Moon Jae-in has boasted of being a human rights lawyer. However, consider what he did during his four-year presidency and one would have no idea that was his former profession.
For starters, Moon Jae-in appears to view the North Korean people as separate from the Pyongyang regime. How’s that? Watch Moon closely as he tries not to ruffle the feathers of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the human rights and suffering of ‘regular’ North Koreans.
Following passage of the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act in the United States, the South Korean National Assembly submitted its own North Korean Human Rights Act in 2005. However, Moon Jae-in and his political party persistently opposed the law. It was barely passed in 2016 – 11 years later – and while a conservative administration was in power.
Despite the law being enacted, Moon has sabotaged the establishment of the human rights foundation which is key for implementing the law. He has also declined to appoint an ambassador for North Korean human rights.
Why so? Doing otherwise would displease the North Korean regime.
And there is more. In 2007, when Moon Jae-in was President Roh Moo-hyun’s chief of staff, he sounded out North Korea’s position on a proposed UN Human Rights Council’s resolution condemning North Korean human rights. Afterwards, South Korean abstained when the vote came.
Once Moon Jae-in took office as South Korea’s president in 2017, for three consecutive years Moon and his administration have refused to sponsor or support United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions on North Korea’s abysmal human rights record. The international community thinks it strange, and rather embarrassing. But once again, Moon’s priority is to avoid angering Kim Jong-un and the North Korean regime.
And the efforts to placate North Korea – at the expense of human rights – continue. On November 7, 2019, two North Korean fishermen who were trying to defect to the South were secretly handed over at Panmunjom at the request of the North Korean regime – without Moon’s administration conducting sufficient investigation. When the blindfolds were taken off and the fishermen saw they were in front of North Korean soldiers, the fishermen collapsed. And Moon claims to have been a human rights lawyer?
Another of Moon’s anti-humanitarian efforts that pleases Pyongyang, but this time is directed against South Koreans – is the ‘Anti-Leaflet Law’ which was passed in late December 2020. This law prohibits sending leaflets or goods to North Korean territory. Violators will be sentenced to up to three years in prison or fined up to 30 million won (30,000 dollars). Human rights activists in South Korea and abroad consider that providing outside news to the closed North Korean society is simply expressing freedom of speech as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And they add that North Korean people have a corresponding right to receive information under the same Declaration.
Once again, the reason for prohibiting true information from reaching North Korea? The Kim Jong-un regime will be displeased. That’s not surprising, since if the winds of truth and freedom from the outside enter an ‘imprisoned’ society, a dictatorship such as Kim’s just might collapse.
The Moon Jae-in administration’s continuous pro-North Korean behavior should not be shocking to close observers. In the early days of the administration, more than 60 activists – known as “Jusapa” figures – from the 1980’s radical left-wing student movement were placed in the Blue House secretary’s office. These included Im Jong-seok, who served as Moon’s Chief of Staff.
Strikingly, there is no clear evidence that they have recanted their past pledges of loyalty to North Korea dictators Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il – despite having opportunities to do so. That speaks for itself.
Journalist Cho Gap-je summarized the Moon Jae-in administration’s foreign policy as follows: separating from America, anti-Japanese, pro-China, and pro North.
Despite a lack of favorable responses of any sort from North Korea, Moon Jae-in insists that peace will come to the Korean Peninsula if dialogue and support for North Korea continues.
Although North Korea develops and threatens South Korea with deadly nuclear weapons and missiles, the Moon administration only grudgingly cooperates with international sanctions. And it pesters the United States to relax sanctions on Pyongyang.
And there is more. Even though North Korea refugees to give up its policy to “communize” South Korea, Moon is still trying to push for an end-of-war declaration between the US and North Korea. And to achieve peace (apparently at any cost) with North Korea, Moon has reduced and even cancelled combined ROK-US military training. Ironically, this training has helped keep the peace on the peninsula for many decades.
Moon also forcefully demands the Americans give South Korea wartime operational control of forces on the peninsula – but this seems like a political stunt – that creates friction between the Americans and South Koreans, while pleasing Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator.
Eroding trust between Washington and Seoul
During the four years of Moon Jae-in’s presidency, the trust between South Korea and the United States has weakened and the alliance has been undermined. Many South Koreans, unlike the Moon administration, are worried because they believe that the ROK-US alliance is the basis for the safety and prosperity of the Republic of Korea. The Moon Jae-in administration is also hesitant to participate in the Quad, the loose not-quite-alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. Why so? Because Moon walks on eggshells around China and wants to avoid upsetting Beijing.
Although the past between Korea and Japan was difficult and issues remain unresolved, Moon Jae-in intentionally manipulates and inflames popular feeling towards Japan for domestic political advantage. To do so, he simplistically frames society as pro-Japanese or anti-Japanese – and labels his opponents as ‘pro-Japanese.’
Despite Korea’s troubled history with Japan, there is still a great need from a national interest perspective to strengthen cooperation and even friendship between Korea and Japan. Both nations share the values of liberal democracy and market economies and security cooperation between South Korea, the United States, and Japan is important. However, the Moon administration has disrupted progress on this front – despite American wishes the contrary. And who benefits most? Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping.
Moon Jae-in is out of touch with South Korean public opinion
In early April, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) announced the results of a poll conducted by Hankook Research at the end of March that surveyed 1,000 Korean adults.
The majority of respondents cited China as an economic and security threat. And when questioned on the ‘favorability’ of neighboring countries and using a scale of 1-10, the United States received the highest score of 6.0 points, while China was only at 3.1 points. Japan scored 3.2 points – higher than China, and North Korea scored 2.8 points.
83 percent of the participants said they considered China a security threat, but only 12 percent said they considered China as a security partner. In addition, 60 percent of respondents said China was an economic threat, which was almost double the 37 percent who described China as an economic partner.
Despite such public opinion, the Moon Jae-in administration is taking an excessively pro-China stance. This is partly because the Chinese market is so large, and South Korea exports about a quarter of its total exports to China. It is true that China is important to the Korean economy. However, the Moon Jae-in administration’s inclination towards China is out of balance and excessive.
In a speech at Beijing University during Moon Jae-in’s state visit to China in December 2017, he praised China as a “high mountain peak, a great country,” and referred to Korea as a small country saying that he would share the “Chinese dream” and the dream of China. It was a remark reminiscent of the toadyism of the past when Korea was a tributary state.
Despite his fawning and excessive respect, Moon Jae-in was neglected by his Chinese hosts. Tellingly, out of ten dining opportunities during his visit, Moon dined by himself six times. Even Roh Young-min, Moon’s then-ambassador to China, and other close Moon aides also commented on Moon’s uses of obsequious language and his willingness to put up with embarrassing treatment. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Xi Jinping’s China seems to regard Korea as a subordinate state.
Why does Moon Jae-in seem to shrink or diminish in front of Xi Jinping and China?
Why does he fail to reflect the requests of US human rights campaigner Suzanne Scholte and other human rights activists to ask Xi Jinping not to forcibly repatriate North Korean refugees in China to North Korea despite being a human rights lawyer?
The answer is not complicated. During his college years Moon Jae-in admired the communist leader Mao Zedong. It seems that he even now sees China’s support as also urgently needed – not to resolve the ‘nuclear’ problem on the Korean peninsula, but to ensure the survival of the North Korean regime, which Moon considers a top priority.
In addition, it is said that tens of thousands of Chinese students studying in South Korea also participated in the candlelight vigils held in the center of Seoul in 2016 that forced President Park Geun-hye to resign – and led to Moon’s election as president on May 9, the following year. Some observers claim Moon believes he owes China a debt for helping him become president.
Conclusion
To foreigners, and particularly officials and analysts in Washington, DC, there is a tendency to consider Moon Jae-in as perhaps a little naïve, but at heart a well-intentioned ‘former human rights lawyer.’ He is also seen as strong supporter of the ROK-US alliance – and the humane, democratic principles that are considered an indispensable part of each nations’ ‘makeup’.
However, it is important to realize, as this essay attempts to demonstrate, that Moon Jae-in (and his closest advisors) are unrepented leftist radicals who are fundamentally anti-American, pro-North Korea, and pro-PRC. They are also more inclined towards a one-party state with greatly constrained individual rights – if any, such as found in North Korea and China. This is at odds with majority public opinion in South Korea but is nonetheless the reality in today’s South Korea.
The United States and the Biden administration need to be aware of this and develop policy accordingly.
