Short termed, short sighted

For the second time in a row, the left won in a landslide elections they were losing a few weeks earlier: in 2020, COVID19 replaced the election by a self congratulatory referendum on how the nation contained the pandemic, and in 2024, the executive power piled up unforced errors at an almost comical pace. In-between, conservatives did win the 2022 presidential election, but only by the narrowest of margins, a litany of gaffes and disastrous campaign choices almost fully depleting the considerable headstart the unpopular outgoing administration had kindly granted them.

YOON Suk-yeol simply forgot his core mission: restoring Korea's moral compass following the PARK Geun-hye and MOON Jae-in failures. Instead of defusing crises by discarding bad apples early on, he stubbornly protected people who kept undermining his whole administration, and reforms led by moderate pragmatists went unnoticed as reactionaries sparked new outrage all over the place. The former prosecutor never understood what politics and campaigning entail, never realized how disconnected he looks, never measured how good PR at home matters more than easy stunts overseas. 

If we all knew he wasn't much of a visionary leader, we didn't suspect him to be that blind. YOON can't remain this clumsy, old school administrator wasting time and energy micromanaging everything instead of delegating and focusing on the big picture. Typically, why put yourself in the position of the target for a reform as tricky as healthcare, when presidents usually use ministers as fuses they can discard when things go sour?

Now this lame duck has no choice but to take a step back, get rid of the swarm of old* retrogrades torpedoing his every moves, and focus on his core mission with a more inclusive approach. Get the nation ready for its next big crisis (Trump 2?)... If he can.

Now YOON is not the only major loser of these elections.

Yes there was simply no contest between a well oiled blue machine and a rickety red mess, yes the record turnout (67%, a 32-year high) made even clearer the victory of the former, but for all that progressives didn't win either.

The left (in blue, and also on the left of the map) won 63.6% of all districts (81% in the capital region)

Because LEE Jae-myung managed to get rid of all opposition within his ranks, leaving no platform for the progressives and moderates who wanted to restore the values of KIM Dae-jung and ROH Moo-hyun to stand upon.

LEE is clearly not a KIM or a ROH, an inspiring leader with a strong sense of justice. More like TRUMP, he mostly cares about himself and avoiding justice, and his program essentially consists in retribution against his opponents.

Actually, YOON's failure is best illustrated by LEE Jae-myung, CHOO Mi-ae, and CHO Kuk emerging as the ultimate winners. The first words of CHO Kuk, as exit polls predicted a supermajority for the left, said it all: it was all about changing the constitution, impeaching president YOON Suk-yeol and PPP interim leader HAN Dong-hoon. But exit polls were spectacularly off the mark, and the left didn't increase its tally all the way to the 200 seats that would have enabled CHO's dreams.

Where's the hope? Where's the vision for the future?  Who can emerge left or right to prevent a LEE Jae-myung presidency or another disappoinment? 

And how will LEE himself evolve to seize the opportunity? Because LJM is not DJT; he's much smarter, he knows that he can't hide anymore, that he must propose something with his large majority. Maybe expose new faces, new masks to hide behind.

Korea can't hide anymore either. Demographics, the long neglected elephant in the room, have at last become a national emergency. Like the environment, North Korea, the economy, justice, internal divisions.

I keep hoping common sense and common ground will prevail, but time is running out.

Seoul Village 2024
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* as well as the young ones. LEE Jun-seok has survived the blue tsunami and remains a toxic nuisance.

Seoul Village Season XV

At long last we managed to escape from 2020.

We're certainly not out of the woods yet: the beast is still striking all over the world, our economies have yet to fully experience 'long covid', and vaccination will take much longer than it should (particularly in Korea, where hubris led to an embarrassing failure to secure doses before the second half of 2021).

Beyond this mother of all crises, here's what I liked and didn't like in 2020, what to expect from 2021.

 

A positive cultural leader, a pro yet fun soft power... the new Korean cool!

Korean culture claimed mainstream recognition in 2020. Of course "Gisaengchung - BONG Joon-ho's existenchial Parasite" scored a perfect grand slam, of course BTS dynamited the charts, but Korean series surfed the wave far beyond the usual Korean dramas, and Foreign media started paying more attention to different beats, from indie music to trot to pansori. I just loved to see Leenalchi succeed at home as well as overseas; that's the Korea I love, and these guys brought priceless freshness and fun when they were most needed.

Respect is what this world needs to better heal, and Korean citizens showed the world how caring for each other and respecting the common good was the way to overcome together. Even Korean American Rep. Andy Kim contributed to this positive image when he humbly cleaned up the US Capitol rotunda after the riots. That's the spirit.

Korea acted as a cultural leader also by innovating in the management and the treatment of the pandemic. The country realized unprecedented breakthroughs in research and development, not just, as usual, at the product level, but at the platform level as well, including in medical fields. 

This is not just about a K-pop fad anymore. Korea proved it could be at the same time super-pro, and super-cool... just like SON Heung-min!

 

The Dark Side of the Moon

2020 should have marked MOON Jae-in's triumph, with the ruling party's landslide victory at the elections, surfing on a brilliant success against the first wave of coronavirus... but his handling of three key issues durably tarnished his legacy.  Actually the very same issues I spotted two years ago (see "Moon Landing - The Cheong Wa Dae Curse"):

- Economy: dogmatism over pragmatism, that's certainly not the way to think in this millennium, particularly when small businesses struggle to survive. This pandemic only constituted a second wave after reforms that already claimed a lot of victims among the weakest ones. And what to say of the real estate mess? The ayatollah in charge of the reforms even wrote a book explaining that the aim of the game was precisely to hurt the little guys, because studies show that when the middle class benefits from the market, they tend to vote more conservative... Simply put, this government deliberately betrayed the very ones he pledged to defend.

- North Korea: now the government doesn't even try to pretend anymore. Protecting the KIM Jong-un regime matters more than defending human rights, defectors who criticize him have become the enemy, and KIM Yo-jong all but dictates the laws (see "KIM Yo-jong Crash Landing On You"). Human Rights Watch and other international bodies have denounced this moral failure, but that's not even the worst that has happened last year.

- Justice: if MOON Jae-in's approval rates are nosediving, that's because his administration has betrayed the spirit of 2016, the democratic values they were supposed to herald, and yes, even the memory of ROH Moo-hyun. Now international media are starting to look at MOON through less rose-colored glasses, and even some hardcore stans find that they went too far. Because when it comes to undermining justice and separation of powers, this administration has out-trumped Donald TRUMP,  CHO Kuk and CHOO Mi-ae have out-williambarred William BARR, and the ruling party has out-GOPed the Republicans. The only person who stands on their path is the incorruptible Eliot NESS MOON Jae-in himself named to lead the prosecution reform. YOON Suk-yeol (YOON Seok-youl) refused to turn a blind eye on the corruption within Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling party, and decided to defend democracy and the Constitution instead of his party. By harassing him and his teams in the most outrageous ways even by trumpian standards, these thugs managed to turn a selfless liberal into a hero even for conservatives. YOON is now leading in the polls for the 2022 presidential election, but like Robert MUELLER, he's more interested in defending the integrity of justice and the soul of the nation than in a political career. 

What does 2021 have in store?

The race for 2022 starts this year, with key mayoral elections in Seoul and Busan. The ruling party should easily keep the control of the capital city, but its leaders lost a lot of credit at the national level (see above) as well as at the local level (between the lack of transparency in the controversial Sejong-daero project and the scandals surrounding PARK Won-soon suicide - see "Mayor Park to ground control"). 

After the moral collapse of the right and left wings, Korea seems ripe for a centrist, uniting figure, but no one emerges there. Because the ruling party betrayed its own values, there's an opportunity at the center right, and OH Se-hoon hasn't given up his grand national ambitions. He proposed AHN Cheol-soo to join the People Power Party and run for Seoul mayor in 2021, which would clear the way for OH in 2022, and for AHN in 2027. To the left, the future could belong to people like GEUM Tae-seop, a moderate who left the ruling party because he felt it lost its moral compass. Yet at this stage, no one is as popular as YOON. 

We will see which welcome pack KIM Jong-un prepared for Joe BIDEN, how long Yoshihide SUGA survives on top (anyway, whoever succeeds him, without or "With Yoshihide Suga, Nippon Kaigi remains in charge of Japan politics"), what kind of pressure China intends to exert on South Korea... 

We will of course keep an eye on the evolution of Seoul's cityscape, the 3rd Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, the impact of Sejong-daero revamping. 

And I might have a surprise or two in the fiction department. Thank you again, dear readers, for downloading my collection of short stories, 'Seoul VillageS', from all over the world. Your kind feedback brightened this dark year.

I wish us all a better year 2021, full of health and love. And if this year of the cow brings us another roaring tiger, let's not lose hope and let's not forget the power of laughter.

Seoul Village 2021
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PS - ICYMI, the manual to 2020:

Parasite:

Stay safe and follow the instructions:

1) #stayhome while your government takes care of things: pic.twitter.com/baLsCGMMYl

— Stephane MOT (@stephanemot) March 20, 2020

2) keep informed by following trustable sources of information: pic.twitter.com/t2M30eMhZp

— Stephane MOT (@stephanemot) March 20, 2020

3) but remember to keep your distances and follow basic hygiene tips: pic.twitter.com/cgkShhrkE2

— Stephane MOT (@stephanemot) March 20, 2020

4) #WashYourHands and clap everyday to thank exhausted #health workhorses: pic.twitter.com/rIWjYg5SO4

— Stephane MOT (@stephanemot) March 20, 2020

Eternal Shame

When LEE Yong-soo was a kid, she became one of Imperial Japan military's 200,000+ sex slaves. In 1992, she was among the first 'Comfort Women' who came out, overcoming their shame, and speaking about the unspeakable. And people listened to this amazing human being all the way to the States, where she helped Mike HONDA pass a landmark House Resolution (H.R. 121).

Long before Greta THUNBERG How-Dare-You-ed Donald TRUMP and other world leaders, the ever young Yong-soo Look-At-Me-ed Shinzo ABE with her powerful voice, the voice of hundreds of thousands of young girls who were stolen their youth, raped, tortured, murdered.

Now 91, she's still fighting for justice. As if fighting for the resolution of 'Comfort Women' tragedies were not enough, LEE Yong-soo has now to expose the corrupt pseudo-activists who used her and fellow survivors for their own profit. Over the past weeks, scandals around YOON Mee-hyang have been piling up at a CHOI Soon-sil / CHO Kuk pace. The ruling party keeps defending her as blindly as it did with CHO Kuk months ago (see "Moon Landing - The Cheong Wa Dae Curse"), and here again, they should be doing the exact opposite. At least, this time, MOON Jae-in avoids defending the culprit publicly...

Back in 2011 - "One Thousand Wednesdays"

Even before the prosecutor started investigating her, the public has judged YOON guilty on all charges. And just like with CHO Kuk, a large majority thinks she should resign (she was elected a MP last month). YOON doesn't seem to feel any remorse, and even displays the most shameless behaviors (accusing LEE of senility probably among her lowest lows). I only met YOON once, years ago, but she struck me as someone who preferred the status quo to compromise. She already measured her achievements in terms of real estate, and the actual resolution of the tragedy was much better heralded by LEE .

LEE Yong-soo Halmoni leaves a very different impression. She radiates energy, compassion, and humor. She fights for justice. Not for Korea, not against Japan. She aims at reconciliation to help both countries face the past and the future soundly, without fueling mutual hatred. She reaches for the youth not to indoctrinate them, but to help them make their own unbiased opinions.

We must keep demanding justice for the victims of Imperial Japan, we must now also demand justice for them as victims of pseudo-activists. Real activists and the ruling party should immediately stop defending YOON against LEE.

Don't they realize how bad you look when you chose the wrong side of justice? Don't they realize that CHO Kuk and YOON Mee-hyang scandals are all about people who corrupted activism, people who betrayed the very ideals they pretended to stand for? Don't they realize that supporting them blindly is the worst thing genuine activists should do?

The more YOON Mee-hyang tries to silence LEE Hamoni, the more it backfires. She eventually decided to remain below radar surface until parliamentary immunity protects her. But Korea shouldn't let that happen.

Imagine one instant if Dear LEE Yong-soo Halmoni were to pass away before Justice is delivered:

• We already know how History will judge all the Japanese governments that not only refused to resolve the 'Comfort Women' issues, but also tried to silence her and prevent Japan and the world from knowing about these atrocities.
• We can guess how History will remember YOON Mee-hyang
• But how would those who defended YOON against LEE ever forgive themselves? It's up to them to avoid eternal shame.

One sure thing: LEE Yong-soo Halmoni will forever stand as an inspiring hero, who overcame her shame to expose those who truly deserved it. Regardless of the flag or banner they carry.

Seoul Village 2020
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Moon Landing - The Cheong Wa Dae Curse

Is MOON Jae-in losing it? Is the Cheong Wa Dae curse eventually catching up with him? How much is this weird leadership crisis affecting Korea's future? And to start with, am I sounding a bit too dramatic?

Last year (see "Checks and balances"), I singled out "three disturbingly noxious axes" around which MOON's very character was being questioned:

• is he being too much played by KIM Jong-un? 
• is he letting ideology too much undermine the economy? 
• is he taking too much liberty with separation of powers?

Since then, the least one could say is that MJI did nothing to clear mounting fears around these axes. Worse, the way he's coping with CHO Kuk scandals is now threatening his whole presidency to its very core.

MOON's controversial decision to stop sharing intelligence with Japan as a retaliation to Shinzo Abe's trade war on Korea perfectly illustrates the malaise around all three axes:

• North Korea? Clearly the biggest winner of this decision (not to mention China or Russia, also pleased to see the ROK-US-Japan tripartite alliance weakened in a most sensible part). South Korea has the most to lose as KIM Jong-un's most exposed neighbor, and MOON appears once more as someone eager to seize any alibi to undermine his own country's security in favor of the North.
• The economy? By retaliating on political and military dimensions, MOON plays ABE's hand, and makes it even more difficult to quickly solve an already tricky trade conflict that impacts key parts of Korea's badly weakened economy. If ABE started the trade war as the one shooting himself in the foot ("Japan v. Japan - Artificial Belligerence v. Artificial Intelligence"), MOON not only follows suit, but does so with a bazooka.
• Democracy? Pulling out of 'GSOMIA'* grabs all headlines when MOON needs a diversion from the CHO Kuk scandal. The decision came out of the blue (house), without a proper debate on the impacts.

If this looks bad, what to say of MOON's obstination to support CHO Kuk, his Justice minister nominee?

Every day brings new revelations about CHO's misdeeds. The man who posed as a champion against corruption managed to bring back memories of the two most corrupt characters in the saga that led to PARK Geun-hye's impeachment: like him, CHOI Soon-sil erected an outrageous system to illegally favor her daughter's studies and career, and like him, WOO Byung-woo brought shame on SNU Law School by bending law to destroy justice.

The controversial CHO Kuk

CHO's nomination for justice seems doomed, yet MOON Jae-in keeps supporting him as stubbornly as he does for economic advisers that have like himself no clues about economics, and accelerate a downward spiral ahead of the upcoming global downturn.

The case of CHO is much more serious, and existential for MOON, but all in denial, he doesn't seem to realize what's at stake. Everybody knew he was weak on North Korea and the economy, but failing on the very values that brought him there, on justice, on fairness, on transparency... this is the ultimate betrayal, and the president is already losing his base: recent polls show that a majority of youth have now a negative opinion of him. And Korea University students as well as Seoul National University students are starting to demonstrate following the footsteps of Ewha students, who started the movement that brought down PARK, and set the tone with apolitical approaches, focusing on wrongs to be fixed (CHOI Soon-sil's daughter benefited from illegal support at Ewha, CHO's daughter at KU).


The onus is also on lawmakers from the ruling party, who will have to face the consequences of enabling this mess (if not to face history the way GOP congressmen will for enabling Trump)... but no one wants to be the catalyst before the elections, and the scapegoat for the rout. 

No political leader, left, center, or right, seems to stand out as a credible solution for the future. Could a dangerous populist emerge from the ashes of burned illusions? Korea deserves so much better. It proved so beautifully that it could rise to the highest ideals of democracy.

Of course MOON Jae-in doesn't risk impeachment for defending one rotten apple, but his capacity to run the country could be seriously challenged if he loses all support, further undermining an already weakened nation. So let's hope the President sees reason before it's too late.

Seoul Village 2019
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* General Security Of Military Information Agreement