Lee Jae-myung shares Trump's loose regard for constitutional norms

New South Korean leader must show restraint, allow more debate on sensitive topics

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Lee-Jae-myung-shares-Trump-s-loose-regard-for-constitutional-norms

Joseph Yi is an associate professor of political science at Hanyang University in Seoul.

South Korea's newly elected president, Lee Jae-myung, shares some of Donald Trump's ideologies and penchant for policy recalibration. As Trump moved away from support for a national abortion ban, banning same-sex marriage and cutting entitlements, Lee has moved away (albeit not completely) from his party's redistributive agenda.

Universal basic income -- a hallmark of Lee's unsuccessful 2022 presidential campaign -- has faded into the background. Pressured by inflation, fiscal constraints and criticism from both conservatives and cautious progressives, Lee replaced grand redistribution with more targeted welfare and industrial policies. He has abandoned the combative, anti-corporate tone of previous campaigns and sought a balance between labor rights and economic stability.

Lee also recalibrated his foreign policy stance. During his previous campaign, Lee criticized trilateral military exercises involving Japan, South Korea and the U.S. But this time, he acknowledged trilateral cooperation and expressed a willingness to deepen relations with Japan, addressing historical issues separately from economic and security cooperation.

This reassured middle-class voters and business interests wary of overregulation and of a destabilization of Seoul's international partnerships.

Lee's policy flexibility, at least rhetorically, is welcome. Unfortunately, Lee may also share Trump's loose regard for constitutional norms and constraints.

Under Lee's leadership, the Democratic Party (DP) wielded its legislative majority with unprecedented force. During Yoon Suk Yeol's short-circuited presidency (2022-2024) -- he was ousted after an aborted declaration of martial law -- the DP initiated 29 impeachment motions against government officials, passing 13. In the nearly eight decades since the founding of the Republic of Korea, only 16 impeachment motions had succeeded prior to Yoon.

More troubling was the DP's proposal to expand the Supreme Court from 14 to 30 justices, and to impeach Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae, following a 2025 court ruling ordering a retrial in one of Lee's criminal cases.

As mayor of Seongnam in 2015, Lee publicly denounced Sejong University professor Park Yu-ha, author of "Comfort Women of the Empire," as a "pro-Japanese remnant that must be eradicated." Lee has yet to retract his remarks, betraying a pandering to popular prejudice and intolerance of free speech and academic freedom.

Lee's disregard for liberal-democratic procedural rights and norms is especially concerning because he faces fewer institutional constraints in South Korea than Trump does in the U.S.

Like Trump, Lee dominates the legislature's majority party. Unlike Trump, Lee's progressive supporters also have sway over mainstream institutions, including much of the judiciary, media and academia. A Supreme Court ruling against Trump does not lead to a mass, counter-campaign from lower court judges or legislative attempts to pack the court and prosecute the chief justice, as it did for Lee.

Trump's attempts to restrict free speech and academic freedom, such as at Columbia and Harvard, are vigorously opposed by leading U.S. media and universities. Lee's Democratic Party has enacted even harsher restrictions, such the 5.18 (May 18) Distortion Punishment Act that enables prison sentences of up to five years for people who make false claims about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising (when the military fired at protesters in the southwestern city, killing hundreds).

Some in the DP also exercise legal and institutional power to punish "far-right" professors and pundits, who defame the victims of Japanese colonialism (1910-1945) and of the era of anti-communist authoritarian rule (1948-1987). This includes a six-month prison sentence for a professor who suggested Korean women volunteered to become "comfort women," and two years for a commentator who claimed North Korea helped direct "rioters" in Gwangju.

U.S. President Donald Trump smiles during an event to sign executive orders at the White House in Washington on April 23. © Reuters

Such censorship receives little pushback or critical discussion in South Korea's mainstream media and universities, which are dominated by fervent supporters of a sacred historical narrative. South Korean media partnerships with the U.S. companies such as Netflix tend to globally disseminate narratives that demonize Japanese and South Korean soldiers ("Mr. Sunshine" and "Taxi Driver," etc.) and humanize North Korean ones ("Crash Landing on You"). Conversely, progressive academics and media condemned the 2021 Disney+ drama "Snowdrop" for featuring a North Korean spy in South Korea's democracy movement, pressuring corporate sponsors to withdraw.

The perception of "woke" censorship in mainstream institutions, in turn, pushes conservatives into alternative media (for example, the Sky Daily website) and communities (such as Ilbe and Truth Forum) that disseminate uncorroborated claims, such as that Chinese and North Korean agents infiltrated South Korea's National Election Commission. Such "conspiracy" theories are thought to have partly motivated former President Yoon's disastrous Dec. 3, 2024 martial law declaration.

Lee's election may accelerate this trend of asymmetric polarization, whereby one party (the progressives) dominate knowledge-producing institutions, and view their opponents (conservatives) as illiberal threats who should be censored. This leads the opposing party (conservatives) to create alternative ecosystems that mix factual counter-narratives with unsubstantiated claims.

Lee has promised a special counsel investigation into allegations that many former government officials and People Power Party members secretly supported former Yoon Suk Yeol's "insurrection." A concern is that Lee's supporters will expand this campaign to enforce a new orthodoxy on the 12.3 incident (Yoon's martial law declaration) as they did with 5.18, saying that this was a fascist insurrection, and not a peaceful, performative protest.

Yoon and his supporters claim that the martial law declaration was a dramatic but peaceful form of performative protest against the DP's legislative tyranny.

Principled, procedural liberals should wish a successful presidency for Lee, and speak out against any violation of liberal-democratic procedural rights and norms. Rights such as free speech and norms such as tolerance and objective journalism are essential to the open, rational debate that South Koreans deserve.

Those with power (Lee's Democratic Party) should exercise restraint, and allow more, not less, debate on such sensitive issues. Those without (the People Power Party) should not retreat into isolated bubbles, but openly debate the powerful with logical arguments and substantive facts, not speculation.

Lee Jae-myong won, but scored less than a majority (49.42%), as the two conservative candidates (one, the PPP candidate; the other, a former PPP chief) collectively polled 49.49%, demonstrating the nation’s continuing divide. Each party should respect, or at least tolerate, the other as legitimate opponents in a plural democracy, not as anti-state forces or insurrectionists to be eliminated.

Pragmatism is a virtue for democratic self-government -- but only when paired with constitutional norms and restraints on arbitrary power. Citizens should demand both from their nation's leaders.

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