[Choice TimesBo-Sik Choi, Publisher]

People of a similar caliber tend to cluster around a president of a given caliber.

On the 7th, President Lee Jae-myung publicly rebuked as “deliberate fake news” a press release issued by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI)that cited research by the British investment-immigration consultancy Henley & Partnersclaiming South Korea ranked fourth worldwide in the outflow of wealthy individuals. After that post on X (formerly Twitter), a truly bizarre spectacle began to unfold.

Chey Tae-won, chairman of KCCI (and chairman of SK Group), who was on a business trip to the United States, issued an apology at near light speed. In the Korean context, one might accept that as understandable.

What followed, however, was something else entirely.

The very next day, Koo Yun-cheol, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Economy and Finance, fumed on his Facebook page, writing that KCCI “must bear due responsibility for producing and distributing a press release based on flawed statistics.”

Not to be outdone, Kim Jung-kwan, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, posted that he would “take firm measures, including conducting an audit of KCCI.”

The following morning (the 9th), Minister Kim convened an “Emergency Meeting on Current Issues with Six Economic Organizations,” declaring that the matter “has caused confusion among the public and the market and seriously undermined trust across the overall policy environment.” He added that “based on the results of the audit, strict accountability will be imposed on those responsible,” and announced that an immediate audit had begun covering “the entire process of drafting, verification, and distribution of the press release.”

He also said that, “to minimize the gap between government policy and the field, we will regularize policy consultations with major organizations and associations starting later this month.” I recall the government performing poorly in the U.S.–Korea tariff negotiations, which were tied to national interests; I did not expect such efficiency when it came to an issue involving President Lee.

Following the deputy prime minister and the industry minister, Lim Kwang-hyun, Commissioner of the National Tax Service (NTS), also sprang into action immediately after the president’s SNS reference to “deliberate fake news.”

Commissioner Lim posted on Facebook a piece titled, “‘2,400 millionaires leaving Korea because of inheritance tax’?? We will fact-check this,” boasting(?) that “to provide the public with more accurate information, the NTS conducted a comprehensive analysis of all overseas emigrants reported over the past three years.”

He continued: “The average number of Koreans reporting overseas emigration from 2022 to 2024 was 2,904 per year, and among them, those with assets of 1 billion won or more averaged only 139 annually.”

He added: “Average assets per person have also been on a declining trend—9.7 billion won, 5.46 billion won, and 4.65 billion won in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively—and we did not find a tendency for people to emigrate to countries without inheritance tax simply because they are wealthy.”

In effect, this amounted to the National Tax Service confessing to the illegal act of thoroughly combing through the personal asset details of some 8,700 overseas emigrants without warrants.

Earlier, the president had posted the following impassioned statement on X (Twitter) on the 7th:

“Producing and distributing fake news to pursue private interests and attack government policy deserves condemnation. It is especially unbelievable that an official organization established by law, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, would publicly engage in such behavior. We must hold them strictly accountable and create mechanisms to prevent recurrence. Deliberate fake news that clouds the judgment of the sovereign people who make policy is an enemy of democracy.”

For a president to erupt over such a matter, invoking phrases like “an enemy of democracy that clouds the judgment of the sovereign people,” struck me as rather petty. And the spectacle of ministers and vice ministers rushing to curry favor with such a president—the so-called “three-man assault squad”—is, if anything, repulsive. Of course, President Lee will likely regard such people as “hard workers.”

Is this truly an issue so grave that it warrants the president, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs, the minister of industry, and the head of the tax authority all drawing their swords at once? Do those who ride in luxury official cars on the taxpayers’ dime really have nothing better to do?

Historically, such figures—who fawn solely to protect the supreme leader’s mood—have been called sycophants.

#PowerAndSycophancy #FakeNewsControversy #PresidentialOverreach