South Korea's presidential elections, scheduled for March 9, are less than a month old.
In the fierce stage of competition, candidates from various parties are stepping up their sprints, and a latest poll shows that Yin Xiyue's support rate is 36.1%, Lee Jae-ming's is 31.6%, An Zhexiu is third with 10% approval, and Shen Xiangyu is fourth with 3%. Then just a month ago, south Korea's general election was still a "three-legged" trend. (#Tianmu Observation#South Korea's general election turned into "Three Kingdoms Competition"?) Experts: Maybe "Sun Liu united to resist Cao") At that time, Lee Jae-ming's approval rating was nearly 10 percentage points ahead of Yin Xiyue, but just a few weeks later, Yin Xiyue achieved a reversal, what happened to the South Korean election situation in this month?
Election countdown panel in the office building of the Central Election Management Committee of The Republic of Korea. Image source: Yonhap News Agency
Black material is frequent! The election of this year's Korean general election is unexpectedly glued
The election situation is confusing and reversed many times, and South Korea's current election has been called a "out of focus" election.
Previously, frustrated by family scandals, team infighting, and Park Geun-hye's release from prison, Yoon Seok-wook's approval rating fell off a cliff. However, after reaching a dramatic reconciliation with the head of the Kuomintang Party, Lee Joon-seok, in early January, Yin Xiyue's support rate changed from the previous decadent trend, climbed all the way back to Li Zaiming, and the "two strongs" once again held each other.
In the face of such a glue election, Yonhap News Agency once quoted expert analysis to point out that looking back at previous South Korean presidential elections, the final winners ranked first in the poll support rate before the election, while the current general election was very unexpected, and the ranking of the support rate near the election period was still changing.
Zhan Debin, director and professor of the Korean Peninsula Research Center at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, analyzed that Li Zaiming's approval rating is generally stable, fluctuating around 35%, while Yin Xiyue's approval rating fluctuates significantly, and Li Zaiming's recent slight decline in support is greatly affected by his wife's scandal.
According to SBS TELEVISION, Lee's wife, Kim Hye-gyeong, was accused of abusing lee's powers and enjoying special treatment while Lee Jae-myung was governor of Gyeonggi Province. Although Lee Jae-ming and his wife have repeatedly apologized publicly for the matter, relevant reports in South Korea continue to circulate, and the controversy has not subsided.
At the same time that Li Zaiming's backyard caught fire, Yin Xiyue was also plagued by scandals. His wife, Jin Jianxi, was first exposed to falsification of her resume, and after the "7-hour call recording" was leaked, Jin Jianxi was accused of bribing reporters and interfering in the election. In addition, Yin Xiyue himself was also exposed by the Korean media to believe in witchcraft, and there were wizards involved in the election team.
"Now, lee Jae-ming's lover Kim Hye-kyeong incident has become more and more intense, pushed to the forefront, and many people who originally supported him, especially young people in their 20s and 30s, have increased their doubts about him, resulting in a decline in support." Qian Yong, an associate professor at the Institute of Korean Studies at Zhejiang University, explained that the same scandal caused by his wife, Yin Xiyue's lover Kim Jian-hee recording incident, was originally his biggest crisis, but after the recording was exposed, thanks to the effective crisis management of the campaign team, it eliminated some of the public's doubts.
"Frequent tricks"? The two candidates hype up national sentiment for the sake of stabilizing the election
Recently, the Beijing Winter Olympics were held in full swing. Controversial topics such as "Opening Ceremony Hanbok Controversy" and "Short Track Speed Skating Referee Controversy" have continued to ferment in South Korea, which has also led to a surge in anti-China sentiment in South Korea. The general election is approaching, in the face of the difficult support rate, Lee and Yin seem to have some "urgent and chaotic medical treatment", in addition to digging up scandals and attacking each other, they also use the high anti-China sentiment of the South Korean people to compete for votes and stabilize the election.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in tweeted congratulations to South Korean athletes on winning the championship Image source Screenshot from social media
Yin Xiyue, who has always advocated being tough on China, took this "good opportunity" to attack China, stressing that South Korea should be open to the additional deployment of the THAAD system, and even advocated that South Korea should actively participate in the "four-party security dialogue" mechanism between the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
Li Zaiming, who has long emphasized Sino-South Korean cooperation, is also unusual, openly saying in an interview on the 8th that he will severely crack down on or even "sink illegally fished Chinese fishing vessels", however, in the first live TV debate on the evening of the 3rd, he also stressed that he should continue to cooperate with China and oppose the additional deployment of "THAAD".
"Lee Jae-ming's attitude toward Chinese fishing boats does not rule out measures to win back votes for the election." In Qian Yong's view, during the Winter Olympics, due to the increase in negative reports on China in the South Korean domestic media, the "suspicion of China" sentiment in the Young Class of South Korea has risen sharply, and the Common Democratic Party, to which Lee Jae-ming belongs, has always had the label of being too pro-China among the voters.
"Although there are electoral factors, Lee Jae-ming's China-related attitude is consistent, which is the attitude of nationalists, and he has made similar statements in the early days." Zhan Debin further pointed out that South Korea is currently in an atmosphere of opposing China whenever it is necessary, and anti-China has become one of the means of canvassing votes, which is an excessive and rational national sentiment, it seems that the world is the only one in South Korea, and it is too single way of thinking to understand and accept the diversity of other countries and nationalities.
South Korea holds a televised debate of presidential candidates. Source: Xinhua News Agency
Will the South Korean election have an important impact on the situation in the Asia-Pacific region?
At present, US Secretary of State Blinken has embarked on a trip to the Asia-Pacific region, with the obvious purpose of reminding the relevant countries that despite the Ukraine crisis, the United States will still try to contain China. The "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" held in Australia is even more considered by the outside world to be a "small NATO" against China.
Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations at Chinese Min University, said that in order to further strengthen the geopolitical function of the dialogue mechanism, in the foreseeable future, the United States will try to include other countries in this mechanism in the form of "four countries +", such as South Korea, followed by Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries.
Blinken's current Asia-Pacific trip will meet with the foreign minister of Japan and the ROK in Hawaii to hold consultations on relevant issues of the DPRK; on the one hand, it will deal with the DPRK, which has recently tested missiles frequently, and on the other hand, it will also want to win the ROK into its own "anti-China" clique. As for whether it will succeed, it depends on who will join the Blue House a month later.
The current Moon Jae-in administration has relative reservations about jointly confronting China in view of bilateral frictions between the United States and South Korea, the deterioration of Japan-South Korea relations, and the economy's high dependence on China. If Lee Jae-ming comes to power, it is likely to continue Moon's diplomatic strategy.
However, according to Yoon Seok-yue's strategic vision, South Korea will further strengthen the US-ROK alliance, improve ROK-Japan relations, seek to join the so-called "freedom and democratic values" alliance, and further or even completely fall into the "anti-China camp" organized by the United States. The strategic pressure on China's peripherals will also increase significantly. In addition, if the ROK and the United States strengthen joint defense cooperation and even take measures to add the THAAD system and deploy medium-range missiles, this will greatly impact the strategic balance in Northeast Asia and plunge China-ROK relations into a situation of total regression again.
Some analysts pointed out that it is clear that if Yin Xiyue comes to power, it will bring many uncertainties to the political pattern of the Asia-Pacific region: on the one hand, the situation on the peninsula may once again become tense. If South Korea adopts a policy of maximum pressure on the DPRK, it will not only bring the dialogue around the Peninsula issue to a stalemate again, but also the results of the Moon Jae-in administration's diplomatic efforts with the DPRK will be in vain; on the other hand, the great power competition in Northeast Asia will further intensify, and regional cooperation will face greater obstacles.