Factional Politics and Contentious Memorials: #Shigak no. 21

By | April 24, 2015 | No Comments

South Korean and US Navy admirals inspecting the wreckage of the Cheonan at Pyeongtaek in September 2010. | Image:

South Korean and US Navy admirals inspecting the wreckage of the ROKS Cheonan at Pyeongtaek in September 2010. | Image: BotMultichillT/Wikipedia

“Shigak” (시각), or “perspective,” is a multilingual data collection effort that uses Twitter to curate sources dealing in key political, social, and economic issues on South Korea. Each monthly issue takes only the most important tweets posted by Sino-NK analysts under the hashtag #시각 and augments them with essential annotations and a small dose of concentrated analysis.

Shigak is edited by Steven Denney and Christopher Green. Back issues can be found on the dedicated page. All users of Twitter are encouraged to adopt the hashtag and take part in the project.

Factional Politics and Contentious Memorials: #Shigak no. 21

by Sino-NK

Summary | This issue of Shigak highlights key stories and domestic political developments in South Korea between March and April. This means a challenge to South Korea’s Special Law on Sex Trade, a court ruling on orders to revise history textbooks, the opening of an 4.5km extension to Metro 9, factional politics and schisms with the main opposition party, a determined renegade liberal candidate in the Gwanak-gu by-election, and the fifth and final state commemoration of the Cheonan sinking.

Upon petition, the Constitutional Court began hearings to judge the constitutionality of the Special Law on Sex Trade (see tweet #1 for full text, in Korean). The law, enacted in 2004, makes it more difficult for sex workers to practice their trade.

While an otherwise conservative society (see tweet #2) may be loath to admit it, selling sex in South Korea is big business. By some unverified estimates it accounts for 1.6 percent of GDP (there are also significantly higher estimates). Other reported statistics cite the figure as one-fifth: one in every five men buys sex four times per month. So much demand incentivizes supply—the same source reports one out of every 25 women in South Korea is selling sex. This is to say nothing of the sex trade and sex tourism.

Sex workers are calling on the court to throw out or modify the law, according to JTBC. Former Jongam chief of police Kim Gang-ja is leading the charge. She argues that “the penalty clause must be abolished for the sake of sex workers’ livelihoods,” because “not only does the Special Law on Prostitution violate basic rights of sexual freedom and freedom of occupation, but it leads to negative side effects for sex workers who are forced to work illegally.”

The government sees it as a matter of protecting the public. Attorney Choi Hyun-hee, who testified for the government, is cited by JTBC as saying, “Prostitution, which involves the transaction of sex, cannot be judged solely in the private domain. If prostitution is harmful to the public, it is not only undeserving of protection as an occupation, but the penalty clause must be maintained for a healthy sex culture.”

Given that legislation outlawing adultery was recently struck down, it doesn’t seem far-fetched for the court to throw out the 2004 law. While it will not make sex work an entirely legal enterprise, it may go so far as to decriminalize the sale of sex but not the purchase.

In a JTBC interview (tweet #1), senior opposition party lawmaker Park Ji-won told Son Seok-ki that he and New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) party chair Moon Jae-in had mended their relationship, dismissing claims that political differences or personal animosity had put a permanent wedge between the two politicians. In addition to belonging to rival party factions, the two ran against one another in a tight race for party chair. While Park and Moon might be on talking terms, it’s unclear whether the opposition can prevent a factional divide from thwarting (yet again) the opposition party’s effort to make political ground against the ruling Saenuri Party. No-shows from key party members Park Ji-won, Kim Han-gil, and Kwon No-gab at high-level meetings convened by Moon aren’t good signs.

Park is a member of the so-called “Donggyodong faction” (동교동계파), meaning followers of former President Kim Dae-jung. The faction is perceived to be at loggerheads with the “Pro-Roh faction” (친노파) led by Moon. As the interview underscores, many in the Donggyongdong faction believe Moon is taking the party in the wrong direction and ignoring the opposition’s traditional stronghold, Honam (호남; North and South Jeolla Provinces). He is also accused of deliberately excluding Donggyongdong faction members from positions of power in the party (tweet #2).

Park, Kwon, and other Donggyodong members have decided to support Moon for now, it seems, but whether their support will remain is yet to be seen. In Seo-B district (Gwangju), Cheon Jung-bae, a former NPAD senior advisor who left the party in March, is running against NPAD candidate Cho Young-taek. Early polls show Cheon in the lead. Meanwhile, in the Gwanak district of Seoul, factional tensions and another progressive independent candidate caused writers at the Joongang Ilbo to conclude that the ruling Saenuri Party might even win there “for the first time in 27 years.”

On April 6, Chung Dong-young hit back at opinion polls dismissing his chances of winning the April 29 by-election in the Gwanak district of southern Seoul. According to the poll (see tweet #1), in a five-way race Chung would get just 23.5 percent of the vote, whilst a three-way race (which assumes two minor left wing candidates dropping out) would only see him improve to 27.4 percent.

Speaking on YTN Radio, Chung highlighted a flaw in the polling methodology: that it was conducted using landline numbers alone rather than cell phone and landline. The result of this, he told presenter Kang Ji-won, was that the poll was heavily skewed toward older respondents. To prove it, he pointed to the fact that 60 percent of respondents acknowledged in the poll that they had voted for President Park Geun-hye in the 2012 presidential election, whereas Park actually received just 40 percent of the popular vote in the same district.

Former presidential candidate Chung Dong-young declared that he would run as an independent in the upcoming April 29 by-elections in Gwanak, signaling a break with the opposition NPAD. Chung’s decision to run against the party he left in January this year is bound to create further divisions among the left wing opposition.

In South Korean political lexicon there is an important and relevant term here: cheolsae (철새; seasonal migratory bird). It refers to politicians who change their political allegiances at the most opportune time. In other words, opportunists. When Chung announced he was running for the upcoming by-elections, he was immediately branded a cheolsae. Chung is said to have quit the NPAD because he was not given a senior role and his importance was fading fast. He is not unique in his opportunism, however. For instance, current Saenuri Party senior advisor Lee In-jae has changed political party 13 times since 1987, which arguably says as much about South Korean party politics as it does about Lee.

South Korea’s court ruled that the Ministry of Education was legally justified in issuing orders to amend the content of seven history textbooks, including one by controversial publisher Kyohaksa (교학사) in 2013. The Ministry of Education had ordered Kyohaksa to make amendments to its Korean history textbook because of “pro-Japanese” and “pro-dictatorship” positions it was accused of taking.

The ministry ordered amendments to the other six textbooks over issues such as the division of the Korean peninsula and defining North Korea’s Juche ideology. The publishers were instructed not to excessively criticize former President Park Chung-hee’s economic development policies and to state more clearly which actor sank the ROKS Cheonan naval corvette in 2010 and shelled Yeonpyeong Island in November the same year. The Korean History Textbook Writers’ Association (한국사 교과서 집필자 협의외) protested the ministry’s amendments, arguing that they send the message that textbooks can be amended in accordance with the government’s taste.

Consternation and concern accompanied the opening of an extension to Metro 9, also known as Seoul Subway Line 9, at the end of March. Opening on the 28th, a Saturday, the extension takes passengers 4.5km through five additional stations, from Sinnonhyeon in central Gangnam to Sports Complex on Line 2. Thanks to regular express services, this cuts the journey time from Gimpo Airport in the west to the 1988 Olympic Stadium in the east to just 38 minutes.

However, the line was already described during rush hours by a term combining the words “hell” and “subway” because not only are express trains relatively infrequent, but all trains also have just four carriages (trains on all other lines have between eight and ten). Though plans exist to extend the trains–all Metro 9 platforms have the latent capacity for this–results are not expected on the ground until 2016. According to this piece, however, the problem was anticipated; one report notes that even before the new extension opened, all four of the most congested locations on Seoul Subway between 07:50 and 08:20 on weekdays were on the express line of Metro 9.

An opinion survey conducted by Incruit, an online employment network, revealed a range of negative experiences of Metro 9; more than 60% of passengers on the line said they’d been pushed around on the train, 40 percent reported fatigue that lasted all day, 30 percent said they had experienced difficulties boarding and/or alighting, and more than 18% said they were stressed at the very thought of traveling to work in the morning.

In any case, the 476,971 people who rode Metro 9 in the week before the extension opened had become 511,918 by the week of April 7, an increase of 7.3 percent. Express trains carried 6.3 percent more passengers in the same period.

Meanwhile, chaebol corporation Lotte has moved to blame the construction of Metro 9 in eastern Gangnam for the declining water level in Seokchon Lake, the body of water that surrounds the amusement park Lotte World. The accusation is denied; not surprisingly, the finger of blame has long been pointed at the nearby construction of Lotte World Tower – six floors of which are underground. As this 2013 MBC news report explains, scientists believe that the water pumped out of the construction project is replaced with the surrounding groundwater, and this causes the water level in the lake to fall significantly. More than four million tons of Han River water have reportedly been injected into the lake to maintain its level.

March 26 marked the fifth and final state commemoration of the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. More than 5000 people including the nation’s ruling elite, families of the deceased, civic leaders, soldiers and students convened at Daejeon National Cemetery to remember the 46 sailors killed in the North Korean torpedo attack. President Park Geun-hye used the opportunity provided by her speech at the event to tell the ROK military that it must aim to “halt the enemy’s provocations before the fact, and even if there is a provocation, be ready to fight and win.”

On the 25th, a day earlier, opposition NPAD leader Moon Jae-in attracted attention when he publicly accepted North Korean culpability for the sinking of the vessel, telling a meeting of soldiers that “a North Korean submarine” had “attacked the Cheonan then returned to North Korea.” During the 2012 presidential election campaign Moon also described the attack on the vessel as a “sinking” but had previously not been so explicit about North Korea’s role.

That same day, Hankyoreh, which produced a 2010 documentary highlighting flaws in the original investigation into the sinking and hypothesizing alternative causality, published an opportunistic piece saying that the “Cheonan sinking” has put the entire peninsula back in the Cold War period of the 1970s and 80s and calling for a change of approach on the fifth anniversary. Coupling President Park’s goal of improving bilateral relations to limited moves to engage North Korea via the port at Rasun, it urged a strategic decision to end the May 24th Measures and normalize economic ties between the two Koreas, something that Stephan Haggard ponders here.

Hankyoreh also published this photo, which amply reflects the pain caused by the events of March 26, 2010.

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