South Korea’s new leftward path
What is not in doubt is that he is a leftist whose emphatic 49.2 per cent to 41.5 per cent defeat of the conservative People Power Party – the former party of staunchly pro-US president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached last year after imposing martial law – holds the potential to usher in significant change in the alliances of a country of immense strategic and economic importance to the West, including Australia, at a challenging time in the Indo-Pacific.
In domestic terms, Mr Lee, who has a chequered and controversial record in public life, could be South Korea’s “most left-wing leader in memory”, The Wall Street Journal writes. He wants to shut down all coal-fired power plants, reduce the use of natural gas, move to a four-day working week and expand time allowed for holidays and sick leave. While he says he supports the US alliance (28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea), he wants to build enhanced relations with the madcap Kim Jong-un regime in North Korea and with China. He also effectively has ruled out any help if Beijing invades Taiwan, asking: “Whatever happens between China and Taiwan, what has that have to do with us?”
That, undoubtedly, is exactly what the Beijing-Pyongyang-Moscow axis wants to hear from the new leader in Seoul, where anti-American sentiment has been boosted by resentment over 25 per cent tariffs imposed by Donald Trump. That resentment is likely to spill into Mr Lee’s decisions as he recalibrates the relationships of one of the most strategically important countries in our region.
It is early days. There is no certainty about how far or how fast Mr Lee may go in changing things in Seoul. But his agenda, with applause from Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow, is likely to have far-reaching implications for the Indo-Pacific.
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It remains to be seen whether opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, 61, who won Tuesday’s presidential election in South Korea, really is, as some American commentators claim, his country’s version of US independent senator Bernie Sanders.