National soccer team manager Hong Myung-bo, who was eliminated in the group stage of the 2026 North & Central America World Cup after a poor performance, arrived at Incheon International Airport on the 30th amid the shouting and jeering of fans. [Photo = Yonhap News] 

National soccer team manager Hong Myung-bo, who was eliminated in the group stage of the 2026 North & Central America World Cup after a poor performance, arrives at Incheon International Airport on the 30th amid the shouting and jeering of fans.

After the group stage elimination was confirmed, President Lee Jae-myung posted on social media, "If an incompetent person is chosen as a commander, the result is as clear as day." Hong Myung-bo immediately announced his resignation as manager.

What responsibility does Lee Jae-myung bear?

The People Power Party responded to Lee Jae-myung’s "incompetent commander" remark by stating, "It seems like a comment the President should be making while looking in the mirror," and criticized him by adding, "If the problem with the national soccer team is the fault of manager Hong Myung-bo, then the root cause of the collapse of the South Korean economy is President Lee Jae-myung himself."

Hong Myung-bo took responsibility for the group stage elimination and resigned as manager immediately. However, for the past year since taking office, what responsibility has Lee Jae-myung taken for: △the skyrocketing real estate prices including jeonse and monthly rent; △the collapse of companies and the self-employed due to high inflation, high interest rates, and high exchange rates—excluding the surge in operating profits and stock prices of Samsung Electronics and Hynix caused by a semiconductor boom cycle unrelated to Lee Jae-myung’s government policies; △the mass production of unemployed youth and the collapse of the South Korean economy; △the breakdown of the separation of powers; △failed diplomacy and national security; and △the seizure and suppression of the media?

For nearly a month, protests demanding a condemnation of the election, a re-election, and the dissolution of the National Election Commission (NEC) have been taking place across the country due to the unprecedented fraudulent election situation that shook the nation's democratic constitutional order, where citizens were unable to vote due to a shortage of ballots in the June 3 local elections, violating national sovereignty.

Furthermore, even within the anti-Lee Jae-myung faction of the Democratic Party, known as "Moon-Jo-Tal-Rae-Yu," there are mentions of impeachment due to attempts to influence the dismissal of charges in Lee Jae-myung’s trials. Despite this, instead of reflecting or stepping down, Lee Jae-myung is engaged in a dramatic spectacle of forcing astronomical semiconductor facility investments from Samsung Electronics and Hynix into the Honam region, the Democratic Party’s political base.

In a liberal democratic country, central and local governments strive to attract domestic and foreign companies by offering incentives such as finance, tax benefits, and infrastructure construction.

However, for a President and his government to step in and force large-scale investments upon a specific region through tangible and intangible pressure to a level that threatens the survival of these companies—and to use this for political gain—goes beyond the abuse of power by the President and relevant officials. It is an anti-state act that destroys South Korea’s semiconductor firms and the economy itself, and it is an insurrection that undermines the nation.

When criticism arose regarding the government’s control of private enterprises—something unthinkable in a liberal democracy and market economy—Lee Jae-myung claimed, "To put it nicely, I induced it; to put it harshly, I enticed them to make large-scale investments in Honam. I did not force them."

This is a pathetic remark from Lee Jae-myung, who treats the public as if they were swine to be ordered around like the Juche-faction followers who blindly obey the commands of the North Korean communist regime, and who is suspected of being linked to the Gyeonggi Eastern Alliance, the stronghold of the Juche faction.

Allegations that Samsung Electronics and Hynix were forced to make astronomical investments in Honam—a region lacking in water, power, labor, raw materials, parts, equipment, and logistics—make a special counsel investigation and the subsequent punishment of Lee Jae-myung and his officials inevitable.

The Constitutional Court and the judiciary, which serve the Democratic Party regime and pro-North Korea leftist forces that orchestrated the unprecedented rigged "state affairs manipulation" case—where they impeached President Park Geun-hye and sentenced her to 15 years in prison and 18 billion won in fines on charges of forcing several large corporations to contribute 77.4 billion won to establish sports foundations—must, by the same logic, impeach and punish Lee Jae-myung.

Charges of forcing Honam investment on Samsung Electronics and Hynix

Lee Jae-myung’s charges of forcing Samsung Electronics and Hynix to invest in Honam go beyond abuse of power; they constitute an insurrection that topples the nation. If Samsung Electronics and Hynix lose their international competitiveness and collapse due to unreasonable investments in Honam, the South Korean semiconductor industry will collapse. The fall of the semiconductor industry, which accounts for half of South Korea’s economy, would mean the collapse of the Korean economy itself.

The task for the Lee Jae-myung government is not a pie-in-the-sky "Honam Semiconductor Cluster," but to support the rapid progress of existing semiconductor facility investment plans in Pyeongtaek, Yongin, and Hwaseong.

There is also criticism that the government is uncooperative with Samsung and Hynix's plans to expand facility investments in the metropolitan area in order to push the Honam semiconductor cluster. The public-private consultative body for the Yongin Semiconductor National Industrial Complex is currently stalled, and land compensation has not been completed.

Investing in the semiconductor industry in Honam, the Democratic Party's support base, is merely an outward justification. Underlying it is a conspiracy by anti-state, pro-North Korean leftist forces to destroy South Korea's economy and achieve the communist takeover of the South by North Korean communists.

This is why the allegations that Lee Jae-myung forced Samsung and Hynix to invest in Honam constitute an insurrection and must lead to Lee Jae-myung’s stepping down, a custodial investigation, and the dissolution of the Democratic Party.

Chief of Staff to the President Kang Hoon-sik claims that Samsung and SK Hynix will complete the 4,700 trillion won Honam semiconductor facility investment—double South Korea’s GDP—by June 2030, when Lee Jae-myung’s term ends.

However, on the 30th, Samsung Electronics issued a regulatory filing stating, "The above mid-to-long-term investment plan is a future roadmap based on current market conditions, provided to aid understanding, and is subject to change depending on future market conditions and changes in our business environment," and specified December 31, 2040, as the completion date. SK Hynix released a similar filing.

Samsung and SK Hynix, the top-tier companies that are South Korea's pride and leaders in the global semiconductor industry, are not so foolish as to entrust their companies to clumsy pro-North Korean leftists and ruin them.

However, Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party, who, instead of helping domestic semiconductor firms struggling in fierce competition with the U.S., Japan, and China—all of which are betting their survival on the semiconductor and AI industries—are constantly holding them back and slowing their progress, must pay the price.

The late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee once said, "Our country's politics are 4th-rate, bureaucrats and administrative organizations are 3rd-rate, and businesses are 2nd-rate." Currently, South Korean businesses are world-class, while the politics and bureaucracy are nothing more than pathetic groups blocking corporate growth.

There is skepticism regarding the sustainability of the AI industry that sparked the current semiconductor boom, and the semiconductor super-cycle is not permanent.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) recently warned in a report that excessive spending on AI data centers and debt cycling could trigger a global financial crisis, and that if big tech companies slow down their facility investment speed, many companies in the supply chain will not be able to pay back their debts and will go bankrupt. It warns that the current AI investment boom is similar to the dot-com bubble or the boom period just before the Great Depression.

Disturbing the constitutional order with "Lee Jae-myung shield laws"

Lee Jae-myung criticizes Hong Myung-bo on social media as an "absurd figure who cannot distinguish between public and private matters and prioritizes private gain over public interest." The person who cannot distinguish between public and private matters is Lee Jae-myung himself.

Not content with using his presidential position to halt his five ongoing trials, he is rushing legislation to completely dismiss the charges of the halted trials.

Seven of Lee Jae-myung's aides or acquaintances have lost their lives to suicide, suspicious deaths, or accidents during the investigation and trial processes related to the Daejang-dong development project, attorney fee proxy payment allegations, Gyeonggi Province corporate card embezzlement charges, and illegal Seongnam FC donation charges.

Yoo Dong-gyu, former head of the Seongnam Development Corporation and a key witness in the Daejang-dong development favoritism scandal, who was hospitalized after a suspicious traffic accident, says that he would never commit suicide.

The Democratic Party is using the "Judicial Reform 3 Laws," such as the expansion of Supreme Court justices, the "Law Distortion Crime" bill, and the introduction of a trial petition system—often called the "Lee Jae-myung Shield Laws"—to threaten the prosecution and the judiciary, thereby breaking down the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the constitutional order.

Sixty-five years ago, President Syngman Rhee resigned, taking responsibility for the March 15 rigged election orchestrated by Lee Ki-poong, who ran as his vice-presidential candidate, even though he had no personal involvement in it.

However, Lee Jae-myung, who is at the center of suspicions of a rigged election, is busy with propaganda, agitation, and brainwashing—claiming that there was no rigged election but merely poor election management—despite the unprecedented occurrence of a ballot shortage.

The Democratic Party framing the ballot shortage as "poor election management" is a ploy to cover up the rigged election. The ballot shortage incident is not a matter for parliamentary investigation or a joint investigation headquarters; only an independent counsel with guaranteed neutrality, not one appointed by the majority Democratic Party, can determine whether the election was rigged.

Any attempt by the Democratic Party to limit the scope of an independent counsel or cover up the rigged election will invite strong national resistance. The ballot shortage is the "long tail" of twenty years of accumulated election manipulation crimes finally being caught. Through an investigation by a neutral special counsel, evidence such as NEC servers and ballots must be secured to uncover election crimes not only by the NEC but also by those in political circles.

There is no justification for the Democratic Party, which launches all kinds of special counsels by framing President Yoon Suk-yeol with martial law insurrection, to refuse a special counsel for the rigged election.

At a time when they should be calling for a special counsel investigation into the NEC and the resignation of Lee Jae-myung, People Power Party lawmakers from the Han Dong-hoon faction are mindlessly obsessed with intra-party power struggles and incessantly demanding the resignation of Representative Jang Dong-hyuk. They are people who have no concern for the future of the nation and the people, whose only goal is to preserve their own positions, and who are so steeped in self-interest that they act without thinking.

They are "Democratic Party’s 2nd Platoon," self-appointed helpers of Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party. Their place is not the People Power Party, but the Democratic Party or other pro-North Korean leftist parties. Jang Dong-hyuk’s People Power Party must decisively cut ties with them to shed the stigma of being a "puppet."

Suspicions that Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party are accomplices in the NEC's election rigging are rampant. Even though Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae nominated Supreme Court Justice Cheon Dae-yeop as the successor to NEC Chairman Roh Tae-ak, whose term ended in March this year, Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party extended Roh Tae-ak’s term until the local elections by delaying the confirmation hearing for Cheon.

Lee Jae-myung appointed Wi Cheol-hwan, his Judicial Research and Training Institute classmate, as the Standing Commissioner, the working-level head of the NEC. The Democratic Party also created a law to exclude the NEC from the Board of Audit and Inspection’s duties and amended the Referendum Act to impose up to 10 years in prison for spreading false information related to election management, such as raising suspicions of rigged elections.

To shed the suspicion of being accomplices, election rigging must be investigated

The Constitutional Court, led by Moon Hyung-bae—a judge recommended by the Democratic Party whose bias has been controversial during the impeachment trial of President Yoon Suk-yeol—blocked the Board of Audit and Inspection from auditing the NEC on the grounds that it is a constitutional institution. The officials of the now-sanctified NEC are showing a brazen attitude, even refusing to appear as witnesses for parliamentary investigations.

The number of NEC employees, around 4,000, is more than ten times that of Japan's 400. Hundreds of employees take overseas vacations during various election voting periods. There are also suspicions that they are manipulating computer systems from overseas. This is why there are demands to abolish early voting and to block the possibility of fraudulent vote counting at the source by performing manual counting immediately at the polling stations after voting ends, without transporting ballot boxes.

The Lee Jae-myung regime’s state affairs manipulation is also evident in its media control. Following the Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, and Moon Jae-in administrations, Lee Jae-myung is more explicitly seizing and suppressing the media through the revision of the Broadcasting Act and various pressures. This is to oust the management of KBS, MBC, EBS, YTN, and Yonhap News TV appointed during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

Lee Jae-myung shows a level of media seizure and suppression that goes beyond the firing and disciplinary actions of public media management and executives carried out under the guise of "eradicating media accumulated evils" during the Moon Jae-in era.

Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party is opening the prologue to media dictatorship by imposing punitive fines of up to 1 billion won on media outlets and YouTubers through the "Eradication of False and Fabricated Information Act," thereby chilling criticism of the regime and surveillance of power, and forcing only regime-friendly articles to be published.

The rift in the South Korea-U.S. alliance under the Lee Jae-myung regime has reached a dangerous level. Since Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young made comments exposing classified nuclear facilities received from the U.S., the U.S. has not shared high-level intelligence assets, such as wiretapping and surveillance, with Korea.

There are reports—sounding like a comedy—that the South Korean military is pushing to purchase satellite intelligence from overseas private companies to replace this.

The U.S. government and Congress are publicly demanding that U.S. companies like Coupang stop facing discrimination within Korea. Despite this, the regime is carrying out: △the U.S.'s refusal to sign a currency swap; △unreasonable attempts to take back wartime operational control early without U.S. consent; △the legalization of military insubordination; △the integration of the three military academies; △the abolition of the Defense Security Command; △the introduction of the concept of "Resisting America and Aiding Korea" (a CCP term) to glorify the Chinese military's participation in the Korean War at the War Memorial of Korea; and △the dissolution of the National Intelligence Service's spy-catching functions. The work to destroy the liberal democratic Republic of Korea—which could not be fully completed under the Kim, Roh, and Moon administrations—is being conducted explicitly under the Lee Jae-myung regime.

This is the state of the precarious Republic of Korea led by Lee Jae-myung, who criticizes Hong Myung-bo as an incompetent commander due to the poor performance of the Korean soccer team in the World Cup. If the South Korean national soccer team wins the World Cup or achieves results like the 2002 World Cup semifinals, it might be a temporary boost to morale, but that’s all.

It has no impact on the lives of the majority of citizens. You can see this by looking at South American countries that frequently win the World Cup. Hong Myung-bo takes responsibility for the World Cup group stage elimination and resigns as manager immediately.

However, the President, who has a far more direct impact on the lives of the people than a national soccer team manager, shows a sense of responsibility that does not even reach that of a soccer manager. This is why Hong Myung-bo is better than Lee Jae-myung.

◆ Hwang Doo-hyung

Former Washington Correspondent, Yonhap News

Former Deputy Managing Editor, Yonhap News