[Choice Times=Cho Gap-je, CEOr of Cho Gap-je Dotcom]

“Move the presidential office the wrong way, and the regime will collapse. Move the capital the wrong way, and the country will collapse.”

From the moment Yoon Suk-yeol forcibly relocated the presidential office from Cheong Wa Dae to Yongsan, I predicted that this decision would trigger a chain reaction that would ultimately bring down his administration.

Yoon Suk-yeol himself initially gave up on the move after touring the Ministry of National Defense compound, only to suddenly change his mind. This appears to have been influenced by Kim Keon-hee. A special prosecutor later pointed out that one of the causes of the martial law episode was the proximity of the presidential office and residence to the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman’s residence, which led to frequent communication with military officers.

Yoon once said, “Consciousness arises from space.” In that sense, the emergence of martial law thinking from within a military compound proved his own words correct. The manpower drain caused by daily commuting security arrangements and large-scale police deployments to handle protests around the presidential office has also been cited as one of the contributing factors to the Itaewon disaster.

This week, President Lee Jae-myung will return the presidential office to Cheong Wa Dae. This is a good decision. It should also serve as an opportunity to put a permanent end to the debate over relocating the capital.

Moving the presidential office to Sejong City would amount to relocating the capital, which requires a constitutional amendment. Goguryeo and Baekje collapsed after moving their capitals southward and suffering the consequences, whereas Silla maintained its capital in Gyeongju for a thousand years of political stability and achieved unification.

Seoul has been the capital of Hanseong Baekje, the Joseon Dynasty, and the Republic of Korea, serving as the center of legitimacy on the Korean Peninsula for over a thousand years. Even North Korea’s constitution, until the early 1970s, stipulated Seoul as the capital of a unified Korea. This demonstrates how Seoul’s overwhelming authority has given South Korea an advantage in the historical struggle over national legitimacy.

Those who advocate relocating the capital inland to the south are traitors to this history. Such a move risks benefiting the North Korean Workers’ Party regime and could be interpreted as abandoning the will for free unification through northward advance.

With Cheong Wa Dae returning to its rightful place, the Lee Jae-myung administration has secured an opportunity to govern the country with calmness and stability. It must never again consider leaving Cheong Wa Dae. Only when the nation’s leadership is stable can the people feel secure.

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