shepherd in his special opinion, “something’s really going wrong when South Koreans are criticizing an ethnic Korean for wearing hanbok” and “fundamentally, China was celebrating the Korean culture of some of its citizens, not appropriating it.”

In this regard, one of the author’s esteemed colleagues points out that the South Koreans have never lived in a multicultural state and are not aware of the principles it works on, while the Chinese, on the contrary, understand them very well, and their policy targeting ethnic minorities takes into account the negative experience of the USSR that started falling apart along its ethnical outskirts.

At the same time, due to demographic problems and the need to fill in the lack of workforce by migrants, South Korea may be already considered a multicultural state. Of approximately 50 million of its population, there are already a million (2% of the population) foreigners with Korean nationality, and if illegal aliens or migrant workers staying in the country with long-term visas, and some others, are added, then more than 5% of South Korea’s current population are not ethnic Koreans. As of September 30, 2021 “the Chinese of Korean origin” were the most numerous group of foreign nationals registered in the South, numbering 256,030 of 1,091,369 persons, or 23.5%.  And it was quite a socially active group, which leads to Sinophobia many times mentioned by NEO.

The present scandal rather shows how closely the hanbok kerfuffle is related to the growing anti-Chinese feelings, and the author has several questions:

• If the opening ceremony had passed without minorities’ participation, would it not have ended with a scandal on the same level, with accusations levelled against Beijing of chauvinism and trampling non-Chinese peoples’ rights?
• Should the Joseonjok wear their national attire or should they, in the opinion of the South Korean “patriots,” change into Mao-style field jackets – as only the “real” Koreans have the right to wear a hanbok?
• What will happen if South Korea by such scandals fans the flame of a real “hatred war” with China, similarly to what is going on with Japan?
• And isn’t it what the government is preparing? The choice between Beijing and Washington is inevitable and strictly defined, and nursing Sinophobia very much helps the masses to acquire hate towards the right subject in advance.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The closer to the end of Moon Jae-in’s rule, the bolder the judiciary confirms the verdicts and charges personnel from the president’s entourage, and these stories also pour water into the mill of conservatives.

Completion of the Chung Kyung-sim Case

60-year-old Chung Kyung-sim is the wife of ex-Minister of Justice and Senior Secretary of the President for Civil Affairs of the Republic of Korea, Cho Kuk. The affairs around this family have been discussed more than once. The scandal involving the Cho family, considered to be one of Moon’s closest confidants, sharply divided the nation and caused mass rallies both in support of and against Cho’s candidacy for the post of Minister of Justice.  As a result, Cho Kuk took office without parliamentary approval, but resigned 35 days later.

The investigation into Chung Kyung-sim was launched by former Attorney General Yoon Suk-yeol shortly after Cho Kuk was appointed head of the Ministry of Justice, and on September 6, 2019, she was charged.  In December 2020, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Chung to four years in prison, a fine of 500 million won (USD 436,000) and confiscation of 140 million won. The court found her guilty of forging a presidential award from Dongyang University, where she is a professor, and a separate internship certificate, which she used to enroll her daughter Cho Min in college.

The story of Cho Min was very similar to that of Choi Soon-sil’s daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, who entered a prestigious university on a quota and then did not appear in class, while all the test papers were written for her by the teachers. Still, Chung Yoo-ra was not just a “shaman’s daughter,” as she entered the university under the quota for athletes and won a gold medal at the Asian Games, while Cho Min positioned herself as a gifted child and the author of serious scientific articles that she had written while still at school. When the girl failed her exams, many became suspicious, and it turned out that, although during the two-week internship she mostly washed test tubes and translated from English, through the efforts of her mother, a university professor, she was not just named one of the authors of the article, but the first author, ahead of honored specialists. Numerous letters of recommendation attached in 2013-2014 for Cho Min’s admission (certificates of passing internships in such prestigious institutions as the Seoul National University Human Rights Center, the Research Institute of Biotechnology of Kongju National University, the Research Institute of Medical Sciences of Dankook University, etc.) also turned out to be fake and fabricated with the participation of both Chung Kyung-sim and her husband.

In addition, Chung was convicted of using insider information about WFM, a KOSDAQ-listed battery manufacturing business, to make a profit and open an account under an assumed name to conceal her assets. Other charges included providing false data in an investment agreement and the purchase of shares using undisclosed information.

On July 12, 2021, at the appeal process, prosecutors demanded a seven-year prison sentence for Chung Kyung-sim.

The Blue House tried to counteract this, but on January 27, 2022, the Supreme Court put an end to the Chung Kyung-sim case, effectively finishing off one of the most notorious scandals in South Korea in recent years. The four-year term was ultimately upheld.

Verdict in the Case of Blacklists (nope, not from the Park Geun-hye era)

As the reader may remember, the Park Geun-hye administration notoriously compiled blacklists of cultural figures to be removed from state funding for criticizing the president. This fact is fully proven, and for it, former Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon and former Minister of Culture and Secretary of the President for Political Affairs Cho Yoon-sun received prison sentences.

But this paragraph is about other lists.  On January 27, 2022, the Supreme Court of South Korea upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal and confirmed the two-year prison sentence for Kim Eun-kyung, the former Minister of Environment of the Moon Jae-in administration accused of abuse of power.

This too was a long story.  Kim headed the ministry from July 2017 to November 2018 and organized a purge in it, forcing 13 heads of state institutions associated with the ministry, who were appointed by the Park Geun-hye administration of, to resign from their posts. Moon’s supporters took their places.

The case came to light in December 2018, when Kim Tae-woo, a former member of the Blue House inspection team, reported on the existence of a blacklist in the Ministry of Environment. At the time, the Blue House strongly denied the allegations, but on February 10, 2021, the Seoul Central District Court found Kim Eun-kyung and former Presidential Secretary for Personnel Affairs Shin Mi-sook guilty of abuse of power. Kim Eun-kyung was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, and Shin Mi-sook received one and a half years of probation.

Throughout the process, the former Minister argued that political purges were inevitable to implement environmental policies of the new administration, and these practices were customary in previous governments. But the court rejected Kim’s arguments stating that “It is an illegal act that must be uprooted.”

After that, the Blue House was able at best to declare that the current administration under President Moon Jae-in has not produced nor operated a discriminatory personnel blacklist, and the use of this term in relation to Kim’s sentence is incorrect.

Kim Won-woong’s Accusations

Whenever NEO tackles the “Neanderthalic anti-Japanism” in South Korea, one particular individual is always mentioned, namely Kim Won-woong, a former MP, the president-appointed head of the semi-governmental organization Heritage of Korean Independence (HKI) and a fighter against collaborators and their descendants.

And on February 4, the police launched an investigation into embezzlement charges brought by a certain civic group against him and two other persons associated with the organization.

Kim Won-woong is facing charges that in 2021, he misappropriated funds totaling 45 million won (USD 37,465) of the business proceeds from a cafe his organization operates inside the National Assembly compound. The Heritage of Korean Independence opened a small coffee shop on the compound of the National Assembly in 2020, as part of a project to fund scholarships for descendants of national independence fighters.  However, Kim allegedly used the money for personal purposes, such as getting a haircut or buying clothes.

Only time will tell how the prosecution will end and how long the judicial red tape will last. Yoon Mee-hyang, the main perpetrator in the “comfort women” scandal, is still a member of the current parliament, and it wasn’t until now that she is going to be purged from the ruling party facing the problems of low approval ratings of the democratic presidential candidate.

Next in line, perhaps, is the former special prosecutor Park Young-soo, who led the investigation against President Park Geun-hye. In the course of the “Seongnamgate”, it was found out for certain that Park was an executive adviser to Hwacheon Daeyu, a company suspected of receiving political favors, which his daughter worked for. There is, however, information, though not yet fully verified, that in addition to high fees, Park, along with former Supreme Court judge Kwon Soon-il (who, incidentally, had acquitted Lee Jae-myung in the case of election laws violation) and several others were promised 50 billion won each in exchange for helping Hwacheon Daeyu in sensitive cases and other lobbying. And this is not the first scandal involving this former special prosecutor.

Not all of these cases will lead to convictions before the elections, but they all form an emblematic background showing how the current South Korean government, leaving the Blue House in 2022, “has caught up with and outdone” those whom it defeated during the Candle Revolution.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

After describing the Conservatives’ internal party problems, it is time to talk about the scandals accompanying Yoon, because as the election nears, the author gets the impression that the 2022 election is unprecedented in terms of mudslinging by the candidates on each other.

On the one hand, Yoon and his family have been spared a number of unpleasant criminal cases and now, for example, his convicted relatives cannot be spoken of. On December 3, the Seoul Central District Court rejected for the second time an arrest warrant for prosecutor Son Jun-sung, through whom Yoon allegedly tried to file criminal complaints against influential Democratic Party members by initiating parliamentary enquiries from Conservatives, backed by incriminating evidence. The court ruled that the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) had not provided sufficient grounds for the arrest. Son’s arrest had been considered a key bellwether of whether the CIO would be able to charge Yoon, who was Son’s direct superior at the time.

On January 25, the appeals court acquitted Yoon Suk-yeol’s mother-in-law, striking down a prison term handed by a lower court on charges of taking state health insurance benefits after illegally opening a care hospital for the elderly in February 2013 without a medical license. She was also cleared of charges that she had illegally accepted 2.29 billion won (US$2.02 million) in state benefits from the National Health Insurance Service until 2015 to run the hospital.

On the other hand, the repulsed attacks were replaced by new ones. Yoon Suk-yeol’s wife, Kim Keon-hee, has once again found herself at the center of a scandal. According to news reports, between July and December 2021, Kim had numerous phone conversations with a man who works for the liberal YouTube channel “Voice of Seoul” (52 conversations for a total duration of seven hours) and revealed a lot of things. The journalist then declared his intention to make the contents of their talks public and handed over the tape to the MBC, one of the most influential TV channels in the Republic of Korea.

On January 13, the opposition and Kim Keon-hee tried to prevent this by filing a court request not to publish the contents of the talks, pointing to the recordings being obtained illegally. On January 14, however, the court ruled to allow the recordings to be published on the grounds that the people have a right to know the real views of the entourage of a man running for president; since “Kim is considered a public figure, the broadcast of parts of the recording falls in line with the common good.” The only parts of the conversations that were banned from public disclosure were those involving only Kim Keon-hee’s personal life and facts relating to cases under investigation.

So, what’s the deal with Kim Keon-hee’s remarks? The most controversial were her words on the hot topic of MeToo. Kim accused Moon Jae-in’s administration of needlessly inflating the problem and trying to find sexual aggressors who “make people’s lives so dry.” Speaking about the scandal involving former South Chungcheong provincial governor Ahn Hee-jung (MeToo’s first victim, jailed on the second attempt for raping his secretary), Kim said she felt sorry for him, adding “my husband and I are very much on Ahn Hee-jung’s side.”

From the author’s point of view, this is a really unpleasant remark, especially in the context that when the Ahn Hee-jung scandals came to light, Conservatives were actively engaged in moralizing. And now it turns out that the candidate’s wife herself says that raping secretaries is the norm, as long as they get paid to keep quiet. Sure, there are other ways to interpret these phrases (e.g. that those who don’t get paid are using the MeToo topic in retaliation), but let’s not engage in sophistry.

Then, Kim asked the journalist to help Yoon’s election camp and promised to pay him 100 million won (US$83,000) if Yoon won the election. The journalist was called to give a lecture to Yoon’s headquarters and was promised a fee.

In the same context, she asked her interlocutor to drown Hong Joon-pyo (Yoon’s main rival within the party) by posing to him “some tough questions” at a forum at Seoul National University, where Hong was to attend as a keynote speaker.

The mocking remarks about Conservative politicians went on and on. According to Kim Keon-hee, Yoon became influential because of the Moon administration, not the Conservatives. In fact, “some idiots” believe that the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye in 2017 was caused by liberals, when in fact it was “executed internally within the conservative party.”

Finally, Kim denied the rumor that she was a beauty salon owner named Julie and sometimes provided escort services, which is illegal in Korea.

Oddly enough, Yoon’s wife’s revelations did not cause his ratings to plummet. Perhaps the public has had enough of scandals, perhaps it is the fact that at the same time there was a scandal with the book “Goodbye, Lee Jae-myung” mentioned in earlier articles, or perhaps attempts to defame Yoon through his wife, spitting on privacy, have indicated that the Democrats have no other arguments against him.

There has, however, been quite some noise. Kwon Young-se, head of the Yoon’s election committee, said MBC and the YouTube journalist had committed “political sabotage” and demanded that the broadcaster rectify the situation by “equally airing segments about the familial feuds involving Lee Jae-myung.”

DPK spokesperson Kim Woo-young responded that Kim’s efforts to buy support for Yoon’s camp were an infringement of election laws, which state candidates and their wives cannot give money to outsiders. Regarding remarks on #MeToo, “if a presidential candidate and his wife share anti-social views that run counter to human rights, then it is a serious problem,” and generally, “how can a party that can’t even rationally evaluate a potential first lady govern the citizens and the country’s state affairs?”

Kim Ji-eun, who worked as a secretary for An Hee-jung, also demanded an apology through the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center. Yoon Suk-yeol apologized on behalf of his wife.

But much more eye-catching was Kim Keon-hee’s remark about her contacts with spiritual guides. The fact is that Moon Jae-in’s core electorate and part of the fake news public continue to believe that Park Geun-hye was a puppet in the hands of a shaman and all wrong decisions were dictated to her. And because the candle revolution was perceived as a victory for Moon over such practices, the Democrats are trying to portray Moon not as an honest prosecutor, but as a puppet of scary shamans. On February 14, the Segye Ilbo newspaper reported that a shaman introduced by Kim to her husband had unduly influenced Yoon’s campaign by working as an adviser for a subunit called “Network Headquarters”.

On January 19, prosecutors launched an investigation into Yoon Suk-yeol for violating the country’s electoral laws, leaking confidential government information and abusing his power to undermine law enforcement agencies. The allegations made by the Democratic Party refer to the fact that in February 2020 Yoon, then attorney general, ordered the police not to search the headquarters of Shincheonji Church, accused of a major cluster infection that resulted in more than 5,200 cases of COVID-19 in Daegu earlier this year. The source of the accusation comes from the same Segye Ilbo, according to which Yoon did not carry out the order because a certain fortune-teller named Geonjin advised him not to dirty his hands with unnecessary blood. If the newspaper is to be believed, “mounting reports suggested that Geonjin’s relationship with Yoon and his wife Kim Kun-hee went deeper than the couple reluctantly admitted.”

But can this newspaper be trusted? The author well remembers Segye Ilbo’s editor-in-chief saying five years ago that he had in his possession eight secret files, the full publication of which would blow up society because they contained shocking evidence that Park Geun-hye had rigged elections and planned political assassinations. People were outraged, oil was poured on the flames, but the files were never published. And now the evidence that Yoon is under the influence of shamans is very reminiscent of the story of the (miraculously found, then removed from the evidence list as fake) tablet of Choi Soon-sil.

The opposition has denied the accusation.

The shamanism scandal, however, also affected Lee Jae-myung’s election camp, when the conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that a committee of 17 religious leaders had been set up there on January 4, one of whom was a well-known prophet who heads the country’s official prophet association and had correctly predicted all Korean presidents from Roh Tae-woo to Park Geun-hye.

Lee’s election committee admitted to inviting the leader to the camp, but said it was one thing to have a prophet widely known in political circles and another to have secret advisers out of nowhere.

Here are some conclusions. While there are potentially real criminal cases against Lee Jae-myung, like Seongnam Gate for example, there are no accusations of such weight against Yoon, which prompts his detractors to try and either get him through his wife or promote the “shamanistic angle” by playing on fears from five years ago. But the sheer amount of mudslinging and dirty laundry alone can lead to a certain oversaturation, where every new revelation will no longer have any effect and will elicit a reaction along the lines of either “we’ll choose the lesser evil” or “enough with fake news already, nobody believes you anymore.”

In such a situation, the protest vote factor may play in Yoon’s favor, although this author has written about Yoon’s problems in the event of a presidency, and these do not seem to be going anywhere. Yoon promised that if he came to power, Kim Keon-hee would not influence politics as the first lady and even promised to disband a number of relevant structures of the Blue House, but what will come of this will be assessed after March 9.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

On February 4, 2022, the Winter Olympic Games opened in Beijing, where 63 South Korean athletes will compete for medals in six sports.

On December 6, 2021, Jen Psaki said that the United States is “diplomatically boycotting” the Beijing Winter Olympics because of human rights violations in China.

The next day, on December 7, the South Korean Government reaffirmed its principled support for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and expressed the hope that the event would be successful and contribute to peace and inter-Korean relations. During a December 13 visit to Australia, Moon Jae-in confirmed that South Korea was not considering a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games. The South Korean leader stressed that neither the United States nor any other country had asked Seoul to join the boycott.

On the same day, December 13, in response to a request from a KBS correspondent to comment on the statement of the South Korean President, a representative of the US State Department said that the United States was not campaigning for a global diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The American side discussed a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics with its allies and partners before the White House made a corresponding statement, and thus, Washington made it clear that each country should make its own decision on whether or not to diplomatically boycott the Olympic Games.

On December 15, Park Soo-hyun, senior presidential secretary for public communication, noted that South Korea should have a special interest in the Beijing Winter Olympics as the host country of the previous Games. It is worth remembering that at the opening and closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in 2018, China sent officials at the level of Vice Premier of the PRC State Council, namely Han Zheng and Liu Yandong. Besides, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries is celebrated in 2022, and not sending anyone means running into retaliatory actions similar to those in 2016 after the deployment of American missile defense in South Korea.

At this stage, many people got the impression that Seoul had gone against Washington, but such a demonstrative confrontation was due to two reasons. Firstly, Seoul was actively counting on a breakthrough similar to what took place in 2018 after the Pyeongchang Games.  Supposedly, Kim Jong-un may come to such a landmark event and on the sidelines of the Olympics, the leaders of both Koreas will hold a summit or even solemnly announce the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The second reason is that a month before the end of his term, Moon Jae-in can afford demonstrative actions which he would not be punished for. But it is very important for him to be remembered as a person who opposed the American course, because at the end of the presidential term, Moon should think about what will come next for him.

In large part due to his own actions, being an ex-president in Korea is very dangerous. The successors will find a way to put him away, and Moon, like a good Game of Thrones master, is not going to jump off a cliff like Roh Moo-hyun or go to jail like Park Geun-hye or Lee Myung-bak.

The opposition, naturally, attacked the president. In particular, the Conservatives cited as an example of damage to the image of the country the 2015 incident when former President Park Geun-hye visited China on the anniversary of the end of World War II and, together with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, stood on a podium in Tiananmen Square, while watching a military parade.

But looking closely at the situation, the author became convinced that in the end Seoul will habitually switch back to the American side, as it has done before. It is worth reiterating how at the beginning of the trade war with Japan, South Korea threateningly promised to tear up the GSOMIA agreement, but pulled back at the last moment. Or how South Korea seemingly refused to send its troops to join the anti-Iranian coalition, but then the scope of action of the South Korean contingent, which was supposed to fight Somali pirates, was suddenly expanded, and de facto it found itself in the same bloc with US ships. Or that Moon has met with American presidents more than any conservative president.

Turns out, the author was right all along! At first, Moon’s representatives began to declare that, based on grammatical constructions, Seoul supports the Olympic Games not in general, but at this particular moment, suggesting that this position may change in the future. Then, when on December 30, the presidential candidate from the ruling party, Lee Jae-myung, said that South Korea should not diplomatically boycott the Beijing Games, the Blue House remained silent.

Then, on January 7, 2022, hopes for inter-Korean negotiations on the sidelines of the games ultimately collapsed. The North Korean KCNA news agency announced, “We could not take part in the Olympics due to the hostile forces’ moves and the worldwide pandemic, but we would fully support the Chinese comrades in all their work to hold splendid and wonderful Olympic festival.” The “hostile forces’ moves” in this context include both the anti-Chinese campaign inspired by the United States, and the fact that earlier the IOC decided to suspend the North from the Beijing Olympics as a punishment for refusing to participate in last year’s Tokyo Games over COVID-19 concerns.

North Korea additionally criticized the United States for “getting evermore undisguised in their moves against China aimed at preventing the successful opening of the Olympics.”

And on January 12, 2022, an official from the Blue House said on condition of anonymity that Moon Jae-in was not considering participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics. The representative of the presidential administration added that a “corresponding” delegation will go to Beijing, expressing the hope that “the Olympic Games will contribute to peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world, as well as improve inter-Korean relations.” The head of this delegation was first called Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Eun-hye, who is also the Minister of Education, but then it was announced that instead of the Deputy Prime Minister, simply the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hwang Hee, who went to the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo last year, would participate.

However, Seoul still tried to straddle the fence.  Simultaneously with the Olympic delegation, the South Korean National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug went to China at the invitation of the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu.  Formally, for “negotiations to discuss ways to intensify exchanges between the two countries, which this year celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.” The visit lasted from February 3-6, and (as a source close to political circles told Yonhap news agency by phone before the trip) on the day of the Olympics, the speaker attended the Games and headed the parliamentary delegation, which was separate from the official delegation of the government.

The North was “with everyone… in spirit.” Kim Jong-un sent a message to Xi Jinping emphasizing the invincible strategic relations between the two countries and noting that “the successful opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, despite the global health crisis and unprecedented difficult circumstances, is another great victory won by socialist China.”

But here, it is worth talking about whether Seoul has managed to achieve anything other than trying to please China and dodging the bullet of joining the diplomatic boycott. On January 29, Hwang Hee announced that he would look for ways to convince China to lift the tacit ban on South Korean content, imposed in 2016, but instead there was a nationwide scandal with public outcry about national humiliation and cultural appropriation.

The reason for discontent was the fact that the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games was attended by a woman representing the Korean ethnic minority who wore a traditional Korean hanbok clothing, which some politicians viewed as an attempt by the Chinese government to publicly lay its claims to Korean culture and history. The official Seoul stated that it did not see anything wrong with the situation, and therefore did not intend to file a protest, but the two leading presidential candidates slammed both China and the current administration.

However, this story about yet another of Moon’s attempts to have it both ways would best be summed up with the phrase “We tried our best, you know the rest.”

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The showdown in the Conservative camp took place on a far greater scale for a number of reasons. First, within the logic of factional struggle and partly due to Moon’s policies, “People’s Power” has in part become an alliance of all who oppose Moon, making the division between factions deeper and more acute. There are classic conservatives like Hong Joon-pyo, who became Yoon’s main rival in the primaries. There is a fairly important bloc of notional center-rightists, which includes the current leader of the party, 36-year-old Lee Jun-seok. And then there is Yoon Suk-yeol, who happened to be a conservative against his will, and a number of other people with similar backgrounds: defectors from the Democratic Party who disagreed with certain aspects of Moon Jae-in’s policies. Special mention should be made of a person belonging to the Conservative Party, the 80-year-old Kim Jun-in. The elderly politician worked for both Moon Jae-in and Park Geun-hye and was interim leader of the conservatives for a period of time, but left the post after the successful local elections of 2021. All of these factions are in a constant tug-of-war with each other, thus putting Yoon Suk-yeol in an awkward position, as choosing to favor one faction or one group could mean losing support of the other.

This is further complicated by the competition of the leaders. On the one hand, there is the leader of the party, who, formally, is in charge. On the other hand, the presidential candidate and his electoral headquarters are a parallel structure that would love to take that power for themselves. In this case, if the candidate loses, they would usually resign and may even leave the party for a while, but if they win, the new president will stand taller than the party leader, exacerbating the rivalry between the two, especially if these people belong to different factions. Which is, indeed, the case here.

That is why the process of consolidation was so arduous to begin with, and at certain twists and turns resembled Korean drama shows.

At first, Yoon Suk-yeol made an effort to form an election committee and tried to get Kim Jung-in to head it. On November 21, it was announced that it would be led by Kim Jung-in, but co-chaired by Lee Jun-seok and Kim Ben-jung, the former interim head of the Freedom of Korea Party, which was the name the People’s Power Party used in one of its iterations.

However, Kim had his own ideas about how Yoon Suk-yeol should behave and what he should do. So in parallel with the standard electoral committee, Yoon set up a separate committee called Sae Sidae (New Era), where former democrats such as former Democratic Party head Kim Han-gil and other defectors from the left-wing camp came together under Yoon’s immediate leadership. In Yoon’s mind, it was a platform for the hesitant, the liberals and the centrists.

As with the Democrats, appointments were often accompanied by quick resignations. For example, on December 5, a dermatologist by the name of Ham Ik-byun left the committee seven hours after his unacceptable remarks became known. In 2014, Ham said in a media interview that women should only have ¾ of the rights granted to men, because they do not have compulsory military service, and only women who have more than two children deserve equal rights with men.

But the gender issue became an even bigger problem. More precisely, the issue with feminists. The fact is that Lee Jun-seok, who attracted many men in their 20s and 30s to the party, did so by claiming that policies based on feminism discriminate against young men. Yoon, on the other hand, was trying to attract female voters more actively, since after a series of sex scandals with high-ranking members of the Democratic Party, many women went to the Conservatives at least because of the lack of a third party. However, an attempt to appoint Lee Soo-jeong, a feminist and security and human rights expert, as the next co-chair of the election committee on November 29 caused such a strong opposition from Lee Jun-seok that on November 30 Lee cancelled all public events, turned off his phone and left a Facebook post, saying “In that case, this is where it stops.”

Yoon and Lee didn’t fully reconcile until December 3. But two weeks later, another conflict sparked between Yoon and Lee, once again over a “woman issue.” This time it was a well-known 31-year-old feminist politician, Shin Ji-ye, who currently heads the nonprofit Korean Women’s Political Network and once ran for mayor of Seoul and a seat in the National Assembly for the Green Party. Yoon invited her to join the Sae Sidae committee. Shin’s appointment, however, provoked a negative reaction within the Conservative party due to her conflict with Lee Jung-seok, whom she once compared to Adolf Hitler.

On December 21, Lee Jun-seok announced his resignation from the election commission after Cho Soo-jin, the campaign’s social media communications manager, disobeyed his order.

All these scandals inevitably damaged Yoon’s approval rating, and by the end of December, he once again became the subject of a meme. At a campaign event, Yoon Suk-yeol said: “The Democratic Party candidate wants us to have a debate. Am I an idiot?”  Many Twitter posts mocked the candidate’s line, and when a user made a poll asking “is Yoon an idiot?,” 97.8% of respondents said “Yes,” and only 2.2% said “No.”

In this context, figures like Hong Joon-pyo came out saying that Yoon is ruining everything and that the Conservatives could only be saved by replacing the candidate (with Hong, of course). However, even Lee Jun-seok said that Yoon Suk-yeol’s replacement was completely out of the question, and that the party would lose the presidential race if he was replaced.

As a result, when Lee Jae-myung took the lead amid such discord in the Conservative camp, Kim Jung-in resorted to extreme measures on January 3, declaring that the committee would undergo a total restructuring and the election campaign would be suspended for the time being until the reforms were completed.

On January 5, Yoon Suk-yeol announced the dissolution of the election committee but approved Kim Jung-in’s resignation as chairman of the election committee and the appointment of MP Kwon Young-se to that position.

On January 7, in a Facebook post, Yoon Suk-yeol promised to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The message went viral and provoked various reactions among political parties, but more important to the author is that until a certain time this demand was Lee Jun-seok’s “shtick”. Yoon himself in October 2021 wanted to reorganize the ministry sooner, “to better realize equality between men and women.”

Up ahead, however, Yoon has a rather unpleasant obstacle in the form of the debates. Both one-on-one with Lee Jae-myung and the other candidates. These are designed for professional politicians, who must be able to speak intelligently on any topic, demonstrating a broad outlook and making promises. But public speaking is a weakness of Yoon’s, for his every a slip of the tongue is immediately interpreted in the worst possible way, and dissected into satirical memes; and whether his advisors will manage to get him up to speed is a matter for debate.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that further quarrels will not occur. Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University, believes that Yoon and Lee have not come to a reconciliation with each other, but simply settled their conflicts for their own political purposes.

Nevertheless, so far Yoon has managed to overcome a severe intra-party crisis.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.