President Moon Jae-in visited the headquarters of South Korea’s state spy agency for the first time in three years on June 4. However, another controversy arose over the visit after concerns were raised that Moon still maintains twisted views on recent history related to North Korea. The Moon administration unveiled a stone with the spy agency’s new motto inscribed with calligraphy from an “intellectual” implicated in a pro-North Korean plot.
Reforming the spy agency has been one of Moon’s major campaign pledges. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) was accused of being involved in corruption and oppressing political dissidents in the past.
The ruling Democratic Party, which holds a majority of seats in the National Assembly, passed a bill in late 2020 that aimed at reforming the NIS. The main opposition party tried to block the bill through a filibuster process but failed to stop it. The new law prohibits the agency from undertaking domestic surveillance operations. The NIS is instead required to focus on collecting information related to North Korea and overseas interests. The new law will also transfer the right to investigate illegal pro-North Korea activities in South Korea to the police. The NIS and the police are currently conducting at least one joint probe but aim to complete the mandated transition by the end of 2023.
“The NIS will not go back to the past,” Moon said on June 4. He added that the reform measures represent the precious fruit of NIS officials’ dedicated efforts and the government’s strong will, which would serve as a brilliant milestone in its history. “When I came here in July 2018, I pledged to guarantee that I will not use the NIS for political purposes, force them to affirm loyalty to the administration, and that I will keep the political neutrality of the agency,” he added. “You and I kept that promise.”
The key purpose of the reform is to transform the NIS to become more like the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which takes care of overseas operations and intelligence matters, while creating a new Korean version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that oversees domestic matters.
The main opposition People Power Party has been against the reform, particularly the clause that will ban the NIS from investigating pro-North Korean activities in South Korea. “The National Assembly is trying to pass a law that would only be beneficial to North Korea, which constantly tries to make South Korea Communist,” said Rep. Lee Chul-gyu of the PPP during the filibuster session in December. “It is so South Korea will not be involved in activities that North Koreans feel burdened by and dislike, and is weakening our country’s capability [to deal with North Korea].”
During President Moon’s latest visit to the NIS, a ceremony was held that unveiled a stone with the agency’s new motto celebrating its 60th founding anniversary next week. It reads, “Serving Our Nation and People with Unwavering Loyalty and Devotion.” The problem with the stone is that it used a font called “Arms around each other’s shoulders” created by the late professor Shin Young-bok.
Shin is considered a liberal intellectual among South Koreans on the left, but conservatives emphasize that he was a criminal who was involved in the so-called Unification Revolutionary Party (Tonghyuk-dang) incident in 1968. The case refers to the biggest spy scandal in South Korean history.
Central to the scandal, South Korean revolutionary leftist Kim Jong-tae illegally visited North Korea four times and received funding from North Korea to form the People’s Revolutionary Party. The five main criminals involved in the plot, including Kim Jong-tae, were apprehended in South Korea and sentenced to death, and 158 others were arrested. Shin Young-bok was one of the key academic and cultural figures who were recruited by Kim Jong-tae, who planned an armed uprising and overthrow of the government.
Shin was sentenced to life in prison for violating the National Security Act. He was released in 1988 after 20 years in prison after writing a letter that declared he had undergone an ideological conversion. However, he later changed his words and said “I never changed my ideology or betrayed my comrades.”
In the 1970s, North Korea repeatedly asked for the repatriation of Shin Young-bok to the South Korean government. However, the South Korean government rejected the requests, saying it cannot repatriate a South Korean national to North Korea. Recently disclosed diplomatic documents showed that the North Korean government asked for an exchange between South Korean diplomats abducted in communist North Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 and North Korean spies and “South Korean revolutionaries” abducted in Seoul, including Shin. This showed how much North Korea appreciated the efforts by Shin Young-bok and others. North Korea also has a train manufacturing company named after Kim Jong-tae.
President Moon Jae-in showed his great admiration for Shin.
“Shin Young-bok, an esteemed Korean thinker, once said that huddling together to brave the wintry chill with the body heat of the person next to you is primordial friendship,” Moon said at the reception of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. “I am certain the friendship among all of us meeting today from every corner of the world will be further cemented in the cold of Gangwon Province.” This speech was made in front of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Moon invited Kim Yo-jong to the presidential Blue House and took commemorative photos in front of Shin Young-bok’s calligraphy and a painting of the Korean Peninsula. Shin’s calligraphy showed the Chinese character “Tong,” which means communication. He said he would like to achieve unification (also pronounced ‘Tong’ using another Chinese character) through communication with the North.
In 2015, South Korea’s now-ruling Democratic Party’s changed its full name in Korean to “Deobureo-Minjoo-Dang,” which translates as “Together Democratic Party.” In January 2017, Moon Jae-in, then the leader of the party, attended the first anniversary of Shin Young-bok’s passing. “Mr. Shin passed away after giving our party name ‘Deobureo,’” Moon said at that time. “We will change the administration together [Deobureo] with candlelight and report to him more proudly that the ‘Deobureo Forest’ spirit that he emphasized is becoming a reality at next year’s anniversary event.”
