On April 27, 2023, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, was invited to a White House dinner. If you read about this event from any mainstream media source, you most likely got a very narrow impression of the type of person Yoon Suk Yeol is. The New York Times referred to Yoon as flattering, NBC News claimed that he “stole the show,” and various outlets such as Politico and Reuters joked about him “wooing” the White House and extolled his singing abilities. Indeed, if you were to read any of these articles without knowing who he is, you may start to think that he’s a rather likable person. As for what the real Yoon Suk Yeol is like, nothing could be further from the truth. Ever since his election in 2022, Yoon has spurred several controversies in South Korea and galvanized many protests.
As soon as Yoon Suk Yeol was elected, many South Koreans immediately had concerns. Yoon began his presidency by implementing his plans to abolish South Korea’s gender ministry, one of the only facets of the South Korean government that had been protecting women’s rights. The goals of the ministry were to expand women’s participation in society, prevent domestic and sexual violence, and promote equity and equality in the workplace.
As a nation with the greatest gender wage gap of any wealthy nation, and according to the Division of International Studies at Hanyang University, a staggering rate of 3.4 sexual assaults per hour, many felt that the gender ministry was necessary to effect change in South Korean society. According to Jean Mackenzie for the BBC, many feminists in South Korea, a majority of whom refused to give their names in the article out of fear, feel that without the gender equality ministry, progress towards women’s rights in South Korea would be lost.
Yoon has also erased history within Korea. Not only did he not attend the commemoration ceremony for the Jeju massacre, in which tens of thousands of Koreans were killed, but he’s also erased mention of the Jeju Massacre and other major events in Korean textbooks. According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the Yoon administration’s Ministry of Education has erased mention of the Gwangju Uprising, one of the worst massacres in modern Korean history. These important events have effectively been ignored by the Yoon administration, effectively censoring South Korea’s education system.
Finally, Yoon has drawn attention for his horrific policies on workers’ rights and the work week, spurring mass protests in South Korea. In March of 2023, Yoon proposed to increase the maximum workweek from 52 hours to 69 hours. This, as stated by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, would cause immense harm to workers’ health and personal lives. In a nation that already works nearly 200 more hours yearly than the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average, this would have damaged the already fragile work-life balance that South Koreans have. And while the Yoon administration decided not to go forward with this plan after major protests from South Korean youth, the fact that they were willing to implement this proposal showcases a serious lack of respect for the Korean people.
That brings us to the culmination of all of this; Yoon does not care for the Korean people. He does not care about the plight of Korean women, he does not care about Koreans living above the 38th parallel, he does not care about properly teaching Korean history, and he most certainly does not care about Korean workers. What he does care for, however, is the interests of corporations, the Korean Conservative Party, and those of other nations. Despite the intense workplace discrimination within Korea, he made time to memorize the lyrics to American Pie, all to put on a show for the American media.
Dr. John Delury, scholar and professor at South Korea’s prestigious Yonsei University, put it eloquently when he said, “Younger Koreans don’t know the lyrics to ‘American Pie,’ but they know about the Inflation Reduction Act.” So the next time you see the Washington Post or the New York Times discuss how charming Yoon Suk Yeol appears, keep in mind that, while he may act like a Thomas More, noble and likable, he is in reality closer to being a King Henry VIII — completely disconnected from the people and others in his government.
