As of this writing, the present writer remains blocked by the official X account of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch for reasons that have never been explained.

This post is mainly a follow-up to my previous one on WW2, as well as a housecleaning message of sorts.

As soon as I hit Publish on “Yet Another Anti-Western Overseas Korean Posing As a ‘Revolutionary’,” I realized I had not really addressed the main factors behind WW2 itself. To be honest, it is such a complex topic that it would require days of research to offer serious treatment of it, and my post was mainly meant to draw attention to the unfortunate tendency of culture war to subvert serious intellectual discussion on how the Empire maintains its hold on the Korean Peninsula.

Nevertheless, I believe we can draw a parallel between the core ideological conflict behind WW2 and today, which as we write seems to be building to a larger global conflict as well – with the Korean Peninsula caught in the middle.

In his post, Park Ji-hoon invoked WW2 without bothering to explain what it was all about. Were he to have done so with even a modicum of intellectual seriousness or historical understanding, his entire thesis – that the USSR single-handedly defeated Nazi Germany – would have been exposed as absurd. Of course, when one substitutes mindless culture war for serious class analysis, absurd conclusions are all but inevitable.

Broadly speaking, WW2 was liberalism and socialism teaming up to defeat fascism. (More exactly, it was liberal capitalism and international socialism allied against national socialism, at least in the European zone; Imperial Japan was itself fascist, but it was much more a transnational empire so characterizing it as national socialist would be incorrect.) What Park fails to even consider is why liberalism would ally with socialism in the first place. In fact, that same dynamic plays out today insofar as so-called “socialists” like Park and sundry other ethnic-Korean culture warriors are often leveraged by the Empire as useful idiots to shore up its own power.

It is a mainstream view that the United Kingdom saw Nazi Germany as a rising economic threat and sought to check it. This is the so-called “Thucydides Trap” thesis, which in turn is often invoked today in the context of China’s ascendancy and its perceived threat against US “hegemony.”

While persecution of Jews in the Third Reich was known in the UK prior to outbreak of WW2, it was not the chief motive for its entry into war against Nazi Germany. The UK formally declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 following Germany’s invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Awareness of systematic mass murder European Jews, or what later came to be known as the Holocaust, only came to the attention of British authorities three years later. Public acknowledgment finally came in December of 1942.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, popular sentiment in the US was opposed to entering the war against Nazi Germany. Given the subsequent mass slaughter in the European theater, such reservations were not without reason. Financial elites in the US and UK, however, saw their interests in Western Europe greatly threatened by the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and others, which were largely hostile to transnational capital.

Pearl Harbor provided the necessary casus belli for the US to enter WW2. Whether it was a “LIHOP” or “Let It Happen On Purpose” event along the lines of the September 11th attacks is a matter of much historical dispute. What is clear is that Imperial Japan was itself a monster largely of US, Wall Street and City of London creation. It was the US that had forced open Japan in the mid-19th Century and compelled it to embark on a program of fast-track modernization. It became a widely recognized “great power” with its defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Jacob Schiff of NY-based Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and other Western financial interests had provided Japan with crucial funding to wage its successful war on Russia, which in turn allowed its expansion into Manchuria and other parts of China. (Schiff’s own primary motive was to punish “anti-Semitic” Russia.) Without such financial support, it is doubtful Japan would have become such an aggressive imperial power in Asia. Thus the US and Western global capital can be said to have played a part in allowing Imperial Japan to seize control of the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th Century.

Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s “Black Ships” approach the entrance of Edo Bay, now Tokyo Bay, in 1853. (Arrival of American Ships: Picture of a Gathering of Feudal Retainers by Toshu Shogetsu, 1889.)

It is well-known that Churchill personally hated Stalin. While Roosevelt was less hostile towards him, he was hardly friendly towards the communist cause. Nevertheless, an “alliance of convenience” was required to take out the powerful fascist forces on Continental Europe, including not only those of Germany and Italy but also Romania, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia. Thus the massive Lend-Lease program the US provided the USSR – and Chinese forces – in support, which Park completely ignores.

That the Western powers were hostile towards the USSR and the soon-to-be-established PRC quickly became apparent with the end of WW2. The US and the PRC engaged in bloody combat on the Korean Peninsula just five years later. The so-called “Cold War” became even hotter during the Vietnam War; the USSR and the PRC both supplied North Vietnam with massive military and financial support as well as troops. In my previous post, I noted that my grandfather served in WW2. I add here in passing that my own parents divorced as a consequence of my father’s activism against the Vietnam War; I remain estranged from my mother, whom I barely knew growing up, to this day. When I speak out against the US Empire, it is very much personal.

We have shown how Park’s framing of WW2 in civilizational or cultural terms is cartoonishly absurd. Indeed, we rarely see Western “chauvinists” celebrating victory over fascism in WW2 today. Quite the opposite: Younger generations of Western “chauvinists,” including white nationalists and even many populists, view Western participation in WW2 as a civilizational defeat in the longer historical trajectory. While we are not white nationalists ourselves, there is some merit to such views: Global capitalism is fundamentally hostile to nationalism. Whenever and wherever liberalism triumphs, erosion of popular sovereignty is the inevitable outcome. It’s no accident that Eastern European states remained largely homogenous during the Cold War; since then, liberalism has “diversified” them rapidly.

In other words, Park has created a largely fictional straw man in denouncing Western “chauvinist” attempts to claim victory over Nazi Germany in WW2. In the greater arc of history, it was a victory of liberalism over fascism, with liberalism itself fundamentally at odds with both Western and Eastern Civilizations. Thus Park leverages cultural war to mystify history and advance his own arguably bourgeois class interests in the process.

In recent years, we have seen countless “woke” and pseudo-revolutionary ethnic Koreans in the West denounce the chimera of “white supremacy” while largely ignoring the ongoing class war against average workers in the West and even in South Korea. Indeed, they rarely bother to even examine how global capital maintains a stranglehold on South Korea and continues to block unification in the process.

We have studied the personal backgrounds of many of these individuals and invariably they are funded either directly or indirectly by the Empire. Many receive grants from foundations and NGOS that are bankrolled by global capital. Others are ensconced in the Western academy, which itself is in ideological lockstep with the Empire. As we noted in our original post, Park’s “anti-racism” is itself official imperial policy. Obviously, “anti-racism” is a key battering ram to weaken both populism in the West and nationalism around the world. It is for this reason that we argue that Park’s class interests are aligned with the Empire insofar as he helps run cover for it whether wittingly or not.

We find ourselves wearied by having to divert so much time and energy to mindless culture and race war, which foreground identity at the expense of serious economic and class analysis, and thus serve the Empire. Every time a “woke” Korean-American or pseudo-revolutionary ethnic Korean in the West attacks “white supremacy,” they help radicalize minorities in the West and alienate many ordinary workers in the West – and thereby preempt formation of a broader alliance against parasitic global capital. Divide and rule: A strategy as old as empire.

Unfortunately, we have increasingly found little support in pushing back against divisive and often hateful culture or race war that in turn helps shore up the Empire on the Korean Peninsula. Our previous post was met with shrugs of indifference by expatriates in South Korea, and even cost us followers. It is truly mind-boggling to see fake history and hate against Westerners receive massively more engagement than truth and opposition against the imperial stranglehold on the Korean Peninsula.

No doubt, many expatriates may find it distasteful to even debate these topics. Yet silence only ensures critical scrutiny of the Empire in both Korea and other parts of Asia remains diverted, while younger generations in the West become even more polarized and divided. As South Korea itself becomes more diversified, such culture war is certain to advance here without serious intellectual opposition.

At the same time, however, we must single out moral cowardice as a contributing factor in the general lack of willingness to weigh in on these debates. Our recent posts on South Korea and the Iran war were likewise met with public silence, although we did receive a number of private responses. Once upon a time, expatriates in South Korea were willing to engage in serious intellectual debate online, but those days are well in the past. In the case of the Iran war, I certainly do not expect everyone to agree with me, but surely it is worth debating whether it is or isn’t in the interests of South Korea.

It is our view that the Iran war is not at all in the interests of the South Korean people and expatriates who live and work here. At the start of this post, we placed Britain’s war against Nazi Germany within the “Thucydides Trap” framework and in turn drew a parallel with the rise of China today. It is widely recognized that the war on Iran, and also Russia, is an indirect attack on China. Both are key suppliers of energy to China, and crucial players in the emerging BRICS alliance. The longer the war goes on, the more likely South Korea is to be dragged directly into it. Yet on X, we find very few expatriates willing to speak out against the war, while at the same time barely sentient neoconservatives like Robert Kelly and Gordon Chang suck up much of the oxygen and thereby ensure South Korea remains on the imperial plantation.

In this way, history repeats as pseudo-revolutionary ethnic Koreans in the West and neoconservative “pundits” in South Korea find themselves strange bedfellows aligned with the Empire. Meanwhile, most expatriates are unwilling to speak out for reasons that seem pretty clear to me: Liberalism is now hegemonic in South Korea, and those who challenge it can face serious professional repercussions. Indeed, some time ago, the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, a key vector of liberal ideology, actually blocked me on X. (Honestly, I cannot even recall engaging with its account.) When I drew this to the attention of its current head, whom I have known for over two decades, he offered no reply let alone apology. This is intellectual and moral cowardice of the highest order. An expatriate community that no longer believes in free speech and serious intellectual debate is simply lost. For those who may be unfamiliar with my record in South Korea, I have published four bestselling books in South Korea in the Korean language. Yet so hegemonic is liberalism in South Korea that even established professional writers are easily cancelled and find few defenders. It’s pathetic.

Along with moral cowardice, we also think that “social” media have helped kill serious intellectual debate among expatriates in South Korea. On X, we find most “based” expatriates and even many self-described “serious” socialists prefer to focus their attention on mindless culture war and “politics” in the US. Rarely do they even bother post about the country they now call home. In the void of serious intellectual debate among expatriates in South Korea, charlatans like Park, Kelly and many others all the more easily flood the zone with their bullshit.

At the start of this post, I noted that this would be a housekeeping post. I will soon delete both this and my previous post as I, too, find culture-war posts distasteful. Nevertheless, it is a serious topic that must be addressed.

I have been relatively quiet on this platform over the past year as I have been researching my next book, which I hope to have finished by next year. I will post a few essays in coming months for those who have a interest.

Time will tell whether any actually remains.

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous posts I have seen in quite a while. Note the considerable engagement. Most replies are laudatory. It would seem that Xitter grifters are now infesting this platform.

The largest republics in the pre-WW2 USSR were European, including Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Slavs themselves are Caucasian and the Kievan Rus state was founded by Vikings from Scandinavia in the 9th Century. Anyone who seeks to define Russian Civilization as somehow not a part of the West is historically ignorant. Russian itself is an Indo-European language.

The USSR did not single-handedly defeat the Nazis or the Japanese. It certainly benefited from the US Lend-Lease program, which supplied the USSR with enormous quantities of military equipment, vehicles, raw materials, food and industrial goods. Whether it could have prevailed over the Nazis without such material support is a question of serious academic debate, but nevertheless it was real and significant. It is simply trash history to deny it.

Over 400,000 Americans alone died during WW2, and at least 1.2 million Western Allied troops. My own grandfather served in WW2, and here comes some pseudo-revolutionary ethnic Korean in effect stealing the moral valor of Westerners who served in WW2. Contemptible. What did Koreans do to help defeat the Nazis? Almost nothing. What did they do to help drive the Japanese from the Korean Peninsula? The answer is the same.

On the Chinese Mainland itself, some 30,000-50,000 Koreans served in the Chinese Civil War and anti-Japanese war, but here again we must note the US also provided significant Lend-Lease aid, including weapons, trucks, aircraft, ammunition, radios, fuel, and other supplies. Obviously, the bulk of fighting against the Japanese in the Pacific theater was done by the US and Allied forces, and the USSR did not join in such operations until very late in the war.

Our main problem with such posts, beyond the sheer ignorance, is that they racialize complex historical events with the aim of advancing the contemporary ethnic interests of the posters, and in turn serve the US Empire by substituting mindless culture war for serious class (and elite) analysis.

We have spent the past few years challenging the US Empire’s control of the Korean Peninsula on this platform and found zero support from “revolutionary” ethnic Koreans in the West. Why not? Because most are pseudo-revolutionary race grifters or bottom feeders on the foundation-industrial complex who would be cut off from funding the moment they seriously challenged the Empire. Indeed, their main function is to shit up debate and thus deflect or subvert attempts to organize against the Empire. They are not serious people.

Our recent posts on South Korea and the Iran war have enjoyed an enthusiastic private response, including from prominent academics in the Korean Studies field, but almost no public support because when one actually challenges power and the Empire, it is fucking dangerous.

Bitching about Western “chauvinism” and “racism” is the same shit we have heard for years and it has gotten us nowhere in defeating the Empire. Indeed, anti-racism is itself official imperial ideology. Serious ethnic Korean revolutionaries are welcome to join our cause. We do not expect such support from Park Ji-hoon, who actually expects people to pay CA$15 a month for his trash history. He is pissing on his followers and imagines it is rain.

Time and again, we see ethnic Koreans in the West who have only contempt for their adopted homelands and host countries. Why do they stay? Because their grift simply wouldn’t work back in the “motherland” or in other parts East Asia.

The good news is that the Empire’s days are numbered, and thus their own time is running out.

After the mayors of Tehran and Seoul agreed to exchange sister-city street names in 1977, Niayesh Road in Tehran was renamed Seoul Street on 28 November 1977. Since “niayesh” means “prayer” in Persian, the change effectively secularized the name of the thoroughfare just a year before the Islamic Revolution. Unlike Tehran Road in Gangnam, Seoul Street is a somewhat remote arterial road near the northern edge of the city. (The above images are the best to be found as it is not widely photographed.) Seoul Park, just south of Seoul Street, opened in 2003 at a time when trade between Iran and South Korea was robust and growing; years of sanctions since then have decisively reversed that trend. The middle image is from a 2 March 2016 Money Today article that quotes a local: “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Korean. Most of the Asians visiting Tehran these days are Chinese.” Today, Seoul Street stands as a reminder of a relationship shattered by the Empire. (Left image source; right image.)

In Part 1, we looked at fourteen Korea Research survey charts that break down views of South Koreans on the Iran war, which at the time of this writing is ongoing. We now turn to consideration of their major currents and broader implications for the Korean people in coming years.

Most importantly in our view, the poll reveals the great extent to which South Korean society has been depoliticized, which of course is a logical consequence of a society that has been occupied by an external power and is no longer fully in charge of its own destiny.

Charts 11, 12 and 13 show this tendency most clearly. 30% or nearly one in three South Koreans believe the war on Iran is a defense of “freedom and democracy.” The percentage rises to 36% among Zoomers and 47% for “conservatives.” Even 27% of “progressives” agree. More broadly, 49% of South Korean men, 50% of Zoomers and 62% of “conservatives” are sympathetic to the neoconservative goal of regime change in Iran, along with 26% of “progressives,” 34% of women, 48% of Millennials and 50% of South Koreans in their seventies and older.

Charts 11, 12 and 13 from the Korea Research survey. What these numbers show is a people who are increasingly depoliticized. Translated versions generated by ChatGPT.

That so many South Koreans believe the war against Iran has anything to do with “democracy” suggests they are immersed in an information environment structured to confuse if not outright propagandize them – or to instill what is called “false consciousness” in the Marxian tradition.

Major polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose the war on Iran, which Trump launched without the democratic imprimatur of Congressional authorization. Obviously, a majority of Iranians also oppose the death and destruction that the US and Israel have rained on them, evidenced by large-scale public demonstrations of support for their government during the conflict and no sign of an imminent mass uprising against the current leadership.

It is a matter of public record that Trump is beholden to Zionist interests that helped fund all three of his presidential campaigns. Miriam Adelson alone donated at least $100 million to his 2024 run; other open Zionists that contributed millions each in 2024 include Paul Singer, Howard Lutnick, Stephen Schwarzman and Bernard Marcus. From an American perspective, the war against Iran is hard to explain since Iran presents no military threat to the US mainland; it becomes much easier to understand as an intervention on behalf of the Israel lobby. Certainly, it has been a good investment: A few hundred million dollars at most have bought the services of the most powerful military in the world. Already the war has cost US taxpayers tens of billions; by the time all is said and done, it will undoubtedly cost them much more.

A war fought on behalf of a minority-interest group and opposed by a majority of the population that must bear its costs is hardly “democratic.” Why, then, do so many South Koreans believe that it is a war to spread “democracy”? Because of a category error: They conflate “freedom and democracy” with liberalism, which we argue is at odds with the interests of the Korean nation and in the specific case of the Iran war demonstrably harms the national interest.

From 1963 to 1975, South Korea sent 312,853 troops to fight on behalf of the US Empire in the Vietnam War. While the US war of aggression against Vietnam was morally indefensible and thousands of South Koreans lost their lives there, it did at least serve the material interests of South Korea as a developing nation: It received billions in much-needed hard currency from troop pay, military aid and procurement contracts; its exports also enjoyed favored market access in South Vietnam, allowing fledging chaebols such as Hyundai, Hanjin, Daewoo and even Samsung to expand their international presence in the process. It is no exaggeration to say that the Vietnam War helped South Korea jumpstart its industrial economy.

The Iran war is quite the opposite: It is more like throwing a giant spanner into the works of today’s South Korean economy. The immediate impact of a deliberately provoked “energy shock” is only the beginning: Higher energy costs hit average South Koreans and industry alike, and in turn slow the broader economy as consumers tighten belts. Inflation compounds as the won is inevitably weakened. In 2025, South Korea spent $74-75 billion on oil imports when Brent crude averaged $68 to $69 per barrel and Dubai crude, the key benchmark for Asian buyers, averaged $69 to $70; it spent an additional $27-28 billion on LNG imports. This year, Dubai crude averaged $126.7 in March, $105.3 in April and $102.3 in May, with elevated premiums for physical delivery pushing these prices even higher. With no end to the current standoff in the Gulf in sight, South Korea’s oil-import bill for 2026 could jump to $125–140 billion if physical Dubai remains near $100 per barrel; adding in much higher prices for LNG and insurance costs, South Korea’s energy-import bill could nearly double to $175–200 billion this year. Since it must pay for energy imports in foreign currency – almost entirely dollars – the won weakens as currency-market supply rises relative to demand. At the start of 2026, South Korea had $428 billion in foreign-exchange reserves; it may have to burn the equivalent of a fifth of that amount this year through higher energy costs. Obviously, a weaker won increases import costs across the board, further battering South Korean consumers. In this way, inflation waves set off by the immediate energy shock crash across the wider economy.

In 2025, South Korea’s crude-oil imports averaged 85.7 million barrels per month or 1.028 billion barrels for the year, of which 71.4% was sourced from the Gulf. Excluding shipping, insurance and other costs, it spent some $71.16 billion on oil imports in 2025 based on average Dubai and Brent benchmark prices. In March 2026, premiums for physical Dubai crude soared to as high as $60 per barrel, pushing prices above $180. The gap between paper and physical oil prices remains despite the current pause in major hostilities between the US and Iran. Soon after they signed a 60-day “Memorandum of Understanding” or ceasefire agreement on 17 June 2026, Brent futures fell below $80 for the first time in months. Yet the US Oil Fund LP, which more closely tracks physical deliveries, told a different story: A week after the MOU signing, it was still trading above $110. Dubai futures likewise continued to trade well above Brent futures. Given the wide gulf between US demands and Iranian positions, the MOU is unlikely to lead to a negotiated peace settlement, in turn suggesting that global energy prices will stay elevated in the latter half of 2026. (Left image source; center image.)

It gets worse. In late March, the Lee Jae-myung administration announced plans for a ₩25 trillion “wartime supplementary budget” or “전쟁 추경” as it was widely referred to in Korean-language media. When finally passed by the National Assembly on 10 April 2026, it had been expanded to ₩26.2 trillion or $17.62 billion at the then-current exchange rate. What very few noted in mainstream reporting on the budget is that much of it is a giveaway to global capital at South Korean taxpayer expense, and that its ultimate cost will be far in excess of its advertised sticker price.

At least ₩5 trillion of the supplementary budget compensates South Korean refiners for energy-price controls and fuel-tax cuts. GS Caltex, the second largest refiner in South Korea, is half owned by Chevron; Saudi Aramco owns two thirds of S-OIL, the third largest local refiner; foreign investors own about a quarter of SK Energy, the top refiner, and a third of HD Hyundai Oilbank, the fourth largest by refining capacity (Saudi Aramco also has a 17% stake in the latter). When first announced, the Lee administration promised no new bonds would be issued to finance the supplementary budget due to higher than expected tax revenue, but critics rightly pointed out that the “surplus” was mostly an accounting gimmick. In fact, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has been issuing new Treasury bonds at a record rate this year: ₩16 trillion in January, ₩18 trillion in February, ₩19 trillion in March, ₩18 trillion in April and ₩19 trillion in May. A government adding over ₩100 trillion in new debt in just the first half of this year is certainly not swimming in surplus tax revenue.

In April, the average maturity of newly issued Treasuries was 13.73 years with an average interest rate of 3.63%. In other words, ₩5 trillion given to local refiners will wind up costing South Korean taxpayers closer to ₩8 trillion by the time interest on borrowing costs has been paid off. Since global investors directly own about a quarter of South Korean government bonds and more indirectly through large stakes in “South Korean” banks and other financial institutions, billions of dollars in South Korean household wealth will ultimately be offshored to subsidize globally capitalized refiners now enjoying record profits amid soaring energy prices. This is especially true once we consider that most of the wartime supplementary budget is financed by debt, and that trillions more will flow to local refiners through logistics support, strategic reserve purchases, export financing and other subsidies.

Some left-leaning critics in South Korea have argued that subsidizing refiners with taxpayer money is regressive since fuel-price caps benefit car owners who tend to be better off and companies that benefit from cheaper transport costs. No doubt, they are right: Carless factory workers in Busan and migrant farm workers in Jeolla Province should not need to help pay for Mercedes or Porsche drivers in Gangnam. However, we have been unable to find any commentators in the mainstream South Korean media noting the supplementary budget transfers billions of dollars to the global investor class. What is clear is that an administration that enacts such regressive and extractive tax measures is hardly “progressive.” Insofar as they favor capital over labor, they are simply liberal. Korea, Inc. would never allow a genuine progressive near the Blue House.

It should now be evident that the millions of South Koreans who support the Iran war have been depoliticized on this subject. What are politics? Organized pursuit of group interests. Setting aside its deeply immoral character, the Iran war undermines the material interests of the South Korean public in the form of higher energy prices, spiraling inflation and redistribution of household wealth to foreign investors. What is empire? Resource extraction. An imperial war in West Asia shores up imperialism in East Asia.

To be sure, some elites in South Korea may benefit from the war in the short-term: The stocks of local defense firms such as Hanwha Aerospace and LIG Nex1 have naturally soared, as have companies in the energy sector. Along with the ₩26.2 trillion “wartime supplementary budget,” the Lee administration rolled out a much larger ₩100 trillion “market stabilization fund” shortly after the conflict broke out. For now, local investors are enjoying strong returns boosted by taxpayer funds, and again it must be noted that major “South Korean” defense firms are themselves globally capitalized and thereby subsidized by South Korean households. More broadly, elites in the financial, corporate, security and state sectors who profit from close ties to the US also benefit by supporting its imperial war on Iran. However, these elites mainly serve their own individual interests. Average South Koreans who conflate the class interests of comprador elites with their own are thus doubly depoliticized in their support for the war – intranationally as well as internationally.

A survey of mainstream-media coverage of the “wartime supplementary budget” is instructive, and helps explain why opposition to the war in South Korea has been so muted: Across the partisan divide, there was a remarkable degree of narrative convergence in reporting on Lee’s address to the National Assembly on 2 April 2026, during which he urged budget passage. Throughout his speech, he avoided any mention of US-Israeli culpability in what he repeatedly described as a “crisis,” instead likening it to a “great storm” or natural phenomenon beyond human control. So-called “conservative” outlets like the Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo amplified such depoliticized framing and omitted any mention of the US and Israel in provoking the conflict; the “progressive” Hankyoreh, founded as a left-nationalist publication and historically critical of American influence on the Korean Peninsula, likewise foregrounded the naturalized “great storm” messaging and withheld criticism of the US or Israel in its coverage of the speech. Convergence did not end there: These and other major newspapers, including the “conservative” Dong-A Ilbo and “progressive” Kyunghyang Shinmun, echoed Lee’s moral plea that the budget would help protect the “vulnerable” while glossing over the giveaway to refiners and parroting his “debt-free” claim. It was as if Lee’s speech was not a major policy intervention to be critically evaluated, but simply a sheet of music for them to all sing along with in unison.

Lee Jae-myung laughing with ruling Democratic Party lawmakers after his “wartime supplementary budget” address, in which he invoked “crisis” 28 times. This is not the image of a party outraged by an imperial war of aggression that has battered the South Korean economy. Post-speech headlines in the Chosun Ilbo and the Hankyoreh, nominal ideological opponents, are virtually interchangeable and reproduce Lee’s depoliticized “storm” metaphor. Center: “‘Not a passing shower but a storm crisis… the supplementary budget is a breakwater protecting people’s livelihoods’” (Chosun Ilbo). Right: “‘The Middle East crisis is a great storm’… Lee urges bipartisan cooperation on the supplementary budget” (Hankyoreh). The budget swiftly passed with just eleven lawmakers voting against it. (Left image source.)

The music was nothing other than the song of imperial liberalism: The corporate interests behind the big three “conservative” outlets benefit from the billions in taxpayer subsidies in the supplementary budget while the managerial elites represented by the top two “progressive” outlets benefit from state expansion under the guise of “crisis.” Emphasizing the budget’s “support for the weak” had the effect of diverting attention from the much larger amounts channeled to global capital and local administrations. Indeed, the single largest portion of the budget received little scrutiny in mainstream reportage: ₩9.7 trillion in transfers to provincial and municipal governments, much of it not directly related to the immediate “energy shock.” In this way, establishment media smuggled in elite class interests under cover of moralistic language; they were “doing politics,” one might say with no small measure of irony, by offering a depoliticized “political” narrative for public consumption.

The utility of singling out fiscal support for “the socially vulnerable” becomes more obvious when viewed in the larger context of the ₩100 trillion “market stabilization fund,” now largely eclipsed by the supplementary budget and all but forgotten. ₩4.8 trillion in cash vouchers to 70% of the public is a small fraction of the combined ₩126.2 trillion fiscal response to the energy shock, which as we have noted is certain to grow when adding in financing costs over time. It is also a modest price to pay to help preserve the imperial status quo from which both “conservative” and “progressive” elites benefit: Cash handouts serve to deradicalize many who might otherwise question whether the so-called “alliance” is really in their material interest as inflation soars due to far-off war. It can even be argued that such “demand stimulus” further benefits transnational capital: Lee moralized the vouchers in the name of “supporting small business owners in local areas,” but given the dominance of online shopping, conglomerates and franchises in South Korea’s retail economy, much of the stimulus is guaranteed to flow into the coffers of globally capitalized firms.

Just as populist stimulus can help neutralize open revolt against an imperial system at odds with the national interest, so does surface-level “partisan conflict” itself have a deradicalizing effect in a “liberal democracy” like that of South Korea. In the wake of Lee’s speech, “conservative” outlets like the Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo echoed opposition party complaints that the supplementary budget was a fiscally irresponsible “vote buying scheme” by the ruling Democratic Party ahead of nationwide local elections in June. Such criticism diverted attention from how “conservative” and “progressive” elites alike benefit from the budget as we have shown, and on a deeper level ensures the “alliance system” on which both depend escapes questioning.

In effect, “partisan conflict” is the bright red cape of an artful matador: The bull of public discontent continually charges at a phantom target that hides the force behind it. In this way, public energy is absorbed and dissipated through diversionary “culture war” or, in the specific case of South Korea, anachronistic Cold War-era identity competition that masks present-day structural convergence: Thus “conservatives” have regularly demonized Lee as a “communist” while Lee supporters framed Yoon as a “fascist” or “dictator” well before his short-lived coup attempt in late 2024 when in reality both are recognizably liberal in economic philosophy. In short, mutual conflict brings mutual benefit as both parties mobilize voters in pursuit of the spoils of serving Korea, Inc., itself a subsidiary of imperial liberalism.

This brings us, finally, to the other great takeaway of the Korea Research survey: South Korean society today is at once deeply polarized and broadly unified around hegemonic liberalism. One could hardly exist without the other: Together, they are a self-reinforcing feedback loop that strengthens over time.

That two in three “conservatives” in South Korea back regime change in Iran betrays a fundamentally liberal disposition that traces back to the universalizing project of Anglo-American Protestant missionaries first introduced to Korea over a century ago. At the same time, the survey results reveal that many “progressives” in South Korea have themselves been liberalized in recent years: One in four support regime change in Iran, which is to say violent incorporation into the US-led liberal order, and four in ten reject Iran’s sovereign right to resist this process by meeting force with force. As we have noted, class interests help explain this ideological shift: South Korean “progressives” who came of age in the 1980s are no longer dissidents who seek to overturn the imperial order; many former activists who once identified with workers or came from working-class backgrounds themselves have joined the ranks of the bourgeoisie. They are managerial elites with comfortable positions in the academy, media or government; as a cohort, they have accumulated assets and wealth often beyond reach of younger generations. They have become the very class they once opposed: In the 1980s, they had much to gain from national liberation; today, they have much to lose in upsetting the imperial status quo. Upward mobility has also served as a deradicalizing force.

The trajectory of Lee Jae-myung is emblematic of this broader convergence towards hegemonic liberalism in South Korea: As a youth, he worked in factories and began his career as a labor activist and human-rights lawyer; if not a hard-line socialist, he was certainly aligned with the broader minjung movement of the 1980s that centered workers and sought liberation of the Korean Peninsula. However, years in government saw his gradual absorption into managerial liberalism. By the time he ran for the Blue House in 2022, he was no radical but more a social democrat in the mold of Bernie Sanders: He did not seek to abolish capitalism but simply reform it.

Today, his ideological transformation is complete: The Western political figures he most resembles are Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, whose “Third Way” neoliberalism decenters labor in favor of global capital. His current Kospi boosterism is the clearest evidence of this: Even in 2022, he was still openly critical of chaebol power; his relentless stock-market promotion has only strengthened their dominance over the economy. It also increases wealth inequality and tightens the hold of global finance over the nation. Just 27% of South Koreans directly own equities, with a much smaller share of so-called “big hands” driving trading; many are overleveraged, which transfers household savings in the form of interest payments to local banks with majority foreign ownership. The longer the Iran conflict, the more likely they are to find themselves on the wrong side of their bet.

Who owns Samsung Electronics? According to its own Web site, 47% of its common stock and 73% of its preferred stock are owned by foreign investors as of Q1 2026. Since preferred stock accounts for 12.11% of all shares for the same period, direct foreign ownership rises to 50.15%. However, major “South Korean” institutional holders such as Samsung Life, Samsung C&T, Samsung Heavy Industries and Samsung Fire & Marine all have large foreign stakes of between a quarter and a third each. We can thus add roughly 5% to foreign ownership of Samsung Electronics through indirect exposure of just these four affiliates, and this does not include local banks and other institutional investors, many of which are themselves globally capitalized. Undoubtedly, Samsung Electronics is majority foreign-owned as are many other publicly listed “South Korean” firms. Lee Jae-myung’s Kospi boosterism advances the interests not only of the chaebols he once sought to rein in, but also those of global capital. His alignment with the Empire against Iran in the current conflict reflects these larger class interests, which as we have argued are hostile to the Korean nation. (Right image source.)

The Kospi itself is one of the most globally capitalized equity markets in the world, with close to 40% directly owned by foreign investors and over half when including indirect holdings. Just two firms now account for 44% of the Kospi’s market capitalization: Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. As of Q1 2026, foreign investors own 47% of Samsung Electronics common stock and 73% of its preferred stock; foreign ownership of outstanding shares nears 60% if we add indirect exposure through subsidiaries and institutional investors. At the end of 2025, foreign investors directly owned 53% of SK hynix and more than 60% overall. Lost amid headline euphoria over a Kospi boom that benefits only a minority of South Koreans and entrenches chaebols that are often majority foreign-owned: The economy shrank in Q4 2025 and recorded growth of just 1.7% in Q1 2026. South Korea’s economy is increasingly imbalanced and leaving many behind, especially younger generations without the assets to leverage them for speculative gains. No longer can Lee be described as a labor populist. At best, he is an investor populist on behalf of Korea, Inc.

All of this is bad news both for the future of South Korea and the prospects of peace on the Korean Peninsula. A case can be made that South Korea was on the “winning side” during the first Cold War, although it came at great cost early on in the form of US-backed massacres following Liberation from Japan in 1945, a catastrophic war in defense of imperial liberalism and, later on, the deaths of thousands of young Korean men in the Vietnam War as noted above. An even stronger case can be made, however, that South Korea is now on the wrong side of history in the new Cold War that has emerged, which in broad terms pits liberal universalism against particularism. For South Korea, the chief effect of the Iran war will be to tie it more tightly to the sinking ship of imperial liberalism.

To be continued in Part 3.

Tehran Street in Gangnam, Seoul. In 1977, Tehran Mayor Gholam-Reza Nikpey visited Seoul and proposed an exchange of street names to mark friendly relations and growing economic ties, and Seoul Mayor Koo Ja-chun agreed. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Gholam-Reza was executed on corruption charges, but both Tehran Street in Seoul and Seoul Street in Tehran have survived the vicissitudes of history for now. In 1995, nationalistic local merchants petitioned to change the name to “Trade Street,” but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened amid concerns that it could impact South Korea-Iran relations. (Image source.)

Nearly one month into the Iran war, Korea Research published a major poll on South Korean views towards the conflict. To now, it is the most comprehensive survey on the subject. The Iran war marks a new stage in the ongoing process of deglobalization, which has been accelerating since the “pandemic” and in many ways can be understood as a new Cold War. As such, the Korea Research poll offers a valuable window into South Korean attitudes on this emerging global order.

The results are unmistakable: South Korea is more closely aligned with the US Empire than at any time in recent history. For better or worse, it has picked sides in the new Cold War and only financial or imperial collapse might provoke reconsideration of its current trajectory. While some have predicted a rupture in the “alliance” as a consequence of the war, we see no evidence of such a breakdown.

The Korea Research poll is broken up into fourteen charts reproduced in order below with our own commentary. Korea Research is a well-established private firm, although it must be said that several of its questions are poorly formulated. Whether this is intentional or merely sloppy remains an open question. When we find questions wanting, we will say so. After presenting all fourteen charts and offering brief analysis of each, we will summarize the results and suggest what they reveal about the future of the Korean Peninsula. All translations are our own.

Chart 1: Interest in and Perceived Importance of the US-Iran War

When surveyed in mid-March, 32% of South Koreans expressed high interest in the Iran war, while 54% said it was of some interest to them. Only 14% were indifferent. 15% said it was a very important issue to them, and 60% considered it significant. Undoubtedly, most South Koreans consider the war a major issue. The sample size is 1,000. We note the absence of Israel in the question. A major flaw of the survey is repeated failure to distinguish between the US and Israel when assigning blame for the conflict.

Chart 2: Interest in and Importance of the War by Gender, Age and Ideology

From top to bottom, the three horizontal rows break down data by gender, age and ideology. 42% of men were very interested in the war versus just 22% of women, although overall interest was very high at 86%. By generation, South Korean Zoomers (18-29 years old in the chart) were least likely to be very interested in the war at 21% while active interest rose with age. 45% of South Koreans over seventy expressed high interest in the war and had an overall interest rate of 94%. “Progressives” and “conservatives” reported similar levels of interest in the war while moderates were least engaged: Just 22% were highly interested in the war, and only 12% felt it was a very important issue to them.

The first major trend of the survey is already apparent: Zoomers are less poltiically engaged and interested in world affairs than older generations today – as well as when older generations of South Koreans were themselves younger. We will offer our own explanation as to why after all survey data have been presented.

Chart 3: Responsibility for the War – the US versus Israel versus Iran

When asked to assign blame for the war, 56% of surveyed South Koreans said the US was very responsible, and 30% said it was somewhat responsible. 45% said Israel was highly responsible and 40% said it was somewhat responsible. Overall, 87% said the US bore responsibility for the war and 84% said Israel was also responsible.

A second major trend is also apparent in these results: 40% said Iran was also very responsible for the war and 43% said it bore some responsibility. Despite the US and Israel being the clear aggressors in the conflict, four in five South Koreans also blame Iran for it. The reasons for this are complex and will be discussed in more detail below, but for now we can say that Iran seems to represent a systemic challenge or threat to the liberal status quo – and is thus blamed by many in South Korea whether consciously or not.

Chart 4: Views on War Responsibility by Gender, Age and Ideology

Men and women in South Korea tended to blame the US for the war at similar rates – 86% and 87% respectively – although women were less likely to assign high responsibility to Israel and Iran: Only 36% of women said Iran was very responsible for the war versus 45% of men.

Zoomers are again the outliers here: Just 35% said the US was very responsible for the war, versus much higher rates among all other age cohorts. They were also least likely to assign high blame to Israel at 23%. Zoomers seem to be more well-disposed towards both the US and Israel than any other generation in South Korea today. We will expand on this phenomenon following chart presentation.

A third major trend is evident in the data broken down by ideology. Unsurprisingly, “conservatives” are least likely to assign high blame to the US and Israel: 44% and 31% respectively. “Conservatives” in South Korea are traditionally pro-US and among them many Evangelicals are fervent Zionists. What surprises us most is the percentage of “progressives” who blame Iran for the war. 78% said the US was very responsible for the war and 64% said the same for Israel. Yet 84% also said Iran was either very or somewhat responsible for the war. Moderates were actually less likely to blame Iran: 79% overall. We will argue that many “progressives” in South Korea have been liberalized and hence deradicalized in recent decades. Their traditional anti-imperialism has to a great extent been neutralized as a result. At the same time, few liberalized “progressives” in South Korea are likely to have innate affinity or sympathy for socially “illiberal” Iran.

Chart 5: Blame for the War – the US, Iran or Both?

Data in the above chart are in response to the question at the bottom: “Which country bears greater responsibility for the current war – the United States or Iran?” The omission of Israel among the options renders the results deeply flawed, to say the least. Leaving out Israel has the ironic effect of helping legitimize the war on behalf of the Empire by mystifying the nature of the conflict and thereby reducing sympathy for Iran. It is widely understood that Israel is a primary driver of the Iran war, which is only the latest in a series of attacks meant to strengthen Israel by weakening its neighbors. Without understanding this underlying dynamic, the fundamentally defensive character of Iran’s response is harder to grasp. A lopsided two-against-one war of aggression becomes a one-on-one conflict that on the surface might seem more balanced to those who do not follow the news closely. At the same time, the war is artificially polarized, and blame inflation results in all categories: Responsibility for the actions of Israel is displaced onto the US, and even onto Iran when both the US and Iran are assigned equal blame.

Setting this major criticism aside, we note again that Zoomers are least likely to blame the US: Just 17% said the US was most responsible for the war, which is half the rate of South Koreans in their forties and even lower than that of those in their fifties and sixties. Zoomers also blamed Iran at twice the rate of South Koreans in their fifties: 19% versus 9%. South Koreans in their thirties and forties were likewise less likely to blame Iran: 15% and 13% respectively. Given that Zoomers are the only age cohort to blame Iran more than the US, it is reasonable to infer relatively higher levels of affinity for the US and much lower levels for Iran. Like South Korean “progressives” of all ages, Zoomers have been deeply liberalized and seem to have little sympathy for “illiberal” Iran.

A final notable contrast: Women were much less likely to blame Iran than men: 10% versus 22%. We posit a more dovish disposition rather than broad sympathy for a “conservative” Islamic society.

Chart 6: Expected War Duration and Likelihood of Escalation

Just 24% of surveyed South Koreans expected the Iran war to end within one month. Subsequent events have proven their optimism to be unfounded. 47% said the war would last longer than one month but would end within the year. 14% thought it could continue into next year. 68% believed there was a high likelihood of escalation.

Obviously, the war has been no quick “snatch and grab” operation like Venezuela, and by mid-March Iran had retaliated against nine or ten US client states in the Middle East. Such a complex regional conflict introduces many more potential belligerents and thus increases the chances of escalation as well as prolonging it. The much longer wars in Gaza and Ukraine, both attempts by Israel and the US respectively to bend motivated opponents of the liberal order to their will, are more obvious recent models for comparison.

Chart 7: Economic, Diplomatic and Security Impact of the War

Unsurprisingly, most survey respondents viewed the conflict through an economic lens first and foremost. 57% said the war’s economic impact on South Korea was “very large” versus just 30% for diplomatic relations and 26% for security in the same category. Overall, 92% thought the war was having an economic impact, followed by 84% for diplomatic relations and 79% for security. Prior to outbreak of the war, South Korea sourced some 70% of its oil from the Persian Gulf region and most of it passed through the Strait of Hormuz. As of this writing, the Strait remains largely closed to ships unwilling to pay a hefty toll – or unable to do so due to sanctions – and to those tied to nations not considered friendly to Iran, including South Korea.

We posit that the war’s great economic impact on South Korea, from soaring inflation to disrupted trade, lessens sympathy for Iran among many South Koreans and fuels more hawkish views towards Iran as we will see below.

Chart 8: Economic, Diplomatic and Security Impact of the War (Expanded)

Once again, Zoomers are the clear outliers in the above data. Just 43% said the war was having a “very large” impact on the economy. The percentage was much greater for all other age cohorts, with South Koreans in their sixties highest at 65%. Many Zoomers still live with their parents, have fewer assets and are less likely to work full-time, and are thus less often directly exposed to the war’s economic shocks. Media diet also shapes perceptions: Zoomer attention is more fragmented due to higher rates of social-media use, so they are arguably less exposed to legacy-media narratives emphasizing the economic fallout of the war.

Somewhat counterintuitively, “progressives” emphasized the war’s economic impact more than “conservatives” at 69% versus 57%. Zionist Evangelicals who view the war as a spiritual conflict may be less sensitive to its material costs than secular “progressives.” The latter also tend to be less economically secure and more state-dependent: Public-sector unions in South Korea lean left; “progressives” are also overrepresented among client groups of the welfare or managerial state. War always diverts resources, either directly in the form of higher taxes or indirectly as economic losses impact tax revenue. Consciously or not, many “progressives” in South Korea may see prolonged war in the Middle East as a threat to their own access to public resources.

Chart 9: Preferred Government Stance in the Iran War

According to an Asan Institute for Policy Studies poll conducted in mid-February, or just before outbreak of the Iran war, 971 of 1,000 surveyed South Koreans said the US-ROK “alliance” was “necessary” for the future of the country. Results in the above chart reflect this position almost exactly: When asked whether the South Korean government should support the US in the current “US-Iran” war, remain neutral or oppose it, just 3% said South Korea should actively oppose the US. While Trump is increasingly unpopular in South Korea, structural support for the “alliance” is almost universal. For this reason alone, we expect no long-term impact on US-ROK relations from the war absent radical escalation such as nuclear attack on Iran or perhaps US insistence that South Korea join in active combat operations against Iran.

In the above chart, 7% of those surveyed favor “active support” for the US in the current war. 32% say the Lee Jae-myung administration should “support” the US in the conflict, and 36% prefer a neutral response. 13% oppose US military action against Iran, but do not support speaking out in public against it. With such little active opposition to the conflict among the South Korean public, it should be clear why Lee has refrained from openly criticizing the US-Israel war of aggression. Two or three decades ago, he would have had more space to resist the US, but the flames of anti-Americanism in South Korea, which peaked in the early 2000s, have been largely extinguished since then. As recently as 2022, Lee himself described the US as an “occupation” force in South Korea, but for now he has been contained.

Chart 10: Preferred Government Stance in the Iran War (Expanded)

The above chart illustrates South Korea’s deep polarization along gender, generational and ideological lines, which in turn helps entrench liberalism by splintering collective resistance to it.

South Korean men favor supporting the US in the war at twice the rate of women: 49% versus 28%. Social media have facilitated importation of US-style gender war into South Korea: MeToo, perhaps most significantly, hit South Korea in early 2018 just months after taking off in the US; Yoon Suk-yeol won the presidency in 2022 due to the decisive support of younger South Korean men, many of whom had abandoned the Democratic Party of Korea as part of a broader reaction against perceived feminist overreach. Their shift to support for the “conservative” People Power Party is somewhat ironic, since “conservatives” in South Korea are generally pro-US and thus broadly aligned with the same liberal ideology that had injected feminism and gender war into South Korea in the first place. In any case, the wide gender gap in support for the US in its war on Iran can be partly explained by the rise in recent years of more US-friendly or US-aligned “conservative” men in South Korea among younger generations. It should also be noted that conscription in South Korea socializes many men to support the “alliance,” or at least serves to normalize it, in a way that does not apply to the average South Korean woman.

It is also evident that age or generational identity also greatly influences how many South Koreans view the Iran war and orient themselves towards the US. Those in their forties and fifties are least likely to favor government support for the US in the conflict: 29% and 31% respectively. South Koreans who were born in the 1960s and went to university in the 1980s were dubbed the “386 Generation” in the 1990s when they were in their thirties. By the time they reached their fifties, they were called 586ers, although many are now well into their sixties. (Whoever came up with the name was unconcerned with its longevity, although the need to keep updating it does reflect relentless change in contemporary South Korean society.) Many 386ers were active in the “democratization” movement while in university in the 1980s; perceived US involvement in the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 radicalized many against the US. Post-386ers, somewhat analogous to Generation X in the West, came of age amid another surge of anti-American sentiment following the notorious Yangju “highway incident” of 2002, when two middle-school students were crushed by a US tank on a training exercise near the DMZ. In contrast, Zoomers, Millennials and those in their seventies support the US at much higher rates. Younger and older South Koreans came of age amid Cold Wars that in East Asia have pitted the liberalism of the US against the socialism of North Korea and China; in this context, liberalized Zoomers are more likely to seek refuge under the “security umbrella” of the US Empire for mainly ideological reasons while older South Koreans are materially incentivized to rely on the “alliance” to safeguard their assets against the “spectre” of socialist redistribution – imagined or otherwise.

It is also noteworthy that Zoomers were least likely to have an opinion on whether their government should back the US in its war on Iran at 20%; only 7% of South Koreans in their forties and fifties had no view on the matter, and just 4% of those in their seventies and older. We interpret this marked disparity to indicate that many Zoomers have been depoliticized and simply checked out of taking a strong interest in many of the great issues of their time, either because they no longer feel they have a stake in society amid persistent economic malaise or because their attention has been diverted by social media bubbles and silos. The tension here is obvious: South Korea’s most “globalized” generation seems least engaged in global affairs. The paradox resolves itself once we recognize that liberalism advances individualism, which by definition centers the self and thereby lowers active engagement and identification with broader society.

Zoomer support for the US against Iran in the war should not be overstated, since there is de facto supermajority backing for the US among all generations in South Korea if we include passive acceptance. Only 15% of Zoomers said their government should actively oppose the US war on Iran, while 22% preferred a neutral stance; in other words, 85% either passively or actively accepted siding with the US in the conflict. No other age cohort fell below 80% in de facto US alignment. Even when breaking down results by ideology, only 26% of “progressives” said their government should actively oppose the US in the war; 24% actually favored support and 44% said South Korea should not pick sides. The Lee administration is dominated by 586ers who as a generation have largely accommodated themselves to the liberal status quo; without broad-based opposition to the war among younger generations, we can only conclude that organized anti-imperialism in South Korea has more or less collapsed with no revolutionary vanguard to lead it. The great majority of South Korean society has been absorbed into the Empire, and without a radical shock or mass awakening is likely to be dragged along in whatever direction Washington decides to take in the conflict, which itself is certain to harden ideological and economic divisions in the new Cold War.

Recent history reinforces this admittedly bleak conclusion. During the early years of the Iraq War, roughly two thirds of the South Korean public opposed the conflict; nevertheless, the “progressive” Roh Moo-hyun administration actually sent thousands of South Korean troops to Iraq to join in US-led “peacekeeping” operations there. With so little public opposition to the Iran war, the Lee administration has even less leverage to break from the “alliance” should the conflict escalate and the US insist South Korea participate more actively in it.

Chart 11: Views on Military Action in the Iran War

In this chart, 30% of surveyed South Koreans agree and 58% disagree with the top statement: “The military actions of the US and Israel defend freedom and democracy.” 26% believe these actions are justified while 61% do not. Inexplicably, Israel is dropped from the third statement: “US military action [in Iran] is an invasion of a sovereign state.” 63% agreed and 25% disagreed. While 45% said that Iran’s response is justified, 42% said that it is not. The cognitive dissonance here is apparent: 61% of those surveyed said the war on Iran is unjustified, but only 42% believed Iran is justified in its response. How to account for the considerable 19% gap? In many cases, material interests likely override moral or ethical concerns: Iran’s partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz along with its retaliatory strikes on US client states in the Gulf have for now cut off access to South Korea’s main source of crude and a significant share of its gas imports. In this way, one in five of those surveyed accommodate or resign themselves to imperial aggression that they instinctively oppose. Time will tell whether more South Koreans abandon sympathy for Iran the longer the war goes on. It will also reveal whether the cognitive dissonance of overreliance on the US-ROK “alliance” that cuts them off from Iranian oil also becomes more apparent to them: After all, it is mainly US sanctions on Iran – compliance with which is part of the “package deal” for remaining within the imperial fold – that prevent South Korea from buying Iranian energy or simply paying it a toll to allow passage of its tankers through Hormuz.

If the percentages for the third and fifth statements line up exactly, it is because both critique aggressive interventionism. Reads the latter: “The current US-Israel military action is excessive.“ What is notable in our view is that 25% of South Koreans disagree with the proposition that the war on Iran is a violation of its national sovereignty or is an excessive use of military force. As we will see in the next section, a solid majority of this group is “conservative,” which should once again make clear that the label is a misnomer when it embraces imperial aggression against an illiberal state such as Iran: They are more accurately described as neoconservatives, which is to say liberal interventionists.

Chart 12: Views on Military Action in the Iran War by Age, Gender and Ideology

Once again, men in South Korea are shown to be more hawkish than women at least in the case of the Iran war: 34% of surveyed men said the military actions of the US and Israel are justified versus just 18% of women. More women also viewed them as excessive: 68% compared to 57% for men.

By generation, Zoomers are the most hawkish: 36% said the military actions of the US and Israel are in defense of “freedom and democracy.” They were also least likely to say that Iran was justified in its response at 31%. South Koreans in their forties and fifties are the most dovish: Just 26% accepted framing of the attack on Iran as a defense of “freedom and democracy,” while only 21% and 24% respectively said the war on Iran was justified.

“Conservatives” were more than three times as likely as “progressives” to support the attack on Iran in the name of “freedom and democracy” and to say it is justified: 47% versus 15% and 44% versus 13% respectively. As we have noted, there is a strong neoconservative streak among many so-called “conservatives” in South Korea. It is safe to presume that many are Evangelicals with Zionist sympathies: They are loyal subjects of the Empire not only in the war against Iran but also in its opposition to “godless” China and North Korea – themselves more or less aligned with Iran and critical of Israel.

As for “progressives,” 84% said the attack on Iran is an invasion of a sovereign country, yet only 59% believe Iran’s military response is justified and 39% view it as unjustified. A quarter of self-identified “progressives” exhibit cognitive dissonance on this issue. When the material or class interests of nominal “progressives” trump principled adherence to anti-imperialism, they are better described as bourgeois liberals. It can also be argued that they are fellow travelers of neoconservatives, who advance liberalism aggressively and then find that many erstwhile “progressives” have accommodated themselves to their violent interventions. In such cases, “conservatives” and “progressives” are two sides of the same liberal coin, which is to say the coin of the imperial realm.

In the second to last section of the above chart, we find preferences for national policy direction in the context of the Iran war. The largest share favors the status quo: 47% chose to maintain current military power. Only 17.8% prioritized diplomacy and cooperation, while 28.4% preferred to actively expand military power. Since there are more hawks than doves, they are more likely to pull status-quo moderates in their direction should the Iran war escalate and the US demand more active support from South Korea – just as neoconservatives often pave the way for “progressives” to follow.

Chart 13: Views on Regime Change in Iran by Age, Gender and Ideology

In the previous chart, 34% of men said the military actions of the US and Israel are justified. Here 49% of surveyed men support the abstract goal of regime change in Iran by the US. Since “regime change” by the US Empire always means replacing an illiberal government with a liberal one, nearly half of South Korean men are more or less on board with the neoconservative or liberal-universalist project at least in the case of Iran. South Korean women are also more supportive of regime change in Iran when the nasty business of military aggression is removed from the equation: 34% or one in three sympathize with the goal versus just 18% when the question is use of military means to achieve it.

Zoomer men and South Koreans in their seventies and older are most sympathetic to regime change in Iran at 50%. Zoomers are also least opposed to it at just 25% compared to 44% for the latter cohort. Zoomers are the most globalized generation in South Korean history, with the consequence that their instinctive support for national sovereignty is often weaker than that of older generations who came of age in a more nationalistic educational, media and political environment. South Koreans in their thirties are close behind Zoomers in their support for regime change in Iran at 48% or almost half, although more are unsympathetic to it at 36% compared to a quarter of Zoomers. Since opposition to regime change in Iran is much greater among 586ers, reaching 60% for those in their fifties, we conclude that Millennials are a somewhat transitional generation in their attitudes towards national sovereignty.

By ideology, “conservatives” are ironically the most radical in their support for regime change in Iran: 62% or nearly two in three said they were sympathetic to it. 26% of “progressives” or one in four also favor regime change in Iran. No doubt, many “conservatives” in South Korea are hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran on religious grounds, while a smaller number of “progressives” may lack sympathy for its social traditionalism. In both cases, moral objections derived from Western systems of thought serve the Empire by helping drive a wedge between two ancient Asian civilizations whose documented relations date back to the early Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392).

In our summary of these survey results, we will argue that South Korean society has to a great extent been depoliticized, and that support for regime change in other countries is a major example as it hardly serves the interests of the Korean people – Northerners and Southerners alike.

Chart 14: Expected Impact of the War on Iran’s Nuclear Program

The final chart in the Korea Research survey shows that a majority of South Koreans across all demographics believe the war on Iran will have the unintended consequence of strengthening its nuclear program. The implications for South Korea are obvious: If even a kinetic war of aggression on Iran cannot end its perceived commitment to develop a “nuclear deterrent,” North Korea’s own nuclear-weapons program is a permanent reality that must be recognized if not accepted.

It follows that pressure for South Korea to develop its own “nuclear deterrent” will continue to build. A major East Asia Institute (EAI) poll conducted in June 2025 found that 75.1% of South Koreans believe their country should “go nuclear” if North Korea refuses to denuclearize. A decade ago, just 60% of South Koreans supported acquisition of nuclear weapons. Historically, “conservatives” in South Korea have favored nuclearization more than “progressives.” The trend is clear: South Korean society has been moving in the more hawkish direction of “conservatives” in recent years.

None of this bodes well for the prospects of peace on the Korean Peninsula. It is unlikely the US will easily allow South Korea to acquire its own nuclear weapons; sanctions are certain should it decide to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At the same time, the logic of a “nuclear deterrent” hardly applies to South Korea, which as a US client state is under no threat of imperial regime change; those who argue South Korea must defend against nuclear attack from North Korea must explain why the North would ever be suicidal enough to do so. Regardless, the utility of debating whether South Korea should have nuclear weapons mainly serves to entrench the Division System to the ultimate benefit of the Empire.

How so? Supermajority support for nuclear weapons among the South Korean public only ensures that North Korea will never surrender its own “nuclear deterrent”, which the US uses to justify sanctions on the North that block trade between the Koreas – a prerequisite to trust building that might eventually lead to reunification.

To be continued in Part 2.

ROK Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo, right, grins and bears US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, left, on 7 July 2025 in Washington. (Image source: South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy via the Korea JoongAng Daily.)

Already, it would seem, the Lee Jae-myung administration is bending the knee to Imperial Washington. From the Korea JoongAng Daily (“Trade Minister Signals Openness to Concessions as U.S. Presses on Beef, Rice,” 14 July 2025):

As the United States steps up pressure on Korea to open its agricultural market — particularly to U.S. beef and rice — Seoul’s top trade official signaled that some concessions may be on the table for strategic gain.

“Opening the agricultural market has never been painless — not with the United States nor with any other country — but through such experiences, Korea’s industrial competitiveness has strengthened,” said Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo during a press briefing at the government complex in Sejong on Monday. “I believe we need to make strategic judgments in the agricultural sector as well.”

Yeo’s remarks, made in his capacity as Korea’s lead negotiator in tariff talks with Washington, suggest that Korea could accept some of the U.S. demands for agricultural market access in exchange for reductions in tariffs on Korean industrial exports.

The shift in tone marks a notable departure from his earlier stance. On July 4, Yeo had told lawmakers that Korea would “firmly defend” key areas like beef and rice from U.S. demands. But after five days of negotiations in Washington from July 5 to 10, his language appeared to soften.

Washington is pushing hard on agricultural access in ongoing tariff talks with various countries. Japan, for example, is under pressure to open its rice market.

While trade officials have not disclosed specific details, Washington’s requests are known: allowing imports of beef from cattle over 30 months old, expanding market access for rice and apples, lifting import restrictions on genetically modified potatoes and easing quarantine rules on fruits such as blueberries and cherries.

Internally, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are reportedly open to lifting restrictions on older beef and genetically modified potatoes. The genetically modified potatoes are already in the final stage of approval, pending a food safety review. But even some analysts warn that resuming imports of older beef could reignite public fears tied to the 2008 mad cow protests, which roiled the Lee Myung-bak administration. Last year, Korea was the largest overseas market for U.S. beef.

Farmer groups strongly objected to Yeo’s remarks.

“Succumbing to irrational and reckless U.S. trade pressure once again means sacrificing Korean agriculture,” said the Korean Peasants League in a statement Monday. “The people will respond with a second wave of FTA resistance and another candlelight movement like the one sparked by the mad cow disease scandal.”

For those who may not remember, South Korea was consumed by months of mass protests in the summer of 2008 after the Lee Myung-bak administration reversed a five-year ban on US beef imports following discovery of a dairy cow in Washington State infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. The cow had been imported from Canada, although there were several other subsequent cases of domestically raised BSE-infected cows in the US. Since 2003, there have been six confirmed cases of BSE in the US, three of them “atypical” and appearing in older cattle.

The protests were massive and often violent, including the burning of riot-police buses in Gwanghwamun and regular assaults on riot police and counter-protesters, and came close to toppling the Lee government. Lee had lifted the ban to speed legislative ratification of a free-trade agreement between the US and the ROK. He survived after making a number of concessions on US beef imports, most importantly by limiting them to meat from cattle aged thirty months or younger. Atypical BSE, which is to say not linked to contaminated feed such as rendered animal parts, mainly arises in older animals.

Although we are sympathetic to South Korean farmers and feel that US beef, most of which derives from factory-farmed animals, is less healthy than that of pasture-raised cattle, we doubt there will be another round of mad-cow protests for at least half a dozen important reasons.

Firstly, South Koreans are more pro-US in 2025 than they were in 2008. In 2008, 48% of South Koreans viewed China favorably; today, only a third do. The US has benefitted from this shift: 9 in 10 South Koreans now consider the US their “most important” ally, up from 75% in 2008. For this reason, it would be much harder for hard-left activists to mobilize major anti-US streets protests today.

Secondly, the 2008 beef protests could be weaponized by “leftists” and “progressives” because a “conservative” president, Lee Myung-bak, had just assumed the presidency and they sought to drive him from office. Such groups would have a more difficult time politicizing concessions by Lee Jae-myung on US beef imports as he is more or less “their” man. Some true believers among their ranks may not like him, but attacking him so early into his term will not resonate with many in his base.

Thirdly, the South Korean public is probably weary of large-scale street rallies for the time being. Both “liberals” and “conservatives” turned out for months following Yoon’s martial-law decree on 3 December 2024. Only hard-core protesters are likely to have the will and energy to continue, be it crazed Yoonies or hard-left Lee opponents. The rest have “blown their wad” and need time to rest and recover.

Fourthly, inflation has soared in South Korea since the “pandemic.” When we returned to Seoul in late 2021, for example, a pack of rice cakes at the local traditional market that cost ₩2,000 before the “pandemic” had suddenly shot up to ₩3,000. Among the factors that have fueled inflation in South Korea in recent years are disrupted supply chains, increased energy costs for production, higher interest rates and a weakened won. Since South Korean beef is much more expensive than imported beef from the US or Australia, it is now a luxury for many South Koreans. Broad market demand for cheaper imported beef will override sentimental support for domestic cattle farmers.

Fifthly, the number of cattle farms in South Korea has collapsed over the decades as it has industrialized and urbanized. In the 1970s, there were some 1.35 million cattle farms in South Korea. By 1999, there were just 364,00; today, there are less than 100,000. While average herd sizes per farm have increased over the same period, mainly due to consolidation of smaller farms, the overall number of cattle famers is now much reduced compared to even two decades ago. Obviously, a smaller political bloc translates into diminished political power and influence.

It’s also worth noting that North Gyeongsang Province has the largest number of cattle farms and leads the nation in cattle-head count. Since North Gyeongsang is a “conservative” stronghold, the “liberal” Lee Jae-myung has little incentive to spend political capital in an effort to appease them.

At the same time, farms across South Korea are now more widely worked by migrants who lack much of a local political consciousness, and who often view their South Korean bosses as too harsh or even exploitative. Few are likely to head up to Seoul in “solidarity” with their employers to join in street protests against agricultural imports from the US. (No small number are likely “undocumented” and would not want to take the risk of participating in overt political actions.)

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there has been a profound change among those who organized and supported the beef protests in 2008, chiefly the 386ers (i.e. South Koreans born in the 1960s and who attended university in the 1980s; they are roughly analogous to Boomers in the West). At the time, they were still relatively young and idealistic. Many in Seoul still had close family ties to the countryside, and identified with farmers and workers as ideological leftists and progressives.

Today, the 386ers have become “the Man.” Indeed, Lee Jae-myung and many in his administration are themselves 386ers; Yeo Han-koo is one himself. Their economic interests are now often more closely tied to Korea, Inc. They often work for locally based conglomerates; their media organizations often greatly depend on advertising from Korea, Inc., or are even owned by it; those in government generally depend on Korea, Inc. for tax revenue or direct patronage.

Thus, concessions on agricultural imports from the US in exchange for lower tariffs on South Korean exports to the US would generally be in their economic interests. While many "progressives" and "leftists" in South Korea may grumble performatively about further opening up the local market to US beef, they are unlikely to do much about it because it is no longer in their interest to do so.

More to the point, it is in the interest of the Empire itself to see tariffs on “South Korean” exports to the US lowered since much of Korea, Inc. itself is now owned by global capital. On the other hand, it has very little stake in the local cattle industry, and has no reason not to see it sacrificed – especially since global capital now owns a large share in the US cattle industry and will also benefit from more exports of US beef to South Korea.

For all of these reasons, we do not expect mass protests against further opening of the South Korean market to US beef. We also doubt this will be the last time the Lee administration blinks as tariff negotiations with the US continue, for both he and his generation have largely been absorbed the very Empire they once so often opposed.

최근 여학생 3명이 투신해 숨진 것으로 보도된 부산 해운대의 초저녁 풍경. 지난 10년 동안 한국의 학생 자살률은 두 배 이상 증가했다. 같은 기간 초·중·고등학생 수는 약 70만 명, 즉 거의 12% 줄었다. 2015년에는 93명의 학생이 스스로 생을 마감했으나, 2023년에는 매년 꾸준한 증가 끝에 214명으로 늘었다. 한국 학생 자살의 가장 큰 원인은 학업 스트레스로 알려져 있다. (이미지 출처: 해운대구청)

한창 피어나는 청춘의 나이에, 아름다운 해안 도시 부산에 살고 있다고 상상해보자.

당신은 두 명의 고등학교 친구와 함께 아파트 옥상에 올라가 밤하늘을 바라본다. 달빛과 별빛이 은빛 물결처럼 출렁이는 바다 위로 쏟아진다.

하지만 그 아름다운 장면에 감탄하지 않는다. 오히려 한 시간쯤 삶의 허무함에 잠긴 채, 보상 없는 끝없는 공부에 지쳐 희망을 잃은 마음으로 함께 깊은 침묵 속에 빠진다. 그리고 마침내, 차례로 혹은 동시에, 옥상 난간을 넘는다.

2025년 6월 22일자 조선일보 보도에 따르면 (「부산 아파트서 고교생 3명 숨져… 유서엔 “학업 스트레스, 부담감 커”」)

부산의 한 아파트 화단에서 고등학생 3명이 숨진 채 발견된 가운데 이들이 남긴 유서에는 “학업 스트레스, 부담감이 컸다”는 내용이 담긴 것으로 확인됐다.

부산경찰청과 부산교육청에 따르면 21일 새벽 1시 39분쯤 부산 한 아파트에서 부산 A고등학교 2학년 여학생 3명이 쓰러진 채 발견돼 인근 병원으로 옮겨졌지만 숨졌다.

숨진 3명은 같은 고등학교에 다니는 친구 사이로 확인됐다.

이 아파트는 3명 모두 살지 않는 아파트인 것으로 조사됐다.

학생들 모두 유서를 남겼으며, 유서 내용은 대부분 학업 스트레스와 부담감이 크다는 내용인 것으로 알려졌다. 학교 폭력 등 다른 내용은 없었던 것으로 파악됐다. 이들의 신체에서도 별다른 폭행 징후 등은 발견되지 않았다.

부산시교육청은 공동대책반을 구성해 진상 파악에 나섰다.

부산교육청은 숨진 학생들의 학교에서 이날 오전 10시 위기관리위원회를 소집하고 교육감 주재로 긴급 대책회의를 열었다. 교육청 중등교육과장 등을 중심으로 공동대책반을 구성해 사망 경위를 자체 조사하고 있다.

또 유족 지원을 위해 이날 오후, 숨진 학생들의 빈소가 차려진 병원 3곳에 각각 장학관 1명을 긴급 파견했다. A고교 역시 이날 오전 10시 위기관리위원회를 열어 수습 방안을 논의했다.

한국의 ‘교육’ 시스템이 안고 있는 가장 큰 문제는 교육의 더 높은 목적을 잃어버렸다는 점이다.

한국의 도구화된 ‘교육’ 시스템은 주로 한국 주식회사(Korea, Inc.)에 효율적이고 순종적인 노동자를 길러내는 데 초점이 맞춰져 있다.

이 시스템은 젊은 세대를 그들의 의식, 창의력, 지적 잠재력을 길러야 할 인간으로 보지 않는다. 대신 착취 가능한 ‘인적 자본’으로 바라본다.

가장 비극적인 것은 막대한 시간, 에너지, 돈을 쏟아붓고도 결과가 참으로 초라하다는 점이다. 세계적 기준으로 볼 때, 한국의 대학들은 낮은 평가를 받고 있으며, 연고주의, 부패, 표절, 연구 부정, 대학원생 착취 등이 만연해 있다는 평이 자자하다.

나는 한국과 중국 양국의 대학에서 일해 본 경험이 있다. 단언컨대, 두 나라의 대학은 비교 대상이 아니다. 한국의 대학 행정은 소통 능력이 떨어지고, 소심하거나 때로는 적대적이었다. 언어 교재는 지루하고 비효율적이었으며, 정장을 입거나 아첨에 능한 사이코패스형 서양인들이 설치는 일이 허다했다. 학교 측은 그들을 걸러내지 못했다.

반면, 중국에서는 외국인 강사에 대한 존중이 훨씬 크고, 수업의 자율성도 철저히 보장되었다. 학생들에게 지적 자극을 주는 콘텐츠를 직접 만들 수 있었고, 언어 학습은 그 과정 속에서 자연스럽게 이루어졌다. 학생들은 동기부여가 되어 있고, 열린 마음을 가졌으며, 더 넓은 세계에 대한 호기심도 크다. 한국에서는, 적어도 내가 겪은 바로는, 대학에 입학할 즈음 이미 많은 학생들의 정신이 짓눌리거나 마모된 상태인 경우가 적지 않았다.

이러한 차이는 세계 대학 순위에서도 드러난다. 2025년 타임즈 고등교육 세계 대학 순위(Times Higher Education World University Rankings)에서 중국 본토 대학 12개가 상위 100위에 들었다. 칭화대와 베이징대는 각각 12위와 13위로, 콜럼비아대와 코넬대 등 아이비리그 대학들보다 앞서 있다. 반면 한국 최고 대학이라는 서울대는 62위에 불과하며, 상위 100개 대학 중 ‘국제적 전망’ 부문에서 최하위다. 한국에서 유일하게 이 외 순위에 포함된 대학은 82위의 KAIST인데, 이마저도 교육, 연구 환경, 연구의 질 등 대부분의 항목에서 평균 혹은 그 이하 평가를 받았다.

문제를 단도직입적으로 말하자면, 이렇게 평균 이하인 ‘고등 교육’ 시스템 속에서 이른바 ‘최고의’ 대학에 들어가지 못할까 봐 젊은이들이 생을 포기하는 일은 결코 있어서는 안 된다. 특히 서울 소재 대학의 ‘명문’이라는 허상이 지방 학생들에게 불필요한 열등감을 심고 있다는 점에서, 이 같은 명성은 세계적 관점에서 볼 때 정당화되기 어렵다.

안타깝게도, 많은 한국 청년들은 이러한 큰 그림을 볼 수 있는 삶의 경험과 지혜가 부족하다. 부모와 교사, 사회 전체로부터 올바른 지도가 부재한 현실 속에서, 앞으로도 더 많은 젊은이들이 이 괴물 같은 시스템에 희생될 가능성이 크다.

요즘 한국의 인구 절벽에 대한 이야기는 자주 들리지만, 그 근본 원인에 대한 논의는 거의 없다. 한때는 대학 졸업장이 중산층 진입과 안정된 미래를 보장해 주었기에, 젊은이들이 이 영혼을 갉아먹는 ‘교육’ 시스템을 견뎌낼 수 있었다. 하지만 이제 더는 그렇지 않다. 만약 한국의 ‘고등 교육’이 물질적 보상조차 보장하지 못할 뿐 아니라, 인간으로서 지적·창의적·정신적으로 성장할 기회도 제공하지 못한다면, 과연 그 시스템을 위해 자신의 청춘, 아니 영혼까지 바치는 것이 무슨 의미가 있을까?

이런 상황에서 점점 더 많은 한국의 젊은이들이 모든 것을 포기하는 것이 어찌 놀라운 일일까?

An early evening view of Haeundae in Busan, where three female high-school students recently leapt to their deaths according to local media reports. Over the past decade, the student-suicide rate in South Korea has more than doubled, even as the number of elementary and secondary students has shrunk by some 700,000 or nearly 12%: In 2015, 93 students killed themselves; by 2023, the number had climbed to 214 after a steady annual rise. The leading cause of suicide among students in South Korea is academic stress. (Image source: Haeundae District Office.)

Imagine being in the flower of your youth, and living in the lovely coastal city of Busan.

You go up to the top of an apartment building with two high-school friends and look out onto the night sky, the moon and stars dripping silvery light in the rolling sea waves below.

You do not marvel at this magical scene, however. You spend perhaps an hour or so brooding over the futility of life, consumed by years of endless study with little hope of reward for such great sacrifice, and in the end take turns jumping over the edge – or possibly all at once.

Translation of a 22 June 2025 report on this triple suicide in The Chosun Ilbo (“Three High School Girls Found Dead at Busan Apartment — Suicide Notes Describe Crushing Academic Pressure”):

Three high school students were found dead in a flowerbed at an apartment complex in Busan, and it has been confirmed that their suicide notes mentioned feeling overwhelmed by academic stress and pressure.

According to the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency and the Busan Office of Education, at around 1:39am on the 21st, three second-year female students from Busan “A” High School were found collapsed in a flowerbed at a local apartment complex. They were rushed to nearby hospitals but were pronounced dead.

The three students were confirmed to be friends attending the same school.

CCTV footage from the apartment complex showed them taking an elevator together and getting off on the 20th floor at around 11:42pm the previous night. It was confirmed that none of the girls lived in the building.

Two of the students left suicide notes, which reportedly described the heavy burden of academic stress. There were no mentions of school bullying or other issues. Authorities also reported no signs of physical assault or trauma on their bodies.

The Busan Metropolitan Office of Education has launched an investigation by forming a joint response team to uncover the facts of the incident.

At 10am that day, the Office convened a crisis management committee at the students' school and held an emergency response meeting presided over by the superintendent. A joint task force, led by the head of the Secondary Education Division and other key officials, was formed to conduct an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

In addition, to support the bereaved families, one education supervisor was urgently dispatched to each of the three hospitals where the students' memorial altars had been set up. “A” High School also convened its own crisis management committee at 10am that day to discuss response measures.

The problem with South Korea's "education" system is that it has lost sight of the higher purpose of education.

South Korea's instrumentalized "education" system is designed mainly to train efficient and docile workers for Korea, Inc.

It sees the youth of the nation not as human beings whose consciousness, creative energies and intellectual potential must be nurtured and carefully cultivated, but as so much "human capital" to be squeezed for all it's worth.

Most tragic, perhaps, is that all the time, energy and money poured into South Korea's "education" system produces such a mediocre result: South Korean universities rate quite poorly by global standards, and are notoriously rife with nepotism, corruption, plagiarism, academic fraud and graduate-student exploitation.

Having worked at universities in both South Korea and China, I can personally say that there is no comparison. Administrators at universities in South Korea were often poor at communication, petty-minded and at times hostile. Dull language-learning textbooks were the norm. Sociopathic Westerners ran wild because they wore suits or were adept at flattery and administration could not see through them.

In China, administrators are much more respectful towards foreign instructors, and I have always had full autonomy in the classroom. I am allowed to create relevant content that engages students intellectually, and language learning happens naturally along the way. Students are motived, open-minded and curious about the wider world. I cannot say that it was always so in South Korea, at least in my experience: Perhaps by the time they reached university, the spirits of no small number had already been crushed or worn away.

Global rankings of universities reflect this difference. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025, a dozen Chinese universities occupy the Top 100; at Nos. 12 and 13 respectively, Tsinghua University and Peking University now place well ahead of two Ivy League schools: Columbia University and Cornell University. The best South Korea has to offer is Seoul National University at No. 62, which has the lowest rating in “International Outlook” among the Top 100; the only other South Korean university in the Top 100 is Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology at No. 82, which itself has only average or below average ratings in teaching, research environment and research quality.

To put the matter plainly: No one should be ending their lives because they fear not being able to enter the "best" universities of an altogether average "higher education" system. Certainly, the greater “prestige” of universities in Seoul, which only increases pressure on students outside the capital who feel they are “failures” if they have not been accepted by one, is largely unwarranted when viewed in the larger global context.

Unfortunately, few young people in South Korea have the life experience and hence wisdom to see this bigger picture, and absent proper guidance from their parents, "educators" and the wider society around them, many more will undoubtedly be sacrificed to keep feeding the beast.

These days, we often hear of South Korea’s demographic collapse, but very rarely is there discussion of its deeper cause. For a time, young people in South Korea were willing to endure its soul-destroying “education” system because a university degree generally ensured entry into the middle class and a secure future. That is no longer the case. If “higher education” in South Korea no longer guarantees material rewards, let alone promises the opportunity to grow intellectually, creatively and spiritually as a human being, of what use is it to trade one’s youth – and, indeed, one’s soul– for it?

Is it any wonder that more and more young people in South Korea are simply giving up?

Hankyoreh reporter Kim Ji-eun compares selfies on a Pyongyang 2423 smartphone (left) and an unidentified South Korean model (right) in 2019. Unlike the BBC’s Jean Mackenzie, she was able to get her hands on a North Korean phone years ago through her own initiative, rather than relying on glow-in-the-dark propaganda operatives to simply drop one in her lap. Kim was impressed with the phone, which came equipped with an English-language learning app among many others.

It is now confirmed that Daily NK provided the North Korean smartphone to Jean Mackenzie of the BBC, who conveniently neglected to mention this detail in her original video “report” on it. Writes Beatrice Nolan of Fortune (“A Smuggled North Korean Smartphone Reveals How the Regime Censors Information,“ 4 June 2025):

A smartphone smuggled out of North Korea has given a glimpse into how Kim Jong Un's regime censors information in the isolated and secretive country.

The phone, which was smuggled out of the country late last year by a Seoul-based media organization, Daily NK, and later obtained by the BBC, was programmed to censor certain language and record screenshots of the user’s activity. The smartphone does not have access to the internet as North Korea blocks information from outside the country.

Mackenzie’s video went viral on TikTok, YouTube and other social-media platforms.

On the BBC’s TikTok channel alone, the video has racked up over thirteen million views in five days and has nearly a million likes. On YouTube, John Casterline’s “North Korean phones are INSANE” short currently has over sixteen million views, while hyperactive Zoomer “influencer“ Dylan Page’s longer segment has over three hundred thousand views in just three days.

The “story” was in turn picked up by dozens of English-language legacy media outlets around the world, including the New York Post, the Daily Mail, The Times of India and Fortune, quoted above.

Even Vice got in on the action. Its headline, “North Korea’s Smartphones Are Pocket-Sized Orwellian Nightmares,” could easily have been generated by ChatGPT with the following prompt: “Create a pseudo-hipster but corporate-friendly clickbait title about North Korean smartphones.”

The rest of its “story,” along with all the rest, could likewise have been created by AI, and indeed some probably were. Who can even tell the difference these days?

Let’s review the life cycle of this “story,” which will soon be forgotten while low-level antipathy towards the DPRK lives on for many: A small, anti-DPRK propaganda outlet funded mainly by the US government feeds a “scoop” to the BBC, which launders and legitimatizes the “story” with its “prestige” news brand.

This allows countless other social-media “influencers” and legacy-media outlets to reproduce the “story” with very little variation, and all with the same anti-DPRK framing and talking points. (“North Korean women are oppressed because they can’t call non-family men ‘Oppa’ on their smartphones, and are encouraged to call them ‘Comrade’ instead.”)

The origin of the “story,” an imperial propaganda outlet, is largely obscured. The “illusion of consensus” is manufactured by traditional and new media around the world: The DPRK is “anti-freedom” and is thus an illegitimate entity that deserves to be regime changed.

The irony here is only too obvious, but should be articulated nonetheless: None of the above media outlets has done any actual reporting or news analysis. They have simply parroted imperial propaganda, and not even bothered to consider other sides of the “story.” (“Smartphone surveillance in the West? Take off your tinfoil hat!”)

In other words, they denounce propaganda and information control in the DPRK even as they uphold both themselves. Taken as a whole, they represent a remarkably efficient system of what might be called virally marketed ideology — “news” it is certainly not — designed in this case to uphold the increasingly dubious notion that the masses still live in a superior “free world” by contrast with “unfree” North Korea.

In the near future, much of this system of control will likely be taken over and upheld by artificial intelligence. In this way, machines will tell technologically enslaved humanity that it is still “free” and “liberated,” and all too many will actually believe it.

Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a February 2025 press conference in Seoul, where they announced an agreement to develop artificial-intelligence products for the local market. During his Seoul visit, Altman also reportedly met with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong to discuss collaboration on OpenAI’s US-based Stargate Project, a $500 billion artificial-intelligence infrastructure initiative that is backed by the Trump administration.

According to OpenAI, South Korea is now its largest market by revenue outside the US. From Bloomberg (“OpenAI to Set Up Shop in South Korea to Spur Further Growth,” 26 May 2025):

OpenAI has established a legal entity in South Korea, seeking to propel further adoption of its artificial intelligence technologies.

The ChatGPT-maker plans to open an office in Seoul in coming months and is hiring staff to support partnerships with companies and policymakers, it said in a release Monday.

South Korea has the largest number of paying ChatGPT subscribers outside the US, according to OpenAI. The country would be OpenAI’s third office in Asia, following Japan and Singapore. The San Francisco-based company now employs almost 40 people in Japan and a further 20 in Singapore, it said.

US-based Big Tech firms now dominate South Korea. YouTube is the most popular social-media platform in South Korea with some 44.3 million active users out of a total population of 51.67 million; it currently commands 40.64% of all social-media traffic in South Korea, followed by X at 23.02% and Facebook at 22.31%. Instagram, Discord and Threads are also widely used by South Koreans.

For search, Google often tops Naver in South Korea: In August 2024, Google had a local market share of 52.1% versus 41.12% for Naver; at present, Naver is back again on top at 48.55%, but Google remains the Number 2 search engine in South Korea at 43.02%. A decade ago, Naver controlled 78.06% of the domestic search market, so it has lost significant ground in recent years.

Both Naver and Google can be expected to surrender more local market share going forward. According analytics firm WiseApp, 17.4 million South Koreans used ChatGPT in April, including both free and paid services. ChatGPT, YouTube, Instagram and X are now commonly used for search, especially among younger generations; what all four have in common is that they are US-based platforms.

Overreliance on US Big Tech has a double cost for South Korea: It retards development of its own native platforms, and further absorbs South Korea into the Empire. Neighboring China doesn’t have this problem, which is why it is able to produce game changers like TikTok and DeepSeek that wow the world.

According to ChatGPT, 92.65% of its training tokens are in English. It also says that it actively excludes “biases, propaganda and state-controlled narratives” from China and Russia in its training models.

Much English-language media content in the West is itself wildly biased and at odds with reality. If one were to believe the Western MSM, Ukraine has been kicking Russia’s ass since the outbreak of the conflict; reality is obviously quite different.

Rapid mass adoption of ChatGPT in South Korea means South Koreans will be further absorbed into an imperial information space that profoundly shapes values and perceptions of “reality.”

Young South Koreans are presumably using ChatGPT for research and as an “educational tool,” and in turn having their view of the world subtly influenced, and even engineered, by it.

In both the US and the PRC, AI chatbots more or less reflect elite interests, as do social-media platforms more generally. The difference is that elites in the PRC are not hostile to reality and their own population.

South Koreans will increasingly rely on AI chatbots and other online platforms that alienate them not only from reality, but from their own identity and interests as a people.

Kim Jong-un visits Pyongyang’s May 11th Factory, where Arirang smartphones and other electronic devices are produced, in 2013. Jean Mackenzie of the BBC thinks it is some kind of “scoop” to have gotten her hands on a North Korean smartphone a dozen years later.

Two years ago, I showed in a thread on X how BBC “correspondent” Jean Mackenzie, who had only recently arrived in South Korea, was a dupe of Deep State propaganda cutouts Daily NK, NK News and a number of NGOs including Liberty in North Korea (co-founded by the sinister Adrian Hong, who led the 2019 attack on the DPRK Embassy in Madrid). In her 15 June 2023 “report,” ludicrously titled “Inside North Korea: ‘We Are Stuck, Waiting to Die,’” she relied mainly on the notoriously unreliable Daily NK to predict that North Korea was on the verge of collapse due to the “pandemic” and extreme corresponding controls by authorities.

Nothing of the sort happened, of course. It was textbook regime-change propaganda aimed at inciting “color revolution” inside the country, and further demonizing its current leadership from without. (Seoul-based Daily NK is mostly funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, itself a CIA spinoff; it was the origin of Kim Jong-un death rumors that made headlines around the world in 2020, and which were also meant to destabilize the DPRK.)

Mackenzie even interviewed the oily Chad O’Carroll of NK News, who is nothing but a hack on the payroll of Imperial Washington. (I have documented how his organization is bankrolled by the US Department of Defense.) Whether she was naïve and simply got played or was in on the con is up for debate; either way, her “journalism” was trash.

Obviously, a real journalist would not report on North Korea from Seoul and interview a bunch of Westerners who are openly hostile to the DPRK. An actual journalist would at the very least travel to the PRC-DPRK border area and speak to locals about conditions inside the country.

However, that would require Chinese- and Korean-language skills that Mackenzie clearly lacks, and she was probably too busy posting on Instagram and X to do real journalism, anyway. Much easier simply to be spoonfed propaganda by seasoned Deep State operatives adept at manipulating neophytes who have only recently arrived in the region.

Mackenzie’s latest “scoop” (“Inside a Phone Smuggled out of North Korea,” 31 May 2025) does not mention how she obtained a smartphone from the DPRK, so we can only speculate. (She does say that it was smuggled out last year; presumably, it found its way into her hands after careful analysis by intelligence agencies.) What is certain is that she did not travel to the PRC herself to find one, for she would have said so, and it would have probably been beyond her ability, anyway.

A decade ago, I saw a number of North Korean smartphones myself during visits inside the country and even photographed several. (Local waitresses, café staff and others were happy to show how they worked.) They were well-designed and packed with applications even then. A variety of locally made phones, both older and newer models, was even available for sale at Rason International Market, near the Russian and Chinese borders. Mackenzie’s “scoop,” in other words, is nothing of the sort.

Here she reveals her ignorance of the Korean language and geopolitical naïvity – if not outright disingenuousness. The term “Oppa” is not just used in South Korea to refer to boyfriends as she claims. It is widely used in the sex industry to sweet talk johns and other clients. It is absolutely based for the DPRK to stamp out such degeneracy by insisting North Koreans use “Comrade” instead when addressing non-family members on their devices. Commercializing family terms, especially in the context of a debauched “entertainment industry,” only helps cheapen and weaken traditional bonds, and in turn overall society.

Indeed, it is the aim of neoliberalism to dissolve organic social bonds since atomized individuals are much easier to control from above. Included in Mackenzie’s report are clips from Squid Game, which she valorizes as scenes of the “free” and “rich” South that the North bafflingly rejects; she is evidently too dumb to grasp that Squid Game depicts exactly the neoliberal dystopia that North Korea is right to refuse. South Korea has one of the largest sex industries in the world; will the North only be truly “liberated” when large numbers of its young women must coo, “Oppa!” to strange men, too?

One also sees on the screen in Mackenzie’s “report” that North Korean authorities have banned the expression “Fighting!” on local devices. Konglish and overuse of English by South Koreans is nothing other than linguistic colonization that will lead to loss of cultural identity over time. Once again, North Korea is altogether based to keep local devices free of such linguistic, and in turn “cultural” and “spiritual,” pollution. (We should also note that the expression “Fighting!” went mainstream during the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, so it is closely associated with the Red Devils; using it in North Korea would in effect help normalize cheering for Team South Korea.)

Lastly, Mackenzie finds it shocking that entering the term for “South Korea” on North Korean phones autocorrects to what her assistants (or possibly handlers) mistranslate as “puppet state.” (The term that appears onscreen, “괴뢰지역,” more accurately translates as “puppet zone” or “puppet territory,” denying even the legitimacy of statehood.) South Korea has little if any control over its foreign policy, so what else is it but a puppet state? Again, a real journalist would at least explain why North Korea considers the South to be a “puppet,” but she is too much of a mindless regime propagandist to finesse the matter by offering a convincing response, so instead she simply, “Wow, just Wow!”s in classic libtarded fashion and soon moves on.

In her “report,” Mackenzie repeats the same talking points from two years ago like a well-trained parrot: Extreme information control inside North Korea means people there cannot enjoy the same “freedom” as do those in the South and across the West, and therefore it must be regime changed.

Once upon a time, appeals to the “freedom” of the West might have had some basis in reality, but those days are long gone. Even on “free and open” X, voices critical of the Empire are regularly censored and silenced, including that of the present writer.

Just a few weeks ago, my account on X was banned after a post on the DPRK went viral; it violated no terms or policies of the platform. After a successful appeal, my account was restored, but by then the post had been successfully quashed. During the “pandemic,” my account was also locked twice after I criticized the mRNA “vaccines.” I have since been vindicated, but my account remains legacy shadow banned to this day, with all requests for help ignored. It is truly absurd to condemn the DPRK for lack of “free and open debate” when the West no longer even pretends to uphold it itself.

Would Mackenzie have the bravery and journalistic integrity to interview a sympathetic expert on the DPRK such as Dermot Hudson, Chairman of the Korean Friendship Association UK, or even yours truly – if only in the interest of even-handed fairness and professional objectivity?

Of course not. Nor would any other mainstream “journalist” in the West at present who pretends to report on the Koreas, and in virtually every case is hostile to the DPRK and thus serves to block peace on behalf of the Empire.

For this reason, they are but puppets themselves.

Israeli Ambassador to South Korea Rafi Harpaz, center, at ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Korea Israel Bible Institute’s Holocaust Museum of Korea in Paju, near the DMZ and just a few kilometers from Kaesong in North Korea.

Just when you think South Korea can’t get any more cucked, it doubles down and asks for more. From The Times of Israel (“South Korean Christian Zionists Open Country’s First Holocaust Museum,“ 19 May 2025):

South Korea has opened the country’s first Holocaust museum, marking its commitment to remember the Nazi murder of six million Jews and to fight against hatred.

The museum, established by the Christian Zionist group Korea Israel Bible Institute (KIBI) in the city of Paju, opened its doors today in a ceremony attended by public figures and diplomats, including Israel’s ambassador to Korea Rafi Harpaz.

”After October 7, we witnessed a shocking rise in hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people — even here in Korea,” says Professor Song Man Seok, a leader in the KIBI community and the driving force behind the museum. “It was a wake-up call for us: We must educate the public about the Jewish people, about the Holocaust, and about the real meaning of genocide. At the same time, we wanted to send a clear message of solidarity and support to the Jewish people.”

Where is the memorial to the millions murdered in North Korea by the US during its imperial war of aggression there following the end of the first Korean War in September 1950 with the liberation of Seoul?

What about the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza by Israel since 7 October 2023, with much of the territory now a smoldering ruin?

Millions of North Koreans were sacrificed on the altar of liberalism, so obviously liberalized South Korea will never officially memorialize them.

Likewise, Zionist Evangelicals, Pentecostals and all manner of pseudo-Christian cults in South Korea serve as shock troops for liberalism by helping ensure “conservatives” there remain on the imperial plantation instead of joining forces with genuine nationalists who seek liberation of the Korean Peninsula.

Zionism in South Korea, in other words, is part of a broader imperial strategy. It is no coincidence that Korean Zionists have been leading the charge lately against “godless” China and North Korea, which serves the interests of the Empire.

Since Zionism aims to erase the Palestinians as a people in “Greater Israel,” their genocide there cannot be officially recognized in South Korea, either.

Korea had no part in what happened to Jews under the Third Reich. It has no history of pogroms or large-scale organized persecution of minorities on its own territory. (Small-scale uprisings against Japanese in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were anti-imperial or anti-colonial in character, and therefore fundamentally different.)

Neither of the Koreas needs lectures on the Holocaust, especially since Israel is now engaged in one itself and thus has lost much of the moral legitimacy it long derived from the first one. This holds especially true for North Korea, which has long provided the Palestinian people with military, political and diplomatic support.

A Holocaust museum in South Korea centers the interests of both the Zionist entity and the Empire, and thus decenters the interests of the Korean people.

Taken to its logical end, liberalism will erase the South Korean nation. A Holocaust museum in South Korea effectively helps sacralize liberalism on the Korean Peninsula by providing “moral legitimacy” to the Empire and its continued presence there.

In other words, a Holocaust museum in South Korea only helps advance the ongoing destruction of the Korean people, thus having exactly the opposite effect of its proclaimed “mission.”

Never again? South Koreans should just say, “Never mind!” instead.

2025년 5월 17일 아침, 금호타이어 광주 공장이 불길에 휩싸였다.

2월, 나는 X(엑스)에 한국에서 급증하는 화재에 대해 글을 올렸다. 부산의 리조트 공사장 화재로 6명이 사망했고, 울산에서는 유조탱크 폭발로 1명이 숨졌다. 익산의 LG화학 공장에서도 불이 났고, 성남의 한 쇼핑몰에선 대형 화재가 발생했다.

이 모든 일이 1월과 2월 초 사이에 일어났다. 그보다 앞선 12월 말에는 전라남도 무안에서 제주항공 여객기가 폭발해 탑승객 175명과 승무원 6명 중 4명이 목숨을 잃었다.

3월과 4월에는 중남부 지역을 중심으로 대형 산불이 번지며 수십 명의 희생자가 나왔다.

요즘 한국에서 사고가 이렇게 많이 일어나는 게 과연 우연일까? 이언 플레밍의 말을 떠올리게 된다. 물론 단서를 달아야겠지만 말이다. “한 번은 우연, 두 번은 우연의 반복, 세 번은 적의 책략이다.”

단서란 이것이다 — 이 경우 ‘적’은 개인도, 특정 국가도 아니다. 훨씬 더 구조적인 힘이다.

과거라면 무리한 개발과 조급한 작업 속도, 부주의 등을 원인으로 지목했겠지만, 이제 한국은 더 이상 개발도상국이 아니다. 첨단 기술을 갖춘 현대적 국가다.

계속 읽다 보면, 그 ‘적’이 누구인지 곧 분명해질 것이다.

다음은 조선비즈 기사(「광주 금호타이어 화재…직원 고립, 구조 작업 진행 중」, 2025년 5월 17일) 중 일부입니다:

2025년 5월 17일, 금호타이어 광주공장에서 큰 화재가 발생해 직원 한 명이 중상을 입고 구조되었습니다.

소방 당국은 화재 발생 지점으로 원고무와 화학 첨가제 등 타이어 기본 재료를 혼합하는 정제 공정의 전기 오븐 장비를 잠정적으로 지목했습니다. 이 장비는 혼합 전 고무를 예열하는 역할을 합니다.

현장에 있던 직원 등 목격자들은 해당 장비에서 원인을 알 수 없는 불꽃이 튀었고, 그 불꽃이 주변 가연성 물질에 옮겨붙으며 불이 번졌다고 전했습니다.

전기 오븐 근처에 인화성 자재를 보관한 것은 공장의 안전 관리 기준이 다소 허술했음을 보여줍니다. 타이어는 매우 잘 타는 물질로, 신중한 취급과 철저한 관리가 필요합니다. 그런데 왜 스프링클러 시스템이 즉시 작동하지 않았던 걸까요?

금호타이어는 최근까지 금호아시아나그룹의 핵심 계열사였습니다. 창업주 박인천은 1946년 광주택시를 설립한 뒤, 1960년 타이어 사업으로 확장했습니다. 많은 재벌 기업들처럼, 금호아시아나그룹도 무분별하게 몸집을 키우다 결국 여러 사업을 제대로 관리하지 못하는 지경에 이르렀습니다.

2006년, 금호아시아나는 프리미엄 아파트 브랜드 ‘푸르지오’로 잘 알려진 대우건설을 인수했습니다. 대우그룹 자체는 1997년 아시아 금융위기 당시 과도한 차입과 채무 불이행으로 인해 붕괴했습니다.

한때 한국 재계 2위였던 대우그룹은 1999년에 결국 파산했고, 창업주 김우중은 해외로 도피해 인터폴에 수배된 국제 도망자가 되었습니다. 그는 2005년에 귀국했으며, 곧바로 ‘진보적’ 대통령 노무현에 의해 사면됐습니다.

금호아시아나그룹의 대우건설 인수 또한 부채를 통해 이뤄졌고, 2008년 글로벌 금융위기 이후 자금난에 직면하게 됩니다. 2009년, 금호아시아나는 대우건설 지분 매각을 시도했지만 실패로 끝났습니다.

2017년, 금호타이어는 지속적인 영업 손실로 인해 금호아시아나그룹에서 분리되었습니다. 이후 지분의 과반이 중국의 대표적인 타이어 제조업체인 칭다오 더블스타(靑島 더블스타)에 매각되었습니다. 더블스타는 황해 건너 가까운 산둥성에 본사를 두고 있습니다.

현재 더블스타는 금호타이어 지분 약 45%를 보유하고 있습니다. 우리금융그룹, KB금융그룹, 하나금융그룹 등 국내 기관투자자들이 추가로 약 17%를 보유하고 있으며, MarketScreener에 따르면 나머지 38%는 “불명확”한 소유로 분류되어 있습니다. 다만, 미국계 금융사인 스테이트 스트리트(State Street)가 소액 투자자로 확인된 바 있습니다. 참고로, 국내 기관투자자 상당수는 해외 자본이 투입된 글로벌 금융기관이라는 점도 주목할 필요가 있습니다.

2019년, 금호아시아나그룹은 부채 상환을 위해 아시아나항공의 지배 지분까지 매각하며 그룹을 더욱 축소했습니다. 아시아나는 결국 대한항공에 인수되었지만, 여전히 막대한 부채를 안고 있으며 팬데믹 이후에도 흑자 전환에는 성공하지 못한 상태입니다.

더블스타는 중국 국유기업이긴 하지만, 뱅가드(Vanguard), 모건스탠리(Morgan Stanley) 등 글로벌 투자자들도 일정 지분을 보유하고 있습니다. MarketScreener에 따르면 브리지스톤, 굿이어, 미쉐린 등 세계 주요 타이어 기업들도 투자자 명단에 포함돼 있습니다.

2024년 말 기준, 금호타이어는 총 1조 9,300억 원(현재 환율 기준 약 13억 7천만 달러)의 부채를 안고 있었습니다. 2025년 1분기에는 1,448억 원(약 1억 335만 달러)의 영업이익을 기록했지만, 이는 트럼프 행정부가 새로운 관세 체제를 도입해 글로벌 무역 질서를 뒤흔들기 이전의 실적입니다.

2024년 미국이 수입한 전체 자동차 부품(타이어 포함) 가운데, 한국 업체들이 생산한 제품은 약 6.4%를 차지했으며 이는 약 135억 달러에 달하는 규모입니다. 이들 품목에 이제 25%의 고율 관세가 부과될 예정입니다. 공급망 혼란도 추가 비용 상승을 초래할 것입니다.

미국은 금호타이어의 최대 수출 시장입니다. 현재 수준의 수익성을 유지하려면, 국내 생산 비용을 줄이거나 미국 내 생산 비중을 확대해야 하며, 이는 분명히 한국 내 노동자들에게 영향을 미칠 수밖에 없습니다.

금호타이어는 그동안 미국 조지아주 매컨(Macron) 공장에서 노동조합 설립을 막기 위해 막대한 자금을 들여왔지만, 2023년 결국 미국철강노조(United Steelworkers)와 합의에 이르렀고, 약 325명의 노동자가 노조에 가입했습니다. 만약 이 공장에서 고용이 확대된다면, 그만큼 한국 내 일자리가 줄어들 가능성이 높습니다.

광주공장은 여전히 금호타이어의 최대 생산 기지로, 전 세계 생산량의 약 20%를 담당하고 있습니다. 2023년, 이곳 노동자들은 임금 인상 협상이 결렬된 후 부분 파업에 들어갔으며, 더블스타가 설비 투자 약속을 이행하지 않을 경우 전면 파업도 불사하겠다고 경고했습니다.

트럼프 행정부의 새로운 관세 정책이 발표되기 전 언론 보도에 따르면, 금호타이어는 광주공장 매각을 검토 중이었으며, 생산을 더 저렴한 지역으로 점차 이전하려는 움직임을 보이고 있었습니다. 현재 금호타이어는 한국에 3곳, 중국에 3곳, 베트남 1곳, 미국 1곳 등 총 8개의 생산시설을 운영 중입니다.

2027년에는 헝가리에 유럽 첫 공장을 세울 계획입니다. 헝가리 공장 노동자의 연봉은 200만~400만 포린트, 즉 미화 5,542달러에서 11,084달러 수준입니다. 반면, 한국 공장 노동자의 평균 연봉은 2,853만 790원(약 2만 362달러)으로, 헝가리의 최고 수준 연봉의 거의 두 배에 달합니다.

이러한 수치를 통해 보다 분명한 구조적 그림이 드러납니다. 금호아시아나그룹은 ‘저금리 자금의 시대’에 무리한 사업 확장을 단행했고, 결국 금호타이어, 아시아나항공, 대우건설 등 핵심 자산을 매각하면서 생존을 모색해야 했습니다. (참고로, 대우건설은 2021년 광주에 본사를 둔 건설 대기업 중흥그룹에 인수되었습니다.)

금호타이어는 이제 대부분 글로벌 자본에 의해 소유되고 있으며, 이들의 이해관계는 한국 내 노동자들과 상충될 수밖에 없습니다.

2023년 금리가 급등하면서 금호타이어의 부채 부담도 크게 늘었고, 여기에 더해 트럼프 행정부의 새로운 관세 정책이 추가적인 압박으로 작용하고 있습니다.

광주공장에서 발생한 화재의 정확한 경위를 알 수 없는 상황에서 우리는 추측할 수밖에 없습니다. 확실한 것은, 현재 그곳에서 적절한 안전 관리에 투입할 수 있는 자원이 부족하다는 점입니다. 화재를 진압할 수 있는 스프링클러 시스템이 작동하지 않았다는 점만 봐도 알 수 있습니다. 비용 절감을 위한 무리한 생산이 화재의 한 원인인지 여부는 시간이 지나야 밝혀지겠지만, 그 가능성을 배제하긴 어렵습니다.

좀 더 큰 틀에서 보자면, 이제 한국의 기본적인 경제 모델 자체를 재검토해야 할 시점입니다. 값싼 신용과 미국 시장에 대한 우대 접근이라는 두 가지 축은 사실상 끝났다고 봐야 합니다.

이 두 전제에 기반해 성장해온 한국 기업들은, 특히 과도한 부채를 안고 있는 경우 앞으로 밝은 미래를 기대하기 어려울 것입니다. 이제 그 부채를 감당하는 데 훨씬 더 큰 비용이 들기 때문입니다.

앞으로 출구가 보이지 않는 기업들은 헐값 매각에 나설 가능성이 높으며, 이는 종종 글로벌 투자자들에게 넘어갈 것입니다. 이들 투자자는 기업의 잠재 가치를 최대한 뽑아내는 데만 관심이 있을 뿐입니다. 이익은 지역 노동자의 희생 위에 쌓이고, 부는 계속해서 아래에서 위로, 세계의 상층부로 이동하게 됩니다. 모두가 입으로는 ‘가정을 꾸릴 수 있는 사회’를 지지한다고 말하지만, 정작 진지하게 실천하려는 모습은 찾아보기 어렵습니다.

노동자의 역량과 헌신도 자연히 약화될 수밖에 없으며, 대형 화재나 기타 사고는 앞으로도 계속 발생할 것입니다. (착륙장치 결함은 제주항공 사고에 정비 부실이 기여했음을 시사합니다. 이 저가 항공사는 본업이 비누 제조인 상장 대기업 소속입니다.)

한국인이 더 이상 하고 싶어하지 않는 일자리는 점점 더 외국인 노동자들이 맡게 될 것이고, 이들 중 상당수는 한국어를 유창하게 구사하지 못합니다. 아무리 의도가 좋더라도, 언어 장벽은 업무 효율과 안전에 분명한 악영향을 미칠 수밖에 없습니다.

차기 대통령인 이재명 역시 한국을 구해내지 못할 것입니다. 그는 이미 한국을 무너뜨리고 있는 바로 그 세력의 영향력 아래 있기 때문입니다. 이전 대통령들과 마찬가지로, 그는 결국 ‘자유주의자’일 뿐이며, 이는 곧 글로벌 자본의 하수인이라는 뜻입니다.

실제로, 3월과 4월에 통제 불능으로 번진 대형 산불들조차 ‘자유민주주의’ 탓으로 돌릴 수 있을 것입니다. 당시 국가 지도부는 ‘정치적 위기’라는 이름의 내홍에 몰두해 있었는데, 이는 결국 누가 글로벌 자본의 밥그릇에 더 가까이 앉을지를 두고 벌어진 권력 다툼이었습니다. 그 위기는 가짜였고, 정작 하나의 집중된 국가적 리더십이 있었더라면 더 빨리 해결됐을 실제 위기에는 제대로 대응하지 못했습니다.

대한민국이 자국을 실질적으로 점령하고 있는 제국의 영향력에서 벗어나지 않는 한, 이 나라는 계속해서 불타오를 것입니다.

Kumho Tire's Gwangju factory in flames on the morning of 17 May 2025.

In February, I posted on X about surging fires in South Korea: Six dead at a resort construction-site fire in Busan; an oil-tank explosion in Ulsan, leaving one dead; a fire at an LG Chem factory in Iksan; a major blaze at a shopping complex in Seongnam.

That was just in January and early February. In late December, a Jeju Air plane exploded in Muan, South Jeolla Province, killing all 175 passengers and four of its six crew members.

In March and April, wildfires swept across central and southern South Korea, causing dozens of deaths.

Is it just an accident that there are so many accidents in South Korea these days? One is tempted to quote Ian Fleming, albeit with a caveat: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

The caveat is that the “enemy” is not an individual or even a nation, but much more a structural force.

In the past, we might have blamed hyperdevelopment for accidents caused by rushed work or carelessness, but South Korea is no longer a developing nation. It is modern and technologically advanced.

Read on and the “enemy” will soon become apparent enough.

From Chosun Biz (“Kumho Tire Fire in Gwangju Traps Employee, Rescue Efforts Ongoing,“ 17 May 2025):

A large fire broke out at Kumho Tire’s Gwangju factory on the 17th, resulting in one employee being rescued with serious injuries.

The site where the fire started has been tentatively identified by fire authorities as an electric oven device in the refining process that mixes basic tire materials such as raw rubber and chemical agents. This device preheats the rubber before the material mixing.

Witnesses, including employees, stated that an unexplained spark occurred from the device, igniting combustible materials nearby and starting the fire.

Storing combustible materials near an electric oven suggests rather lax safety standards at the factory. Tires are highly flammable are require careful handling and oversight. Why was a sprinkler system not immediately activated?

Until recently, Kumho Tire was a core unit of Kumho Asiana Group. Founder Park In-chon, who passed away in 1984, launched Gwangju Taxi in 1946 and expanded into the tire business in 1960. Like many chaebols, Kumho Asiana Group metastasized and grew beyond its ability to manage many of its operations.

In 2006, it acquired Daewoo Engineering & Construction, the builder of premium Prugio apartments. Daewoo Group itself collapsed following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 as a result of overleverage and inability to meet debt obligations.

Once South Korea’s second largest chaebol, Daewoo Group was forced into bankruptcy in 1999. Founder Kim Woo-Choong fled the country and became an international fugitive wanted by Interpol; he returned to South Korea in 2005 and was soon pardoned by “progressive” President Roh Moo-hyun.

Kumho Asiana Group’s acquisition of Daewoo E&C was itself financed by debt, and after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 it began to face cash-flow problems. In 2009, it tried to sell its stake in Daewoo E&C without success.

In 2017, Kumho Tire was spun off from Kumho Asiana Group due to continued operating losses. A controlling stake was sold to Qingdao Doublestar Co., Ltd., itself a major tire manufacturer. It is based just across the Yellow Sea in Shandong Province.

Doublestar currently owns about 45% of Kumho Tire stock. Institutional investors in South Korea, including Woori Financial Group, KB Financial Group and Hana Financial Group, hold another 17% or so. According to MarketScreener, the remaining 38% is classified as “unknown,” though State Street is identified as a minor investor. It should be noted that many institutional investors in South Korea are themselves globally capitalized.

In 2019, Kumho Asiana Group further downsized by selling off its controlling stake in Asiana Airlines to meet debt obligations. Asiana was ultimately aquired by Korean Air. It currently struggles under a heavy debt load and has yet to return to profitability following the “pandemic.”

Although Doublestar is majority state-owned, global investors including Vanguard and Morgan Stanley hold stakes in it. MarketScreener also lists Bridgestone, Goodyear and Michelin as investors.

At the end of 2024, Kumho Tire carried a debt load of ₩1.93 trillion or $1.37 billion at the current exchange rate. Although it recorded an operating profit of ₩144.8 billion or $103.35 million for the first quarter of 2025, that was before the Trump administration upended the global trade order with its new tariffs regime.

Of all auto parts imported by the US in 2024, including tires, those made by South Korean firms comprised 6.4% or roughly $13.5 billion in sales. They will now be tariffed at 25%. Disrupted supply chains will further drive up costs.

The US is Kumho Tire’s top market. If it wishes to retain its current level of profitability, it will either have to cut its costs in South Korea or move more production to the US, which will obviously impact South Korean workers.

For years, Kumho Tire invested large sums attempting to block efforts to unionize at its Macron, Georgia plant, but in 2023 it finally struck a deal with the United Steelworkers and some 325 workers there. If more jobs are added to its Georgia facility, it will likely come at the expense of South Korean workers.

Kumho Tire’s Gwangju factory is still its largest production facility, accounting for close to 20% of global output. In 2023, workers there went on partial strike after a breakdown of wage-increase negotiations; they also threatened a full strike if Doublestar failed to make good on promises to upgrade equipment there.

According to media reports prior to the Trump administration’s new tariffs, Kumho Tire was looking to sell its Gwangju plant and likely move more production to other regions with lower costs. It currently has three manufacturing facilities in South Korea, three in China, one in Vietnam and one in the US.

It plans to open its first European factory in Hungary in 2027. Annual salaries for factory workers in Hungary range from Ft2 million to Ft4 million, or $5,542 to $11,084. The average salary for a factory worker in South Korea is ₩28,530,790 or $20,362, which is nearly double the highest factory-worker salaries in Hungary.

A clearer structural picture starts to emerge: Kumho Asiana Group overexpanded during years of “easy money” or low-cost debt, and eventually had to sell off core assets such as Kumho Tire, Asiana Airlines and Daewoo E&C to survive. (Construction conglomerate Jungheung Group, itself based in Gwangju, would eventually take control of Daewoo E&C in 2021).

Kumho Tire was largely acquired by global capital, whose interests are at odds with local labor in South Korea.

When interest rates spiked in 2023, the debt owned by Kumho Tire became much more expensive. The Trump administration’s new tariffs are further squeezing it.

Without knowing the exact details of the fire at its Gwangju factory, we can only speculate: Certainly, there are fewer resources at present to devote to proper safety protocols there. There was clearly no functioning sprinkler system there to stop the fire. Whether rushed production to save on costs was a contributing factor will only be known in time, but it is not unlikely.

More generally, South Korea’s basic business model will have to be reconsidered going forward. The days of cheap credit and preferential access to the US market are most likely over for good.

South Korean companies built on those two core assumptions probably do not have bright futures, especially if they are overleveraged and must now pay dearly to service their debt.

We can expect “fire sales” by companies that see no way out, often to global investors whose only interest is to squeeze those firms for all they’re worth. Profits will come at the expense of local workers; wealth will keep flowing from the bottom to the global top. It is unclear how this process will help local family formation, which everyone pretends to want to support without any real seriousness.

Worker quality and commitment will in turn often suffer, and major fires and other accidents will continue to break out. (Landing-gear failure suggests poor maintenance contributed to the Jeju Air crash; the budget carrier is owned by a publicly traded conglomerate whose core business is soap products.) Jobs that South Koreans no longer want to do will often be taken by migrant workers who in many cases do not speak fluent Korean; communication problems will undoubtedly hamper smooth operations and safety, despite best intentions.

Incoming president Lee Jae-myung will not save South Korea, for he is beholden to the very same interests that are destroying it: Like his recent predecessors, he is nothing other than a liberal, which is to say a servant of global capital.

Indeed, it is “liberal democracy” that can arguably be blamed for the many wildfires that burned beyond control in March and April: The nation’s leadership was consumed by a “political crisis” at the time that ultimately was a struggle over who would have the best chance to feed at the trough of global capital. A pseudo-emergency diverted attention from a genuine emergency that could have been resolved more swiftly with unified and focused national leadership.

Until South Korea frees itself from the Empire that occupies it, it will just keep burning.

Recent groundbreaking ceremony for the Tumen River Motor Bridge (“두만강 자동차다리”) that will connect the DPRK with Russia at Khasan. Russia, the DPRK and the PRC all meet in the area, which can be expected to boom economically in coming years as US-PRC decoupling accelerates and the three countries find their interests increasingly aligned.

Korea expert Konstantin Asmolov of Moscow-based New Eastern Outlook surveys official statements and reactions following successful expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Russian Kursk, to which the Korean People’s Army contributed some 10,000–13,000 troops according to his report (“Recognizing the Assistance of the Korean Military in the Liberation of the Occupied Areas of Kursk Oblast,“ 30 April 2025):

On April 28, Vladimir Putin himself spoke about North Korean assistance, saying, “We pay tribute to the heroism, the high level of special training, and the selflessness of the Korean warriors, who defended our Motherland as their own, fighting shoulder to shoulder with Russian soldiers. We will always honor the Korean heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our shared freedom, equally with their Russian brothers-in-arms.”

Overall, Putin praised the heroism and training of the DPRK soldiers and expressed gratitude personally to Kim Jong-un and the North Korean leadership for the contribution of their troops.

Reaction of the West and South Korea

The U.S. State Department spokesperson promptly declared that “North Korea and its partners have further entrenched the Russia–Ukraine war and must be held accountable,” and stressed that “the deployment of DPRK forces to Russia and any reciprocal support provided by the Russian Federation must cease,” pointing out that Russian training of North Korean soldiers violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions which together impose a broad ban on the provision or receipt of military training or assistance to or from the DPRK.

South Korea harshly condemned the DPRK’s statement acknowledging troop deployment to Russia, saying that “by recognizing the deployment and claiming that it fully complies with international law, they once again mock the international community.” The government of the Republic of Korea called on Russia and North Korea to “immediately cease their illegal military cooperation,” emphasizing that it “gravely undermines peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, including Europe.”

The Empire of Chaos gave up any remaining leverage it had to influence Pyongyang when it flushed a peace deal down the toilet in Hanoi following several years of ramped-up sanctions. The fools, midwits and incompetents in Imperial Washington can blame themselves for pushing the DPRK into Russia’s arms.

Impotent denunciations by the US and the ROK about violations of UN Security Council resolutions or “international law” are laughable and worthy only of contempt. (Indeed, Kursk is Russian territory, so it has a sovereign right to invite allied forces to help secure it.)

From the Mujahideen in Afghanistan (Operation Cyclone) to the Contras in Nicaragua (Operation Phoenix) to Isis affiliates in Syria (Operation Timber Sycamore), the US has armed and trained dozens of insurgent or “rebel” forces in other countries around the world since 1945.

Infamously, it has even backed the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine since 2014 following its coup of democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych, who was viewed by Washington as unacceptably pro-Russia. Putin finally invaded Ukraine in early 2022 after some 14,000 people had been killed in Donbas, many of them ethnic-Russian civilians.

Since then, the war has been senselessly prolonged because Washington is afflicted with Russia Derangement Syndrome and is unable to stay in its own lane. Hundreds of thousands have died needlessly as a result, and Ukraine is now a ruined country. As we wrote at the start of the war, Ukraine never had a chance of winning. All the slaughter has been for naught.

(To be sure, the larger strategic aim of neutralizing the “threat” of closer Russian-German relations has been achieved, at least for now, but at a cost so great that one can only be horrified; the other primary objective of weakening Russia with the blunt instrument of Ukraine has had quite the opposite result.)

For its part, South Korea sent 320,000 soldiers to Vietnam in support of the US Empire’s cataclysmic war of aggression there. It also supported the Gulf War and the Iraq War on behalf of the US, and is currently supplying lethal military aid to the Ukraine war theater through third-party countries. Some 100 South Koreans have even volunteered to fight for Ukraine there.

In every such case, the ROK has served essentially as an attack dog for imperial liberalism. Which of the Koreas has really “mocked the international community” over the years? It is liberalism itself that mocks it.

Beyond the obvious military, financial and diplomatic benefits of supporting Russia in Kursk Oblast, we believe it is in the long-term interests of the DPRK to align more closely with both Russia and the PRC.

Russia and China are strong civilizational states that are certain to endure long into the future and likely grow in power due to an abundance of natural resources, industrious populations and capable leadership.

The West is currently in upheaval. The US in particular is increasingly unstable and threatens either to implode economically or fracture into smaller regional states. The domestic chaos of the US will continue to destabilize the ROK both economically and politically in coming years, given how closely they are intertwined at all levels.

Soaring inflation in South Korea, for instance, has been exacerbated by rising energy costs, in no small part a consequence of upholding sanctions on Russia at Washington’s insistence. Nearby Sakhalin Island is rich in oil and gas reserves, but South Korea has been unable freely to access them.

At the same time, major South Korean firms such as Hyundai, Samsung, LG Electronics and others have had to pull out of the Russian market to ensure continued access to that of the US. South Korea’s losses there are China’s gains.

Trump’s current trade war on much of the world will also punish South Korea in many ways. The aim is to have South Korean firms “friendshore” production to the US, which will result in significant loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs for South Korean workers (and in turn loss of local tax revenue and spending). Washington will also demand the ROK further “decouple” from the PRC, to its economic detriment. A weakened won and broken supply chains will only add to inflation at home.

If worse comes to worst, South Korea could even be dragged into war against China if Imperial Washington grows desperate enough. Certainly, desperation seems to be the prevailing mood there these days.

For all these reasons, it is probably for the best for the DPRK to seal itself off completely from the chaos of the West, and especially the ROK.

With each passing year, South Korea grows more incoherent as a society and consumed by “political” or social conflicts that waste months at a time and are soon forgotten. Four or five months were just lost on a “political crisis” because its president watched too much YouTube and was radicalized by grifters and pseudo-Christian cultists who convinced him that his political opposition were puppets of "communist" China and needed to be purged.

In reality, both major parties in South Korea are owned by the chaebols, themselves globally capitalized, and are but different flavors of neoliberalism. What do South Korea’s two most recent presidents, as well as its likely next one, have in common? They are all liberals.

“Liberal democracy” in South Korea jumped the shark in 2008 with its mad-cow riots, which lasted for months and were based entirely on a fiction. They were quickly forgotten because it was all so embarrassing, but they did serve the important function of widely discrediting progressive forces in South Korea, thus removing one last important barrier to unchecked liberalism.

The “logic” of liberalism, which is now deeply entrenched in South Korea, is easy to foretell: It will continue to metastasize until it has killed the patient for good. If you want a vision of South Korea’s future, just look at the US: It died a long time ago, and is now a grotesque zombie nation that terrifies and terrorizes much of the world.

The DPRK has allied itself with nations on the right side of history, which is why it is likely to endure long after the ROK has become a dead nation walking itself.

A “safety” or emergency gate for workers at an apartment-construction site in Cheonho-dong, eastern Seoul. Many building sites in Seoul nowadays feature signage in multiple languages: Not only Chinese and Vietnamese as above, but also Indonesian, Cambodian, Nepali, Russian, English and others. South Korea has eased permanent-residency requirements for migrant workers in recent years. Author photo (July 2023).

Writes The Korea Times in a recent report (“Korea to Provide Tour Guide Training for Marriage Immigrants and Their Children,” 29 April 2025):

According to data from the Ministry of Justice, the number of marriage immigrants in Korea reached 172,899 as of 2023, showing a gradual rise from 149,764 in 2013 and 157,418 in 2018.

Similarly, the number of children from multicultural backgrounds has steadily grown since 2012, reaching 305,246 in 2023 — more than double the 2015 figure.

In South Korea, the term “multicultural family” (“다문화가족” or “多文化家庭”) generally refers to a family with one South Korean spouse and one born outside of South Korea. In 80-85% of such cases, the husband is a native-born South Korean.

”Multicultural children” is a more open-ended category, since it can include those with two non-native parents. They are not automatically granted local citizenship at birth since South Korea still follows the principle of jus sanguinis or “right of blood,” at least for now.

However, such children are eligible for naturalization if they have lived in South Korea for five years. Since South Korea is diversifying more rapidly than other Northeast Asian countries, which all uphold jus sanguinis, we can imagine it adopting jus soli or “right of soil” in the future under sufficient pressure. Many Latin American and European countries practice jus soli, as well as South Korea's imperial overlord, of course.

An increase of marriage immigrants from 149,764 in 2013 to 172,899 in 2023 represents a growth rate of 15.5% over the past decade or so. In contrast, the growth rate for multicultural children exceeds 100% over the same period.

Although it is unclear how many of these multicultural children have two non-native parents, what is clear is that the birthrate for multicultural children is far higher than for those of native-born parents.

305,246 multicultural children divided by 172,899 couples averages out to 1.77 children per family, compared to a current TFR of 0.78 for the greater nation. In other words, the birthrate for multicultural children is now more than double that of children with two native-born South Korean parents.

The data bear out what we have previously argued: Women from developing countries who marry local South Korean men are likely to have more children than South Korean women these days due to the iron law of female hypergamy. They also benefit from generous state subsidies and support (obviously paid by South Korean taxpayers as a whole).

Likewise, men from less well-off countries who go to South Korea to work will be seen as more desirable marriage partners and providers by women from those same countries.

Anecdotally, we have seen quite a few young mothers from Central Asia with children in our local Seoul neighborhood of Cheonho-dong, where massive construction projects have been underway for years. Their headscarves suggest they are Muslim, and on Fridays we see many younger Central Asian men gathering at informal mosques in the area for the Jumu’ah prayer. (In Islam, the holy day of Friday is traditionally a day of rest, though obviously not in South Korea.)

It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that many of these women are married not to South Korean men, but rather men from their home countries, who in South Korea are seen as more capable and higher in status due to the local salaries they earn.

A good friend I recently visited in Cheongju, a rising center of industry due to its central location and lower costs, told me day-laborers there currently earn at least ₩200,000 and often more, and many are “undocumented.” If they work consistently, that adds up to ₩3,000,000 to ₩4,000,000 per month tax-free.

In Uzbekistan, the average monthly salary is $425. ₩4,000,000 is about $2,800 at the current exchange rate, or over five times higher. The average salary in Kazakhstan is $815, or more than three times lower.

From the perspective of a young woman from Central Asia, a man earning four or five times the local salary is a very good marriage prospect. From the perspective of a young South Korean woman, a man earning even ₩4,000,000 is a relative pauper.

Let us say a newish two-bedroom apartment in Seoul costs ₩1,424,500,000 or roughly $1,000,000 at the current exchange rate. A man earning ₩4,000,000 per month would have to work thirty years to pay off that apartment, excluding interest payments, taxes and basic living costs such as food, clothing and transportation.

In fact, many apartments in Seoul cost far more than $1,000,000 these days. In any case, realistically, it would take someone fifty years or so to pay off a $1,000,000 apartment in Seoul.

At present, the average annual salary in South Korea is ₩46,680,900 or ₩ 3,890,075 per month. When I first went to South Korea in 1996, or just before the Asian Financial Crisis that shattered the local economy and opened it up to global neoliberalism, the average annual salary was ₩12,000,000 to ₩14,000,000.

At the time, typical salaries for native speakers of English at local private academies or language schools ranged from ₩1,500,000 to ₩2,500,000 per month. The won was then worth about 800 to the dollar, though it would soon lose over half its value.

A basic English-language teaching salary thus started at about $1,875, and at the higher end could hit $3,125 per month. I knew one Australian at the time who did nothing but private classes and easily cleared $3,000 per month. (He returned to Australia with his South Korean wife after about a decade and bought a home there with his savings.)

In 1996, a two-bedroom apartment in central Seoul could be had for ₩200,000,000 or about $250,000 at the time. A Westerner earning $3,000 per month as an English teacher would thus have had to work seven years to buy a two-bedroom apartment in central Seoul. On $2,000 per month, it would have taken a bit more than ten years.

In 2025, salaries for native-speaking English teachers range from ₩2,100,000 to ₩3,000,000 per month. In dollar terms, that's $1,475 per month at the lower end and $2,105 at the upper end.

In other words, a million-dollar apartment in Seoul now represents forty years of work for an English teacher on a salary of ₩3,000,000 per month, and almost sixty years for one earning a very basic salary.

Three decades ago, a young English-language teacher from the West would have represented a “step up” for many local women in South Korea. They could easily buy an apartment in Seoul after saving for just a few years, and from there start a family.

Today, the same young Westerner represents a “step down” for most local women in South Korea, which is to say, hardly marriage material.

As for locals, a two-bedroom apartment in Seoul represented fifteen years of work in 1996 for a man earning ₩14 million annually. That is half the years required for a man today earning the average annual salary of ₩46,680,900.

Today, many South Korean women have advanced degrees and professional careers that provide them with high salaries and independence, both personal and financial. Marriage would require great sacrifice of freedom and autonomy for many. Obviously, a man would have to bring a lot to the table to make such sacrifice worth it.

Apartment ownership is thus expected by many young South Korean women even today as a condition to marry, but that is now out-of-reach for the average young man in South Korea. To put it simple terms, many South Korean women have simply priced themselves out the marriage market.

Women in South Korea from developing countries are mostly still on the right side, meaning the natural one, of female hypergamy: Their birthrate is now more or less double that of South Korean women because marriage and motherhood are not seen as a net personal sacrifice to them, but as an improvement of their lot in life.

For this basic reason, the number of “multicultural” children in South Korea will continue to grow much more rapidly than those of native-born parents.

The bad news is that the South Korean nation is dying. At the same time, a new one is emerging. Whether that is good news or also bad news is obviously a question that will be contested going forward, though for now few are even asking it.

Protest boards outside “Jeju Civilian-Military Complex Port,” which finally opened in 2016 after years of local opposition. It regularly hosts US military vessels, including nuclear-powered submarines and destroyers. Author photo (April 2024).

This editorial in The Hankyoreh, a leading left-liberal legacy media outlet in South Korea, fails to recognize the true Sovereign in the US, and in turn in occupied South Korea (“Resetting Korean Peninsula Affairs Post-Yoon Suk-yeol,” 24 April 2025):

A key area of interest on the Korean Peninsula is whether North Korea-US dialogue can be resumed after a hiatus of nearly six years and, if so, when that might occur.

”We have a great relationship,” Donald Trump said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on March 31. “I will probably do something at some point.”

That’s the message Trump has been sending since he was still just a presidential candidate. While we can't be certain about how genuine he is, we shouldn’t underestimate his determination to resolve the North Korean issue. It’s worth remembering he’s been talking about that since 1999, when he first conceived the idea of running for president.

We can’t assume whether Kim would respond to overtures from Trump, but Kim could conceivably want to make the most of a reunion with Trump.

Even worse: It all but denies any attempt to assert or restore the sovereignty of the southern half of the Korean nation, insofar as it defers to Trump to lead resumption of peace talks on the Korean Peninsula.

Trump’s peace talks with Kim failed in Hanoi because the Empire did not want it. Thus, Deep State operatives Bolton and Pompeo made sure to sabotage negotiations with maximalist demands that Kim fully disarm before easing of sanctions. The Sovereign had decided, and Trump was but a bystander.

Trump’s relationship with the Deep State has somewhat changed in his second term. The Empire is retrenching in the face of what it now sees as existential economic competition with the PRC. An empire cannot endure without a stable host, which is to say a functioning and economically viable home base. The Empire has accommodated itself to Trump because his appeals to US nationalism are now seen as more congruent with its own interests, at least for now.

The question, therefore, is not whether Trump wants to “make a deal” with Kim. It is whether the Empire wants it. Analysts and commentarors who do not ask this question, and instead continue to focus on the person of Trump, are wasting everyone's time, either because they are naïve and clueless, because they are cynical “engagement farmers,” or because they are regime propagandists who knowingly obfuscate the operations of Power.

With regards to inter-Korean relations, the key question today is whether peace would be in the interest of the Empire as it faces off against China.

Current US-PRC tensions are best explained by the Thucydides Trap: The Empire greatly underestimated China, and now finds itself outmatched in vital economic sectors, from traditional manufacturing to advanced technology.

Reshoring production to the US will be of little help: American workers can't really compete with Chinese ones, and in any case it will take years, even decades, to revivify US manufacturing. (The 2019 documentary American Factory, about a Chinese automotive glass supplier that sets up a factory in Dayton, Ohio, shows overfed US workers to be slow and sloppy compared to their lean and hyperefficient counterparts in the PRC.)

No doubt, the Empire is only too aware that rebuilding industry at home won't save it, at least in the short- to medium-term, and for now has determined to squeeze and isolate China until it collapses. (We do not endorse such an outcome, or expect it; we are merely describing the strategy, openly articulated by Scott Bessent, Stephen Miran, Howard Lutnick and other drivers of imperial trade policy at present.)

Obviously, peace on the Korean Peninsula would not aid the imperial project of regime change in Beijing. For now, US-PRC conflict remains mostly in the economic realm, but the logic of the Thucydides Trap tends towards kinetic confrontation when all else has failed.

Imperial Washington has a large military force just across the Yellow Sea from China on the Korean Peninsula. Peace would obviate the need for United States Forces Korea to remain, since officially they are there to defend the South against the “threat” of the North.

In reality, the war planners in Washington see their army, air force and naval bases across the southern part of the Korean Peninsula as key military assets in the region that will not be given up freely.

Indeed, the recently refurbished and expanded Camp Humphreys, just a few miles from the Yellow Sea near Pyeongtaek, is now the largest overseas US military installation. Billions were not poured into it because the Empire sees peace on the horizon.

The Empire’s occupation force in South Korea also serves to ensure that local leadership in Seoul does not reorient towards Beijing. Lee Jae-myung is likely to be elected president in June; though he is more friendly to China, he is unlikely to “go rogue” and realign with the PRC (and DPRK) as Washington has “the muscle” to make sure he does no such thing.

The implied and well-understood threat: “Nice country you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.” The Empire has the cheek to describe its local protection racket as “defending freedom's frontier,” and many Americans and South Koreans actually believe it.

Under the pretext of “national crisis,” manufactured or otherwise, the US could invoke “operational command” to have Lee removed, with wide support of local business and media elites as well as pro-US military commanders. (Just as the Deep State in the US mainly serves the interests of Wall Street, the Deep State in the ROK is dominated by chaebol interests that will not allow decoupling from the US as they are now too dependent it.)

Such a scenario is, of course, quite academic since Lee has already expressed fealty to Washington both in word and deed through his policy-team selection, dominated by pro-US neoliberals (top trade advisor Kim Hyun-jong previously headed Samsung Electronics’ Global Legal Affairs) and bad-faith actors such as Moon Chung-in who will ensure that peace between the Koreas is never in danger of breaking out. (Moon regularly calls for “denuclearization” of the DPRK, which is nothing other than code for regime change.)

Finally, Wall Street now owns a significant part of the South Korean economy. USFK must remain to secure those investments and assets. Whether US or ROK taxpayers bear the cost is immaterial, especially as the economies of both continue to merge. Global capital will have what amounts to a private mercenary force on the Korean Peninsula subsidized by average workers either way. Empire is simply wealth transfer from the bottom and middle to the top. Always has been.

By now, it should be clear that the Empire has no incentive to allow a peace deal between the US and the DPRK. It does have an incentive to allow Trump to pretend to try for one, since it would serve as yet another useful distraction as the Empire struggles to placate its increasingly restive populace at home, and because it would help uphold the kayfabe of “partisan conflict.”

Maga “influencers” would tout Trump’s overtures towards Kim as yet more “winning” and “owning” of the libs; the latter would seethe or scoff in response. Artificial left-right division prevents class unity and broad-based worker solidarity against an occupation regime run by ruthless oligarchs and parasitic technocapitalists. (The same system of control has been effectively reproduced in South Korea in the form of US-style culture war and the recent K-Magafication of local “conservatives,” who like their counterparts in the US are really liberals themselves.)

Whether Kim would be tempted to meet with Trump again is doubtful. Closer relations between the DPRK and Russia have loosened the bite of US-led sanctions; a prolonged US-PRC trade war would also disincentivize the latter from strictly observing sanctions on the DPRK. Kim left Hanoi with egg on his face. He has even less incentive to risk his prestige in a geopolitical environment that is now much more in his favor.

To return to The Hankyoreh editorial quoted at the top. (The writer, Cheong Wook-sik, heads The Hankyoreh Peace Institute, so his column amounts to an official position on the subject.) If this is the best analysis that arguably the most influential “progressive” domestic media outlet can offer on the subject of peace on the Korean Peninsula, we cannot help but feel that South Korea is truly lost.

The Hankyoreh was founded by dissident progressive and left-leaning journalists in 1988 following the June Uprising of 1987 that precipitated collapse of the Chun Doo-hwan junta regime. Its name translates as “One Nation” or the “Korean Nation,” signifying its original commitment to national unification. In early years, it was major media platform for the minjung movement, which sought national liberation from both the US and Big Capital.

Over the years, however, minjung leaders and the generation that once fought for liberation traded progressive ethnonationalism for bourgeois liberalism as they were co-opted and absorbed by the System. The Hankyoreh today reflects this great shift: Its ideology can now be described as “woke” neoliberalism, which is exactly the opposite of progressive ethnonationalism. It regularly champions “minority rights” and “human rights” and has more or less accommodated itself to the Empire that continues to occupy it.

In other words, The Hankyoreh has betrayed the promise of the minjung movement, which was to transform the Korean people from an object of history to its subject and agent. Not only does Cheong misrecognize the true Sovereign that occupies his land, naïvely imagining that it is a reality-television actor turned oligarch puppet who ultimately decides the question of peace between the Koreas, but he abjectly defers to that fictional authority and thereby reifies it in the minds of his readers.

Obviously, sovereignty cannot be exercised when one cannot apprehend reality clearly enough to act upon it, let alone by placing hopes in the Empire to, as Cheong puts it, “resolve the North Korean issue.”

A writer who believes himself and his people to be agents of history, or at least possessing the ability to be such, would say it. For a start, he would expose the Sovereign that stands in the way of peace between the Koreas instead of running cover for it by mystifying its identity. He would demand his political representatives seize the initiative, rather than weakly waiting for an external power to make the first move. At the very least, he would explain to the next president of South Korea that he has the leverage to demand concessions from the Empire on the issue of inter-Korean peace if it wants cooperation on China.

History is made not by those who wait for others to act, but by those who act themselves. Sovereignty springs from the mind; it is never claimed by means of a colonized consciousness. The Hankyoreh seems to have forgotten these truisms, and so it should be forgotten itself.

Likewise, anyone hoping for a peace deal between Trump and Kim should forget about it.

It won't happen.

International students at the 2024 Global Talent Fair at Coex in Gangnam, Seoul.

K-pop and its consequences have been a disaster for the South Korean nation. From The Chosun Daily (“Shift in Hiring: South Korean Companies See Foreign Youth as Key Talent,” 21 April 2025):

Big firms are now paying attention to not only Korean jobseekers in their 20s and 30s, but also to young foreign talent.

The number of such foreign students is rising fast. With Korean pop culture — from music and TV dramas to food — gaining global popularity, more young people around the world are developing a positive image of the country. The number of international students in South Korea climbed from 197,000 in 2022 to 264,000 in 2024. If current trends continue, that figure is expected to surpass 300,000 by the end of this year.

Many of these students want to stay. According to a recent survey by the Korea Federation of SMEs, 86.5% of 805 foreign students said they hoped to work in South Korea after graduation. Top reasons included wanting to continue living in the country (35.2%), the higher wages compared to their home countries (27.7%), and the opportunity to work in a field they care about (25.6%).

JobKorea launched a foreigner-focused job app called “Click” last year, and found that half of the profiles created belonged to people in their 20s — matching the age group most active in the new wave of hiring.

300,000 foreign students per year is a difficult figure to break down as it can include both graduates and undergraduates. Since most are earning BAs or MAs, we can conservatively assume a complete turnover every six years, or 50,000 new international students arriving every year if the current rate holds steady.

According to the Ministry of Education, approximately 330,000 native-born South Korean high-school students enrolled in undergraduate programs in 2023. The number will only shrink going forward. In 2023, there were some 430,000 native-born high-school seniors across the country. Since 70% of South Korean high-school graduates go on to university, that works out to 301,000 at present.

50,000 represents 16.6% of 301,000. We can safely say, therefore, that international students will soon account for at least 15% of all university students in South Korea, and the percentage will probably increase. (In the US, foreign students constitute just 6% of all students in higher education, as they do in neighboring Japan.) Since most will want to stay for employment after graduation, hundreds of thousands will enter the local workforce in coming years.

University graduates mostly fill white-collar positions. Obviously, many more foreign workers will continue to arrive to take up manufacturing, construction and farming jobs. The cherry on top is tens of thousands of boss-girl English “teachers,” most of whom double as regime enforcers.

In short, millions more foreign workers will be added to the local labor supply in the next few decades, and most will be younger. Many are likely to have larger families as higher-earning men in particular will be seen as more desirable by women from their home countries if those countries are less well-off. They will compromise the great majority; otherwise most would stay at home.

Meanwhile, Zoomer South Korean male university graduates will have less luck attracting local mates for marriage even if they earn a similar income as a foreign worker in the same position. Liberal and feminist appeals to “equality” aside, the iron law of female hypergamy is unbreakable.

Thus, foreign or international families are likely to grow at a higher rate than native ones over the next decade or two, and could even enter a phase of relative parabolic growth as South Koreans increasingly shun marriage altogether.

Competition for professional jobs will be especially difficult for South Korean Zoomer men in particular, as we have written in the past, further suppressing native family formation.

Here based China wins again: The Party would not dare demographically replace younger generations as it would fast lose legitimacy. Even older generations would revolt as they would be outraged by the impact on their own children.

Anecdotally, I have not had one foreign or international student here at Yantai University over the past three semesters. (I do have one student this semester from Inner Mongolia, but you would never know without asking.) In contrast, a close friend who recently retired from Korea University said he had entire undergraduate classes made up of international students.

South Korean Boomers vastly outnumber younger generations, and hold most of the national wealth. They also dominate politics by sheer numbers. They will continue to vote for policies that ensure Big Line keeps going up, or at least promise to do so, and mostly disregard the longer-term consequences on the nation, or what remains of it.

The PRC obviously represents a better model for the long-term survival of South Korea and elsewhere, but few South Koreans are likely to be receptive to such a suggestion. The utility of the past four months of protests for Yoon Suk-yeol, artificially boosted by imperial operatives on social media, becomes even clearer as they consistently demonized “Communist China” among “conservative” (actually liberal) voters. Even if China-friendly Lee Jae-myung is elected South Korea's next president, “conservatives” will ensure he does not move towards it too closely.

The paradox is that the PRC is far more democratic than South Korea insofar as its leadership endeavors to look after the interests of its populace at all levels, rather than presenting a mere simulation of “representative democracy” as in the ROK or US, which now serves as the model for the former. Politics are nothing other than advancing interests; the CPC knows that it must practice politics by concrete action, and not mere words. Failure to do so would soon spell its demise.

Meanwhile, most South Koreans will continue to believe in their "superior model" of "liberal democracy," which in fact is itself a form of economic and political tyranny far more oppressive than anything we see in China today.

Annual births in South Korea from 1970-2020. Births in the 1960s were even higher and averaged well over a million each year throughout the decade; four times as many South Koreans were born annually in the 1960s and into the 1970s as they were in the last few years. Blue represents the "liberal" presidential administrations of Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008) and Moon Jae-in (2017-2022).

From the Samsung-affiliated Korea JoongAng Daily (long-time JoongAng Holdings Chairman Hong Seok-hyun was brother-in-law of former Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who passed in 2020, and is maternal uncle of current Samsung Group head Lee Jae-yong) comes "good news," at least for those who own and run South Korea ("Korea Announces 'Top-tier' Visas to Attract High-tech Foreign Talent"):

The Justice Ministry announced Thursday the introduction of new visas aimed at recruiting and retaining foreign talent, with the country expecting around three million foreigners to reside in Korea within the next five years.

The government plans to introduce new "top-tier" visas for foreigners who have studied and worked at globally renowned universities and institutes in high-tech fields such as AI, quantum technology and aerospace, starting in the first quarter of next year.

The goal is to recruit some 100,000 foreign experts over the next five years.

The Justice Ministry said it would coordinate with related ministries, including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, to establish the new top-tier visa scheme and provide benefits for visa holders and their families.

Foreigners pursuing postgraduate studies in Korea, as well as those holding professional E-1 through E-7 visas, will see relaxed requirements for their spouses to reside in the country.

The amendments come as the number of international students in Korea rises, reaching 228,000 in July, up from 191,000 in 2022 and 149,000 in 2020.

We’ve often noted that the class interests of global capital, which now owns a major share of the "South Korean" economy, are often at odds with those of local workers. (According to Samsung's official Web site, for example, foreign investors now own 55% of common stock in Samsung Electronics and 72% of its preferred stock.) Radical expansion of "top tier" employment visas for "foreign talent" is yet more evidence of it.

According to government statistics, there are roughly half a million South Koreans now twenty years old; the number shrinks with each younger year of age, especially cohorts born during "liberal" administrations. (In 2023, there were just 230,028 births in the country.)

Still, let's say five years of young South Koreans soon entering the workforce is 2.5 million at full employment. 100,000 "foreign experts" introduced over the same time and competing for job openings would represent just 4% of 2.5 million, which at first blush may seem a fairly small portion.

However, since only roughly half of South Koreans at present obtain undergraduate degrees, 100,000 "foreign experts" would represent 8% of 1.25 million local workers seeking white-collar employment. Yet it gets even worse, especially for young South Korean men.

"Foreign experts" need not complete compulsory military service in South Korea. Local men are already at a disadvantage against their female counterparts, who can easily obtain a master's degree (and other professional qualifications) in the time it takes to complete conscription, currently 18-21 months, and thereby boost their relative competitiveness in the job market.

The new "top tier" visas target high-tech fields and industries, and thus would have a male bias as men favor STEM careers at a higher rate than women. (In South Korea, slightly less than 30% of students entering doctoral programs in STEM are women; globally, 28% of workers in science and technology are women.)

Consequently, young South Korean men seeking positions as engineers, programmers, developers and other high-tech roles will now face disproportionate competition from "foreign talent," which itself will skew male.

Such "foreign talent" will often speak fluent English and have degrees from top-ranked universities, giving them a leg up over local job candidates. (In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024, the highest-ranked South Korean university is SNU at Number 62, with eight Chinese universities alone ahead of it; the top ten are all in the US or UK, which is to say English-speaking countries.)

Moreover, many firms in South Korea are still committed to ESG initiatives, at least nominally. The above-referenced Samsung site, for example, has an entire section devoted to ESG and pledges its commitment to "diversity of ethnicity, gender, religion, region of origin, and nationality." Not only will many young South Korean men be competing against job candidates who speak native English, have degrees from higher-ranked universities, and have advanced degrees they were able to earn in the time it takes local men to fulfill conscription duty, but they will also increasingly find themselves in the same category occupied by "straight white men" in the West: Insufficiently "diverse" and thus at a competitive disadvantage under the West's hegemonic ideology of "woke" neoliberalism.

In effect, many South Korean youths will find themselves doubly penalized by the Empire: ESG is an imperial ideology that is opposed to patriotism and nationalism and generally disfavors men of the local majority population; at the same time, conscription persists in South Korea mainly because of the division system, itself an artifact of the Cold War that remains in place because it serves to uphold imperial liberalism.

In other words, young South Korean men give nearly two years of their lives to the Empire and, going forward, will often find their service "rewarded" with diminished prospects in the job market by that very same Empire.

By now, South Korea's "demographic collapse" is world-famous and invariably framed by imperial media as "catastrophic." Yet a declining population would actually benefit younger generations as housing prices would fall over time and salaries rise, both phenomena in accord with the basic law of supply and demand. In the long-term, higher incomes and lower home costs would foster family formation, and South Koreans would start having more children than pet dogs again. Nature, in short, would begin to heal.

Alas, such a happy scenario is not in the class interests of those who largely own South Korea, which is exactly why the country is being opened up to millions of immigrants at all levels, from farm and factory workers in provincial areas to corporate staff in major cities. Higher salaries and wages are not to the benefit of shareholders of Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Company and SK hynix, which are disproportionately owned by global investors and older generations in South Korea. Big Line must keep going up, which is why younger South Koreans, especially Zoomer men, must be kept down.

(Indeed, adding millions of immigrants to the local population will help prop up housing prices and rents, to the benefit of older generations who own much of the local housing stock. Crucially, older generations vastly outnumber young ones in South Korea, and they will keep voting in their class interests for decades to come.)

In a just world, local companies would look after the interests of local workers while also generating a fair profit for their owners, and as civilization advanced, the burdens of life would ease instead of compounding and growing ever more oppressive for regular people.

Of course, such a world is definitely not "progressive," at least as far as our enlightened betters are concerned, and is probably even "racist" or "fascist" and hence evil.

South Korean Zoomer men may often wonder what they did to deserve such a heavy fate, but they can at least take solace in knowing they're on "the right side of history."

Half of South Koreans, roughly equivalent to the entire North Korean population, now live in the Seoul Capital Area; those outside of it are increasingly different not only ethnically or racially but also economically and socially.

A new report from Singapore-based, state-owned CNA (short for Channel NewsAsia) looks at the continuing mass migration of South Koreans to the Seoul Capital Area, and the resulting need to repopulate rural and provincial areas with workers from abroad:

With its rural areas starved of local manpower, the country has turned increasingly to migrants to fill the gap. Up to 165,000 non-professional visas could be issued this year, more than double the figure in 2022.

As the capital becomes more desirable to live in, it perpetuates the cycle of depopulation elsewhere, which leads to a critical shortage of workers.

In the city of Ansan, 73-year-old Park Jung-ryul finds himself farming from dawn to dusk owing to its ageing population. "It's tough to find workers," he says. "The youngest people here are in their 60s."

He feels sad about the lack of young South Koreans in farming. And he has every reason to: It poses huge challenges to local agriculture and may potentially endanger South Korea's food sovereignty.

It was in this same city where Bon Tai managed to find an "easy-going boss," Ji Tae-seung, who welcomed any help he could get for his farm.

"Nowadays, nearly all the farm workers are migrant workers, since there are no Koreans doing (this work)," Ji laments.

During the 2022 presidential race, Yoon Suk-yeol was portrayed as "xenophobic" and a promoter of "hate" towards foreign residents by left-liberal media and his main opponent, Lee Jae-myung, who broke new ground in election campaigning by likening Yoon's rhetoric to "the words of the Nazis."

Yoon was specifically called out for a Facebook post in which he vowed to toughen requirements for foreign residents signed up for National Health Insurance Service coverage. He suggested they benefit more than they pay in, and thus are "putting their spoons on meal tables that have been prepared for Korean citizens through their hard efforts for the past 40 years." He referenced Chinese residents in particular.

Lee countered that foreign residents actually pay in more to the system than they receive in medical treatment and services. Well, since foreign residents tend to be younger and fitter than South Koreans for a variety reasons, not least because they are not very welcome to stay past retirement age, this is undoubtedly true at least for now. However, as more and more acquire permanent residency or citizenship and stay for the long term, the balance of the payments versus benefits could change.

In any case, beneath the moralistic rhetoric of Lee and Yoon's critics, both sides centered South Koreans in the debate: The argument of both Yoon and Lee was whether foreign residents benefit South Koreans and their NHIS. Yoon's chief error was to lack a certain finesse in addressing the matter; for his part, Lee was much more adept at dressing up ethnonationalism in the language of "diversity" and "inclusion," which is no surprise given his long experience as a career politician.

Regardless, Yoon's more overt appeals to "populism" during his campaign were evidently enough to help him win the presidency. His pledge to shut down the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, unfulfilled as of this writing, was also implicitly nativist, given its support and funding for "multicultural families," to use the official locution.

However, what the rapid expansion of migrant workers since he took charge — a doubling of non-professional visas alone since 2022 according to the quoted article — helps us remember is that under "liberal democracy," campaign pledges and promises often mean little, and that there is rarely any accountability when they are broken.

In reality, both "liberals" and "conservatives" in South Korea are two sides of the same coin: So-called "conservatives" are simply economic liberals who see value in importing low-cost migrant labor to help the bottom line; so-called "liberals" are mainly social liberals who see value in mass immigration to dilute the voting power of the majority and to expand their own base of dependent client groups.

Together, they work as a kind of tag-team or one-two punch, wittingly or not: "Conservatives" preach "populism" while expanding the migrant population on behalf of business interests, often by stealth or on the down-low, and then once facts on the ground have become irreversible, "liberals" help moralize and legitimize them among the general populace.

In the case of South Korea, the broad trajectory has been to fill up provincial and rural areas with migrants even as younger South Koreans continue to head to Seoul for education, work and the "bright lights of the big city."

For South Koreans in Seoul, the rapid demographic transformation of their country is much less apparent than it is outside of the capital. Out of sight, out of mind — at least for now.

Indeed, with each passing year, South Korea itself will become increasingly divided: A majority of the ethnic Korean nation concentrated in the capital, and possessing much of the national wealth and prestige jobs, and a radically diversified population in provincial areas, and generally overrepresented in less "high status" trades and professions.

Obviously, this is not the egalitarian utopia of which South Koreans dreamed in the late 1980s and 1990s once they had finally achieved "true democracy," and indeed extending to their brothers and sisters in the North.

In fact, it looks much more like socially stratified neofeudalism, and not a particularly stable one at that: For if Fortress Seoul is a true population killer, the growing masses outside it, perhaps often resentful and well-organized among their own tribal, ethnic or religious lines, may very well overwhelm it over time.

Left of center in the foreground is Peter Thiel; immediately behind him on the left is David Sacks. The photo was taken for a 2007 Fortune magazine story titled, "The PayPal Mafia."

Trying to eradicate the cancer of neoconservatism in America is like playing a game of Whac-A-Mole that can never be won. Writes Fortune magazine of JD Vance, Donald Trump's final choice for Vice President:

In a Monday interview with Fox News, Vance called China the "biggest threat" to the U.S., and said that Washington's continued support for Ukraine in its war against Russia has "completely distracted" the U.S. from focusing on the "real issue, which is China."

During his 2021 Senate campaign, Vance blamed China for U.S. job losses, and more recently he's talked about bringing jobs back to the U.S. and protecting U.S. industries "from all the competition" in a May CBS interview.

Trump has said he would raise tariffs on China even further, potentially as high as 60%, if he wins office again.

Vance has publicly endorsed Trump's call to increase tariffs on China though he has not openly committed to a number. 

Since becoming senator for Ohio, Vance has introduced legislation to restrict China from accessing U.S. financial markets and exchanges, alleging that China violates international law and manipulates international currency.

He also introduced other legislation that would tighten rules around foreign donations to U.S. institutions of higher education, citing concerns that the Chinese government would be able to exert influence over American universities and students.

At the Munich security conference this year, Vance argued that U.S. military efforts should not be focused on Europe but instead on East Asia, a region he thinks will be the focus of American foreign policy for the next few decades. Vance believes that American Patriot missiles sent to Ukraine come at the expense of Taiwan.

In another interview with Fox News in April 2023, Vance revealed that he's largely supportive of arming the Taiwan region, as he believes a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be negative for the United States because of the self-ruled island’s large role in the semiconductor industry.

It's worth recalling that JD Vance is essentially a stalking horse for Peter Thiel, who is most responsible for Vance's political rise. Thiel donated a whopping $15 million to Vance's winning 2022 Ohio Senate campaign. The two first met in 2017, when Thiel hired Vance to work for his Austin-based VC firm Mithril Capital, which focuses on the tech sector.

A so-called "populist" bankrolled by a Silicon Valley oligarch is yet more evidence that US "politics" today are largely a theatrical production.

According to reports, David Sacks, himself a member of the notorious "PayPal mafia," has already donated $1 million to a pro-Vance super PAC. Axios reports that Sacks personally lobbied Trump to pick Vance as his running mate.

Elon Musk is also an ardent Vance supporter. In other words, should Trump retake the White House, the "PayPal mafia" will have their own man poised to become president in short order.

We can assume that Trump picked Vance in part with the expectation that more "PayPal mafia" money would flow into his campaign coffers. As always in US "politics," it is only money that talks; everyone else mostly squawks.

We further note that neither Thiel, Sacks nor Musk are native-born American citizens. They do not have deep ties to the US nation. They do have a significant financial interest in the long-term viability of the American project. It's just business, folks.

Musk is hostile to the PRC not least because low-cost Chinese EVs are a threat to Tesla in the US market, and indeed around the world. TikTok is also much more popular in the US than X, which has just 100 million American users compared to 170 million US TikTokers.

Thiel is also hostile to China. In 2021, he warned that the PRC could use Bitcoin as a "financial weapon" to dethrone the US dollar as the global reserve currency. Certainly, a much weakened dollar would send the US economy into a tailspin and thus threaten Thiel's investments and financial holdings there.

It can be argued that Thiel is something of a stalking horse himself, specifically for the US Deep State. His multi-billion dollar big-data firm Palantir Technologies was founded in 2004 with seed money from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm. Today, Palantir enjoys lucrative contracts with the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the DIA: A rogues gallery of imperial and more or less unaccountable operatives.

Earlier this year, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp published an opinion piece in Time magazine ("Silicon Valley Has a Harvard Problem," 12 February 2024) that essentially attacks the hold that "wokeness" has on US elites and institutions. In it, he argues that conformist, career-minded mediocrities are standing in the way of American greatness, and even thwarting it. This critique echoes the widely shared view among the dissident right, and certainly many members of the "PayPal mafia," a great many of whom are hated "cis white males," that the present "competency crisis" in the US, which is all too real, is not in the long-term interests of the nation.

Karp is well-known to be a Zionist and staunch defender of Israel. The long-term erosion of competency in the US would ultimately threaten the existence of Israel itself, since without the backing of the US Empire, it's hard to see it enduring over the long-term.

The "China threat" now comes into sharper focus here. There is no "competency crisis" in the PRC these days, which does not allow its companies and major institutions to be captured by radical diversicrats and "woke" commisars chasing pie-in-the-sky fantasies. It went down that road in the 1960s and 1970s during the Cultural Revolution and sees where it leads: Straight to hell and national implosion. The PRC learned its lesson long ago; the US has yet to do so.

In short, a younger generation of elites in Silicon Valley, at once more worldly and less enamored of Boomer and Millennial "utopian universalism" (Thiel, Sacks and Musk are all Gen Xers, as is the present writer) seem to recognize that an ever-more incompetent US is no match against a hypercompetent PRC, and are making moves accordingly at the highest levels of US "politics," which it must always be stressed are but a dog-and-pony show for greater financial interests behind the scenes.

No matter who wins the White House this time around, US-PRC decoupling is certain to accelerate. However, if the Trump-Vance ticket proves victorious, anti-PRC rhetoric in Washington is likely to be more strident.

We also worry that Vance's hawkish attacks on the PRC could gather a certain momentum of their own, especially if he ultimately becomes Commander in Chief. The PRC is not so foolish as to invade Taiwan on its own initiative, and is willing to play the long game of gradual integration. However, US arming of Taiwan, which Vance has stated he supports, could itself provoke US-PRC conflict with one wrong move or a too-hasty response on either side in the region.

For the record, we consider Taiwan to be a part of China. In other words, PRC-Taiwan relations are an internal Chinese matter that is not of America's concern. Indeed, it is often forgotten that the official US position is to recognize the One China policy, and it has done so since 1972. The Empire of Chaos never tires of speaking of international "rule of law," but seems incapable of following it itself. It is like a rabid dog that is a danger to just about everyone. We all know what is best done to rabid dogs: They need to be put down.

Vance is a Midwestern provincial with poor geopolitical instincts if his own biography is properly considered. He served with the Marine Corps during the Iraq War, an illegal war of aggression that was "justified" through lies and deception. In other words, Vance fell for the con himself, or just didn't care and went along with it for his own self-interested reasons.

We have no reason to trust him now, especially considering his needlessly provocative and inflammatory attacks on the PRC. His scapegoating of China for US job losses is especially disingenuous: It was not China that "stole" American jobs; it was Wall Street that effectively did so by offshoring millions to the PRC and elsewhere around the world.

A genuine populist would articulate the exact nature of the problem instead of obfuscating it. In fact, Vance has joined Big Capital himself, and thus expresses his own class interests by running cover for Wall Street. Just as he has been absorbed by Big Capital, US populism is coopted through the person of JD Vance and other astroturfed or phony "populists" like him.

To put the matter somewhat differently, populism in the US will be leveraged against China not to benefit the average American worker, but to shore up the class interests of oligarchs and other elites in the US, which is to say the very forces that sold out US workers in the first place. Same as it ever was, and will continue to be until Americans finally get a clue.

If it is now safe to assume that US-PRC rivalry will only intensify in coming years, we can also confidently predict that the ROK will be further absorbed into the US Empire. It is an important military outpost of the Empire right at the doorstep of China. To ensure it remains within the US orbit, elites in the ROK will continue to be granted all manner of economic preferences and enticements, such as favored access to the US market, tax breaks and even subsidies. This will hardly benefit average Americans or many US firms. It will also come at the expense of the Korean people themselves, since the US Empire will not tolerate any détente or peace on the Korean Peninsula that might threaten its hold there. In such ways is "populism" in the US instrumentalized on behalf of an Empire that is in every way hostile to the American people.

In his piece in Time, Karp invokes Allan Bloom and his 1987 bestseller "The Closing of the American Mind," itself an early lament against political correctness or incipient "wokeness" and, in turn, the decline of the West. Bloom himself was a neoconservative, just as Vance appears to be along with many of those patronized by the "PayPal mafia."

Thiel, for example, is closely associated with the Claremont Institute, itself the most important outpost of the neoconservative West Coast Straussians. In 2007, Thiel himself published a long essay entitled "The Straussian Moment," effectively signaling his ideological commitment to both neoconservatism and the US Empire itself. At the time, "radical Islam" was the great threat to the West in Thiel's framing. Today, the new "clash of civilizations" would seem to be between "illiberal China" and "Western Civilization." In fact, Thiel often characterizes China as "communist," suggesting that he does not really understand it very well. China is not communist but rather socialist, with a massive middle class, a significant bourgeoisie and a mixed economy. It goes without saying that a county with a large bourgeoisie and a marketized economy is hardly "communist."

It would be better, therefore to frame the fundamental contest in the world today as between state control of capital (the PRC model) and capital control of states (the US model). Obviously, as an oligarch himself, Thiel favors the latter model, as does Wall Street itself; both are thus on the same page in their hostility to the PRC, which under Xi Jinping has made it clear that the Party-state is now back in charge.

The next several months are certain to be mere entertainment for the most part as far as the US presidential election is concerned. It is clear that the Deep State favors Trump, who in turn now has the backing of several key members of the "PayPal mafia." On X, Musk will help "engineer consensus" by promoting the likes of Costin Alamariu and others in the Thiel network. We recall the recent example of "dissident right influencer" Lomez pretending not to know who was in charge of the extremely Zionist Biden administration and racking up millions of impressions on X. There will be many more such cases of exceedingly cold takes rather inorganically enjoying "massive popular support." Again, it's all mostly entertainment.

A fundamental conceit of the West Coast Straussians is that the US is a "proposition nation" based not on ethnicity or even language, but rather an abstract idea. Should the Straussians manage to secure an even firmer hold of the US regime, the character of America as an organic nation tied to a specific people will be further erased away. The irony is that this process will have been achieved by appealing to populism, which to say in the name of a people who increasingly no longer exist.