South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, has warned that rapid changes in the global order, including rising protectionism, pose a threat to his country’s survival, while a White House comment about his victory sparked consternation.
“The rapid changes in the global order such as rising protectionism and supply chain restructuring pose a threat to our very survival,” Lee said in his inaugural address, in an apparent reference to the global trade chaos sparked by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Speaking just hours after he was declared winner of Tuesday’s presidential election, Lee said he would bolster a trilateral partnership with the US and Japan, while the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, described Washington’s security alliance with Seoul as “ironclad”.
But in a separate response to the election result, an unnamed White House official said the US was “concerned and opposed to Chinese interference and influence in democracies around the world”. The official did not elaborate or directly link the comment to Tuesday’s election, which they described as “free and fair”.
But the reference to Chinese interference riled some South Korean politicians, amid reports that Trump allies have sought to discredit Lee, who has spoken of balancing his country’s relationship with the US and China.
The presidential office in Seoul gave a cautious response to the White House comment, saying only that it was “under review”.
An unnamed lawmaker in Lee’s Democratic party who serves on the foreign affairs committee in the national assembly told the Hankyoreh newspaper that the US appeared to have “misunderstood Korean society” by suggesting any Chinese involvement in the election.
The lawmaker said South Korean conservatives had tried to frame Lee as “pro-China” during the campaign, and this appeared to have influenced American perceptions of the South’s new leader.
Claims of Chinese interference going back as far as 2020 gained momentum during the presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol, who repeated conspiracy theories claiming that opposition parties were being controlled by China and North Korea.
Yoon, who was permanently removed from office in April, has said the presence of “anti-state” forces in the assembly triggered his decision to declare martial law in December.
In addition, far-right groups adopted the “Stop the Steal” message Trump supporters had used to describe Joe Biden’s victory in 2016, and cited claims of Chinese Communist Party interference in South Korean politics to justify their support for Yoon’s botched attempt to suspend democracy.
Lee has long been the target of smear campaigns claiming he is a communist and, should he become president, that he would “sell” the country to China and North Korea.
Those narratives intensified during the election campaign. Much of the disinformation appears to originate from US-based networks before spreading to Korean social media platforms and messaging apps popular among conservative voters.
In his speech, Lee said his government would deal with potential North Korean aggressions with “a strong deterrence” based on the South Korea-US military alliance, but added that he would leave the door open for dialogue with the North and establish peace on the Korean peninsula.
With all the ballots counted, Lee won 49.42% of the nearly 35m votes cast, while his conservative rival Kim Moon-soo took 41.15% in the polls that brought the highest turnout for a presidential election since 1997, official data showed.
“A Lee Jae-myung government will be a pragmatic pro-market government,” said Lee, who rose from childhood poverty to become South Korea’s leading liberal politician, with a focus on fighting inequality and corruption.
His term began immediately, without the usual two-month transition period after the National Election Commission formally confirmed his victory on Wednesday morning.
In a telephone call with the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Kim Myung-soo, Lee asked the military to closely monitor North Korean moves and maintain a solid readiness based on the South Korea-US military alliance, according to local TV footage.
Later, Lee visited the national cemetery in Seoul to pay his respects to the late Korean leaders, patriots and war dead who are buried there.
He faces a formidable in-tray, from a deepening economic slump and global trade war, to mounting concerns over military ties between North Korea and Russia.
Just hours after Lee took office, South Korean steel and aluminium exports were set to be hit by steep US levies of 50%, after Trump announced a rise in the tariffs imposed by his administration last week.
With Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press
