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One of the focal points of world public opinion last week was that former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who was sentenced to jail, was pardoned by current President Moon Jae-in. According to South Korean media reports, Park Geun-hye, who is in the hospital for medical treatment, does not need to return to prison, but can stay in the hospital until midnight on January 1 and then go home directly. It is said that after hearing that she was pardoned, Park Geun-hye, who could only eat porridge and noodles because of his health, immediately ate a bowl of soft rice.
There is an old saying: There is no love without a reason or hatred without a reason in the world. The reason why Moon Jae-in, who refused to amnesty Park Geun-hye until the beginning of this month, changed his mind within one month. In the final analysis, it was to pave the way for his retirement soon to come in a few months, because he feared that conservative parties would treat him after they came to power. The counter-offensive is inverted, just as he liquidated the conservatives after he took office. At the same time, his amnesty for Park Geun-hye is also an attempt to create some opportunities for his party to be in power again.
Moon Jae-in leaves a way for himself
Moon Jae-in’s amnesty for Park Geun-hye is first of all for his own consideration, to avoid the liquidation of South Korean conservatives after they come to power, at least not to be liquidated too badly.
As a president with anti-US, pro-China, and North-South reconciliation as his basic political views, Moon Jae-in did a lot of liquidation against South Korean conservatives during his administration, including the treatment of Park Geun-hye. Park Geun-hye is stable in South Korea. At the same time, Moon Jae-in has done a lot of unreasonable things in dealing with North Korea and North Korea’s nuclear issues.
As far as the liquidation of conservatives is concerned, in addition to sending Park Geun-hye to prison, he also cleansed the South Korean army and intelligence system. At the beginning of his coming to power, he wanted to reduce the number of generals in the South Korean army. This was actually to eliminate the conservative forces in the South Korean army. In 2020, Moon Jae-in also decided to cut 15 generals every year until his retirement in 2022. It should be said that Moon Jae-in’s cleanup of the South Korean army and intelligence agencies when he took office partially achieved his goals, but it also buried the possibility that he would be liquidated after he stepped down.
In addition, there is another thing that the outside world may not know, that is, Moon Jae-in’s containment of the power of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he also offended the powerful South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this. A major feature of Moon Jae-in’s administration after he came to power was that he took North-South reconciliation as the main goal. In this process, he raised the status of the South Korean Ministry of Unification, giving special authorization and care in power and funding allocations, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs The status of the company has declined significantly. For example, Moon Jae-in planned to connect the North-South Korean railway and then transfer energy from the Russian Far East to South Korea. He planned to allocate 2.1 billion US dollars in three years, but all the money was allocated to the Ministry of Unification. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, which has the same work connection as the Ministry of Unification, does not have anything at all. The author discovered in contacts with South Korean diplomatic authorities that Moon Jae-in must have offended the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs so far.
With regard to North-South relations, Moon Jae-in has actually pursued a policy since he took office: only protecting North Korea’s security, while in fact indulging North Korea’s nuclear weapons, is very controversial both at home and abroad. The peninsula diplomatic circle widely believes that since Moon Jae-in took advantage of South Korea’s U.S. ally status to block the U.S. from using nuclear force against North Korea several times, especially during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, when the United States had already decided to use nuclear force against North Korea. But Moon Jae-in used the Winter Olympics to block American actions.
In addition, Moon Jae-in’s feelings for North Korea are somewhat unusual for South Korea’s president. In South Korea, there are many discussions and legends about Moon Jae-in’s feelings for the North, the president who is home in Wonsan, North Korea. But there is one thing in his capacity that is really confusing: when he met and talked with Kim Jong-un, he and Kim Jong-un were the only ones around, and there were no staff from both North and South Korea. This is not a problem for North Korea, but for South Korea, This may be a big deal. If the South Korean conservative forces liquidate Moon Jae-in in the future, the above behavior will undoubtedly be the focus of the investigation.
In addition, in terms of people’s livelihood, the housing pressure of the people alone can deny Moon Jae-in’s internal affairs.
In view of the above facts, it is not surprising that when Moon Jae-in’s term of office was only a few months left, he amnesty Park Geun-hye, in the final analysis, to leave a way out for himself. The Blue House spokesperson’s so-called amnesty for Park Geun-hye is for “national unity.” In fact, it should mean that conservatives and progressives make concessions and not pursue each other. But from a political perspective, if the South Korean conservatives are in power in the future, will they give Moon Jae-in the opportunity? Moon Jae-in can only resign to fate now.
Amnesty for votes
Another purpose of Moon Jae-in’s amnesty for Park Geun-hye is to split the current conservative camp in South Korea and at the same time create more chances of victory for Lee Jae-ming, the presidential candidate of his party. The international media “The New York Times”, the British “Guardian” and Bloomberg all focused on Moon Jae-in’s strategy when reporting on this matter.
South Korea is about to start the presidential election in three months. According to the Gallup poll, the approval ratings of the two factions in South Korea are currently at the same level. Judging from the current election situation in South Korea, Moon Jae-in’s amnesty for Park Geun-hye at this moment obviously has the following considerations:
One is to soften the hatred of the middle-aged and elderly voters in the conservative camp towards Moon Jae-in’s party, because they are mostly die-hard supporters of Park Geun-hye. Moon Jae-in amnesty Park Geun-hye, and the firm iron vote in the conservative camp may loosen.
On the other hand, at the moment when the presidential election is approaching, the conservative camp in South Korea is not united, and there are infighting and splitting among the factions. In particular, the conservative presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yue, who was the attorney general of South Korea, himself It is the actual operator of Park Geun-hye’s imprisonment, and Park Geun-hye’s release from prison will set off an old account in the conservative camp about how each faction stood in line when Park Geun-hye was imprisoned, thereby further splitting the conservative camp. Moreover, Moon Jae-in deliberately amnesty Park Geun-hye without pardoning another conservative former president Lee Myung-bak who is also in jail, which will exacerbate the division of the conservative camp.
Finally, Lee Jae-ming, the candidate of Moon Jae-in’s party, the “Common Democratic Party”, once publicly opposed the pardon of Park Geun-hye, which exposed him to the negative effects of the election, and Moon Jae-in’s pardon of Park Geun-hye resolved Lee’s negative election. .
At this time when the two major camps in South Korea have equal support, Moon Jae-in’s amnesty for Park Geun-hye’s above strategy will work.
In short, the continued detention of Park Geun-hye will be detrimental to the election of Moon Jae-in’s ruling party. In particular, if anything happens to Park Geun-hye’s health at the moment of the election, not only will Moon Jae-in’s party lose miserably in the election, but the people will Enraged, the future liquidation of Moon Jae-in will be severe. From the perspective of the current South Korean elections, South Korea’s official so-called amnesty for Park Geun-hye to promote “national unity” is actually aimed at enabling middle-aged and elderly voters who are part of Park Geun-hye’s hard-core supporters to forgive and understand Moon Jae-in, and this is actually sabotage. This united the conservative voter camp and helped the current ruling party. At the same time, the amnesty for Park Geun-hye to provoke the “Park Geun-hye topic” will also intensify the further division of factions within the conservative camp around turning over old historical accounts. Therefore, the release of Park Geun-hye is profitable but harmless.
The key to the next depends on how Park Geun-hye did it. Judging from the fact that she, who can only eat porridge, will eat a bowl of rice when she hears that she is pardoned, she has begun to take her health seriously, which means: she may not miss the South Korean election next year. .
Finally, from a Chinese perspective, Park Geun-hye can be said to be the only South Korean leader in the conservative camp in South Korea who really likes Chinese culture, is friendly to China, and values China after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. When she came to China to participate in the activities to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan, she withstood the tremendous pressure from South Korea, North Korea and allies. Later, North Korea continued to pressure South Korea, and China did not carry out effective operations, which eventually led to the entry of “THAAD” into South Korea. It is worth mentioning that even to the last minute, Park Geun-hye still had room for China. When the South Korean leader is re-elected again, recalling the history of that year is not without teaching.
(Note: The author is the secretary-general of the International Public Opinion Research Center of the Chahar Society and a researcher of the Peninsula Peace Research Center. This article only represents the author’s personal views. The editor’s mailbox [email protected])