Yoon Suk Yeol's State Visit: U.S. Backing of Far-Right Leader Bad for South Korea

South Korea's far-right President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected by a narrow margin of 0.7% last year, is in Washington, D.C. this week for a state visit at the invitation of President Biden.

According to the New England Korea Peace Campaign, Boston Candlelight Action Committee, and Massachusetts Peace Action, which are preparing to hold a protest on Friday, April 28th in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during Yoon's visit to Harvard, "Since entering office, Yoon's right-wing administration has expanded costly and provocative U.S.-ROK military exercises, heightened tensions with North Korea, rolled back workers' rights, threatened to abolish the ministry of gender equality, and has taken many other actions to undermine struggles for peace and justice in South Korea."

Indeed, backed by Washington, President Yoon has pursued extreme hawkish policies directly against South Korea's national interests.

Washington's endorsement of Yoon and its support for his new National Security State directly contravenes the majority of South Korean public opinion.

Yoon's state visit comes at a time when South Korea is experiencing unprecedented crises on the political, economic, and national security fronts as a consequence of the Biden Administration's unrelenting pressure on South Korea to join the U.S. anti-China bloc.

Moreover, domestically, Yoon has installed a new National Security State, which experts refer to as the "republic of prosecution."

His administration is engaging in a massive political witch hunt of his opponents, arresting key top officials of the previous Moon administration, and targeting the opposition Democratic Party and progressive political leaders.

Yoon is using South Korea's national-security laws and red-baiting rhetoric to crack down on unions and those who are working for peace and unification.

For example, on January 28 of this year, Jeong Yu-Jin, Director of Education of the Gyongnam Progressive Alliance and a mother of two, was arrested on charges of being a North Korean spy, an allegation she has steadfastly denied. Having been arrested, detained, and forced to make a false confession without access to an attorney, she engaged in a 40-day hunger strike in detention, which she only ended after 300 Koreans joined her hunger strike in solidarity. Although the hunger strike severely harmed her health, she remains steadfast and is preparing for her trial, with her greatest fear being that her two children remain without the care of their mother indefinitely.

Yoon's eagerness to prove his administration's worth as a linchpin in Washington's new Cold War in Asia means that there will be more repression and prosecution such as this. Washington is backing a repressive political regime under an extreme far-right president whose inexperience in foreign policy and disregard for political norms is ushering in a new era of domestic and international uncertainty and risk for South Korea.

Washington's policies run directly counter to the sentiments of the majority of South Koreans, who strongly support balanced foreign relations with Russia and China, meaningful reconciliation with Japan, and peace with North Korea.

According to recent polls, 80% of Koreans oppose the degree to which Yoon has capitulated to Washington's imposition of its anti-China policy on South Korea.

Washington's endorsement of Yoon and its support for his new National Security State directly contravenes the majority of South Korean public opinion.

According to recent figures, the Yoon administration has an abysmal 19% public approval rating.

While the purpose of Yoon's state visit is to prove his relevance to U.S. imperial ambitions in Asia, Washington's increasingly heavy-handed management of its one-sided relationship with South Korea is causing it to lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the South Korean public.