All Eyes On South Korea

Devyn Shea - Opinion Editor

There is a lot happening in the world right now. As we might think that the Ukraine crisis is at the top of America’s foreign policy list of worries; we should look to another continent as well, because South Korea might take a close second. On March 9, the country heads to the polls to vote for their next president. Presidents in South Korea are elected to one five year term. This election could have important effects on our country’s foreign policy and affect the world.

To give background and context to what is happening, we have to take a look back to the presidency of Park Geun-hye. Park, the daughter of the former assassinated dictator of South Korea, had first run for president in 2007. Having narrowly lost the conservative party’s nomination to Lee Myung-bak (who would be elected president that year), she ran for president again in 2012. The presidential election in 2012 was originally a threeway race. The far right conservative assemblywoman Park versus progressive assemblyman Moon Jae-in with centrist businessman Ahn Cheol-soo. Ahn dropped out of the race to back Moon and on election day Park, who had been leading the polls by a good margin, had barely won. Park became the first woman president of South Korea in 2013. She came to power a little under a year after South Korea’s neighbor North Korea had Kim Jon-un start leading their country. During her tenure as president, threats from North Korea increased and tensions escalated. Political stances in North Korea are usually labeled progressive, for having a softer stance/tone towards North Korea, and conservative, for having a tougher tone. Park was starting to implement a much harsher conservative tone towards North Korea in her final year as president as tensions sped up quickly between the two nations. Her presidency, however, came to an early end. She was wrapped up in a scandal and charged with corruption. The legislative branch, the National Assembly, then voted to impeach her in December of 2016. The supreme court then upheld the decision to remove her in March of 2017, just under two months before the next presidential election. Park left office with around a 5% approval rating.

2017 brought Moon Jae-in back into the fold of presidential politics. The election was practically a fiveway race with three of the five candidates being the most viable. Ahn Cheol-soo had mounted another third party candidacy, cutting into the support of the conservative party. Moon won the election by nearly twenty percent with 41% of the vote. Moon’s presidency saw somewhat

warmer relations toward North Korea. Moon, as the South Korean head of state, got to address a crowd of North Koreans for the first time in history. His presidency also saw the prosecution of two former presidents for corruption, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak. Moon started off with high approvals, but over the past year he has been consistently under a 50% approval rating.

The race to succeed Moon has been very competitive. It is between a former governor from Moon’s Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung and the country’s former prosecutor general under Moon from the conservative People Power Party, Yoon Suk-yeol. The most competitive third party challenge is from Ahn Cheol-soo and his more centrist People’s Party. Ahn received over 20% in the last election five years ago, but is only getting around 10% in the polls this year. Assemblywoman Sim Sang-jung of the Justice Party, a more left wing political party, is also in the race, but is only receiving a few percent in the polls.

One major issue for South Koreans is real estate. Seoul, the capital city of South Korea and home to roughly half the country’s population, has had a high demand for housing. The high demand, however, has been met with a slim supply and incredibly high prices. President Moon has been focusing a lot of his term on real estate by tightening restrictions and trying to provide more through the public sector. Prices for apartmentsand houses have been increasing and Moon’s policies have had negative effects on middle and lower class families, however. He’s handled the situation so poorly that Lee, a member of his own party, has apologized for Moon’s policies and has committed to decreasing regulations that have hindered businesses and failed to meet the results intended by Moon. Yoon will also decrease regulations and try to decentralize the issue, so that the private sector can take over.

The two major candidates differ on foreign policy in regards to China and North Korea. Lee has been fairly silent about bringing back US-South Korea military

exercises that former US President Donald Trump stopped back in 2018. Lee and the Democratic Party want to de-escalate tensions with North Korea and aim at working with their northern neighbor to bring peace to the peninsula. Yoon and the People Power Party are more in favor of being tough on North Korea and may be tempted to bring back these military exercises. Both candidates are in favor of having economic agreements with North Korea in the future, Yoon only when the nation becomes denuclearized. Yoon is also in favor of ramping up the missile

defense system against North Korea THAAD that China dislikes. Lee is against this, because of what he sees as not a reliable defense system and the harsh sanctions China imposed on South Korea back in 2016. The two candidates also differ on how to approach China. South Korea is stuck in the crossway of deciding between the US and China. Both acknowledge the importance of China economically, but Yoon is more in favor of aligning with the west in being against China, going as far to say “most South Koreans, especially young people, dislike China”. When having to choose between the US and China, South Koreans favor the US with only 4% in favor of China according to a KoreaJoongAng Daily survey. Lee has come out against Yoon’s rhetoric stating that China is an important factor in the economic success of South Korea as well as bringing peace and security to the peninsula especially in regards to being a sort of mediator between the two Korean nations.

Both of the major candidates have been marred in scandal. Some regarding corruption from Lee’s son and his illegal gambling and Yoon’s wife falsifying her record in order to get teaching jobs a decade ago. Lee has been trying to capitalize off of being the governor of the most populated province in South Korea, his rare rags to riches story, and his comparisons with the working people of South Korea. Yoon has been characterized as a political newcomer, having been a prosecutor his whole life, and can be seen as a potential candidate to help clean up the corruption mess in the country. Yoon has got himself into more potential trouble after he apologized to the recently pardoned former president Park for his investigation into her wrongdoings during her administration, which led to her impeachment. This could persuade some potential conservative voters that oppose Park to vote for Ahn or another third party candidate. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also taken front and center stage in the South Korean presidential race. As Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky’s popularity is surging on the global scale, in part due to the media, Lee has dissatisfied many voters over his remark that the war broke out in Ukraine due to Zelensky’s lack of political experience and failures in diplomacy. This remark has faced backlash and Lee has since apologized. Yoon is currently barely ahead of Lee in the polls, making Yoon nervous and has previously called for Ahn to drop out and join forces. Ahn was expected to join forces with Yoon and unite under one candidate, but decided against it.

This election is very important even for people in the US and around the globe. The election of Democratic candidate Lee could see the US lose an important ally to China, the election of the People Power candidate Yoon would see South Korea solidify its allegiance to the US and the principles we as Americans value. The election of Lee would see a warmer diplomacy toward North Korea as more in line with current president Moon and former US president Trump, while the election of Yoon would see a more stand off and skeptical approach toward North Korea. This could be the global test of China’s influence and America’s power on the global scale. Will we still have an ally in South Korea? Will China’s influence and power expand? The fate of the balance of power in the world will lay in the people of South Korea’s hands.