At the Beijing Winter Olympics, South Korea's performance was astounding, or very grotesque. First of all, the South Korean media used a Representative of the Korean Ethnic Group wearing Korean national costumes at the opening ceremony to carry out a wave of incitement that "China wants to appropriate the Korean national costumes for itself." Since then, South Korean media have reported that "South Korean athletes said that there is nothing to eat at the Beijing Winter Olympics", which is the only representative team that has expressed dissatisfaction with the diet of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Later, as South Korea's Hwang Daehyun was disqualified from a foul in the short-track speed skating competition, the South Korean team made a series of moves, first to complain (which is normal), then to hold a press conference in pure Korean, and then to an Internet storm, who is already a Russian national and coach of the Chinese short track speed skating team, and then inexplicably arranged for a person with the same name to apologize. There are also students in South Korea who posted on Weibo that they had been attacked by South Koreans, and the matter has not yet been determined.
However, this series of operations is very grotesque. First of all, it is clear that There are Korean Koreans in China, and such a huge reaction is quite strange. Secondly, the short track speed skating has complete high-speed camera equipment to assist the referee in judging the penalty, and it is meaningless for the South Koreans to complain more. If the cybercrums against Ahn Hyun-so are not particularly unexpected, if the violence against Chinese students studying in South Korea is true, it can be said that the mobilization is deeper than ever. If one considers that South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo openly provoked Chinese netizens on Weibo, these signals are likely to mean that some people in South Korea are taking advantage of the opportunity to provoke disputes, and there is also a political purpose behind them.
First of all, the South Korean media is playing a very disgraceful counterintelligence role this time, which is likely to mean that the capital and political elites have great dissatisfaction with Moon Jae-in, who is from the left. Moon's overall governance line is left-wing, and in South Korean politics we all know that the president has almost no good end, Moon's term ends in May 2022, and his support is not high, but it has not had a decisive impact on the right. Using Sino-South Korean relations to sow discord now undermines Moon's diplomatic legacy and uses nationalist sentiment to pull South Korean society into a political environment favoring the right. In January, support for Yoon Seok-yue, the candidate for South Korea's largest opposition national power party, fell sharply due to internal contradictions within the party, among other reasons. At present, the ruling party candidate Lee Jae-ming is leading the way, and the support rate of the Kuomintang candidate An Zhexiu has increased significantly, and the election situation is even more confusing. They are fully motivated to use nationalist sentiments to provoke.
Co-Democratic candidate Lee Jae-ming
Second, the South Korean media also has an incentive to expand the situation to undermine Moon. After Moon took office, he was interested in correcting the problem of excessive collusion between the Korean media and capital, so he also offended the Korean media to a certain extent. In August 2021, when amendments to the Law On Media Arbitration and Victim Remedies (Media Arbitration Act) were openly discussed by the Common Democratic Party, the South Korean media was chanting the "Media Restriction Act." Obviously, the South Korean media does not like to be disciplined by the government, which may allow them to further cooperate with other political forces to argue.
Of course, it is not normal for the South Korean situation not to take into account the United States. The United States is actually quite dissatisfied with the Moon Jae-in administration's insistence on adopting a "strategic ambiguity" policy between China and the United States, and the network operated by the United States in South Korea, especially the control of black gold politics and media capital, is also very strong. It is not very difficult for the United States to incite such a nationalist anger in South Korea, and in fact, as the comprehensive strategic competitive relationship between China and the United States proceeds, South Korea's public opinion toward China continues to deteriorate, and the possibility of the two being unconnected is minimal.
For the relationship between Korean media and the United States, we can also observe that "Korean Wave" is popular around the world, and Korean TV dramas can be delivered globally with the help of media platforms such as Netflix in the United States. On the one hand, we can think that the United States is trying to use Korean culture to weaken the global cultural influence of China and Japan, on the other hand, we can further judge that the capital attributes of the Korean media are likely to be caused by the deliberate mechanisms designed by the United States. The U.S. covert control of South Korean media may be much deeper than it seems.
Therefore, the main goal of the fierce reaction in South Korea is likely to pave the way for the South Korean election that begins in March 2022, and to split Sino-South Korean relations, so as to provide space for the South Korean government to adjust its "vague strategy" and turn to Japan. For China, we can remain calm, but it is really difficult to find any way to keep South Koreans basically rational in the short term, and we may have to prepare for a drastic adjustment in the diplomatic line after the South Korean election, and such events are likely to continue until the dust settles in the South Korean election.