
South Korea presidential hopeful blames Moon’s ‘pro-Beijing’ policies for fuelling bad blood between neighbours
- Former prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol said Moon Jae-in tried and failed ‘to play the role of mediator’ between China and the US, fuelling negative sentiment
- The People Power Party candidate has vowed to align Seoul more closely to Washington and Tokyo if he wins South Korea’s presidential election in March
“The government attempted to play the role of mediator between China and the United States, but this ended up in failure,” he told a gathering of business leaders at the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.

Such policies gave rise to a situation where Korean youngsters disliked China and “differently from the past, Chinese people, mostly young ones, don’t like South Korea either”, he said.
A Democratic Party spokeswoman described Yoon’s remarks as “crazy”.
“It’s hard to tell whether Yoon is just foolhardy or ignorant”, she said. “It is appalling to see a presidential candidate making such crass comments on international relations, saying someone dislikes someone else.”

Chang Young-il, a spokesman for Yoon’s campaign, said Yoon was pointing out the fact that Moon’s “spineless” diplomacy towards Beijing had resulted in worse ties with China and fuelled antipathy among citizens, especially the young.
Yoon, running on the ticket of the People Power Party for the March presidential election, has not shied away from taking a tough line on China, seeing it as a way to expand his support base ahead of next March’s presidential poll.
He has vowed to, if elected, end “strategic ambiguity” – Seoul’s balancing act between the US and China – and align the country more closely to Washington and Tokyo, including exploring deeper military cooperation. South Korea’s diplomacy must be based on “universal values” such as liberal democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, he said.
Yoon’s remarks come as his rate of support in public opinion polls has suffered over a series of gaffes and allegations that his wife faked her academic credentials to obtain jobs.
The latest polls indicate that Yoon, a former prosecutor general who once enjoyed a comfortable lead over rival Lee Jae-myung, governor of the Gyeonggi province surrounding Seoul, is now running neck-and-neck with the liberal candidate.

