President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea, who you might remember from my coverage of his lolcow wife, has run into a bit of a diplomatic scandal.
This ajussi thinks he has magical powers lmao.
Failures leading up to...
He went on a world tour that should have been a welcome escape from domestic politics given his low approval rating. But apparently his psychic powers aren't as good as he thinks. He failed to forsee everything going wrong that possibly could. First he went to London but missed Queen Elizabeth's funeral, blaming traffic for being late. Then it was on to the UN General Assembly, a place where all world leaders love to do a photo op and look dignified. He announced that he was going to have summit meetings with the Japanese PM and President Biden to b-word about Korea's grievances.
Signing the book of condolences after he failed to attend the funeral.
The Koreans want compensation for s*x slaves taken by the Japanese during WW2. The Japanese argue that they already paid massive amounts of reparations in exchange for the Koreans dropping all claims against them in 1965. Given that Korea never suffered the kind of devastation that China and the Philippines did, it really was a relatively sweet deal tbqh. So this is not a conversation that the Japanese wanted to have. They came out publicly saying that they had been talking about a possible summit but hadn't agreed to anything yet. In the end, Yoon managed to get a brief 30 minute meeting with the Japanese PM and no indication that the Korean demands are being taken seriously.
Yoon wanted to meet Biden to whine about how the American "Inflation Reduction Act" will subsidize American automakers and damage imports of cheap piece of shit Korean cars. Of course Koreans only care about free trade when it goes one way. This is especially rich considering that the Koreans have for decades been finding whatever underhanded methods possible to block imports of luxury cars from the USA. Yoon managed to spend an entire 48 seconds speaking to Biden, once again ending up achieving nothing.
Insane people demonstrate against beef actually being affordable enough for them to eat.
...scandal
Just as he was leaving the meeting with Biden, he was caught on camera saying something like "Itβd be humiliating for Biden if those jackasses/idiots/frickers in the legislature donβt pass it." Presumably he was talking about the US Congress not passing a bill that Biden supports. This caused a lot of embarrassment because while Koreans might like to irrationally chimp out at America at home from time to time, they know better than to have their leader insulting the US government at a diplomatic function.
Actual footage of the average Korean's reaction to this news.
Yoon went into damage control mode and came up with an explanation. He actually hadn't said "Biden", he'd said a word in Korean that sounds similar. He wasn't talking about the US legislature, he was talking about the Korean legislature. Of course that just means that he's offending the Korean legislature too now and nobody believes him anyway. As some random Korean Youtube commenter said, "Mistakes can be forgiven but lies cannot."
Unfortunately I cannot find anyone who will actually spell out what the profanity was. The best I can find is "κ΅ν μ΄ XXλ€μ΄ μΉμΈ μ ν΄μ£Όλ©΄ λ°μ΄λ μ΄ μͺ½νλ €μ μ΄λ‘νλ" with the word in question censored and the audio is way too hard for me to make out even after it's been cleaned up.
Sources
I've covered everything worth saying, but if you want to look into this more, we have:
Leftoid editorial - When you've got me agreeing with Hankyoreh about foreign policy you know you've done something wrong.
Centroid editorial - Basically saying the same things.
Rightoid reporting - They're not any happier about it.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
pass what though
also south korean politics seems really dramatic in general, the foid stuff especially
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I couldn't figure it out. Maybe he was talking about funding for the global charity thing they were at the UN meeting for? It was for like AIDS or hunger or one of those problems that third world countries have. He was only caught on the mic for a few seconds so it's hard to tell what he was talking about without context.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
KR industrialized very recently. Correct me if I'm wrong but it wasn't long ago they were living in feudal dirt roads crying at the feet of their nobles. You can still see this at Kim Jong-il's funeral footage
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Korea started to industrialize around the 1890s just before the Japanese took over and continued to make pretty rapid progress until the war when everything was destroyed and they had to start over. It took until around the 1990s before it was really a first world country.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Korea hasn't cried at the feet of nobles in over 100 years, when the Jap bastards colonized them. No idea when they phased out dirt roads, but even the most expensive district in Seoul (Gangnam) still had farmland until the 00's.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
There is a 2000% chance this is related to some kind of corrupt scheming by real estate developers. That's who runs everything in Korea even more than it is in the USA.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Yeah there was corruption, but I think Korea was just that poor until recently. The rich part of seoul also changed. It used to be like apgujeong before shifting to Gangnam.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
ya think?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context