Marine Le Pen, a French right-wing leader, was recently banned from running for office. This week, the South Korean Constitutional Court made headlines by ousting President Yoon Suk Yeol from his position. Critics are speculating about Beijing’s involvement in the efforts to remove Yoon from power.
According to Anna Mahjar-Barducci, the project director at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Yoon’s foreign and security policies do not align with the pro-China stance favored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This divergence poses a challenge to Beijing’s goal of nurturing a pro-China faction within South Korea.
Mahjar-Barducci suggested that the CCP has employed various tactics such as economic partnerships, political contributions, clandestine benefits, and even illicit activities like sexual bribery to influence specific South Korean political figures. The ultimate aim is to weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance, diminish South Korea’s strategic autonomy, and enhance China’s dominance in the region at America’s expense.
China’s Shandong aircraft carrier is seen near Taiwan on March 31. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
Mahjar-Barducci said Yoon’s removal is part of a “pattern… all over the world” of right-wing candidates being forbidden from seeking election, including Romanian right-wing presidential frontrunner Călin Georgescu and French right-wing politician Le Pen. “The judiciary has been weaponized once again,” she explained.
The CCP’s hand in South Korea comes at a time when Beijing is holding large-scale military drills around Taiwan, with 19 vessels from the Chinese navy being spotted in the waters surrounding Taiwan between Monday and Tuesday morning. Mahjar-Barducci said that while Beijing has attempted to make such drills “a new normal,” it has also warned that the “drills could unexpectedly turn into a real war.”
South Korea will hold elections for a new president in two months. Fox News Digital has reported that surveys show liberal opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung is “an early favorite” for the position.
