SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Lee Jae-myung, who rose from childhood poverty to become South Korea’s leading liberal politician vowing to fight inequality and corruption, will become the country’s next president on Wednesday after an election that closed one of the most turbulent chapters in the young democracy.
Lee, 60, the candidate of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, is taking office for a full, single five-year term, succeeding Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who was felled over his stunning yet brief imposition of martial law in December.
From what I can gather from South Koreans on the internet talking about the matter, there is a direct relationship between their country’s capitulation to western hyper-capitalist expectations over the last 50+ years, and this phenomenon. And it wasn’t like the US was hands-off when it came to picking winners in the Korean War; to a large extent, South Korea is the way it is because of US, do you think that’s a relatively safe oversimplification to work from?