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New Right (South Korea)

Political movement

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  • 6 chapters

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Many figures of the New Right, such as Lee Young-hoon have also become notable for criticizing the liberal or progressive camp for their promotion of anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea and their policy for peace and unification with North Korea. The movement was initiated by former pro–North Korean activists, North Korean defectors to the South and anti-communists. Opponents of the New Right movement described this as anti-leftism, military dictatorship advocates, pseudo right-wing, opposition to Korean nationalism, pro-sadaejuui, and Japanophilia. While engaging in activities against North Korea that resonate with many security-oriented South Koreans, they also expressed sympathy to pro-Japanese historical negationism, which elicited a sense of aversion and suspicion toward them.

History

Before the era of democratisation, South Korea had been ruled almost continuously by a series of dictatorships, such as those of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee. These regimes were characterised by stringent anti-communism, ethnonationalism, authoritarianism, and state capitalism, and as a result these attributes came to be seen as hallmarks of the older generation of Korean conservatives. After 1987, following democratisation, conservatives adapted and modified their previous positions in order to counteract the rising successes of left-wing activism in South Korean politics.

Nonetheless, the conservative parties of the old style continued to hold a negative association with corruption of the past for many, and throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, progressivism characterised by support for social liberalism and a soft attitude towards North Korea became dominant in politics. As a result of this, a number of reform-minded right-wing groups known as the "New Right" developed in the 2000s as a reaction to the ascendency of these progressives, whose ideology they considered harmful. Like the old conservatives, they opposed left-wing economic policies and a soft attitude toward North Korea. However, they also attempted to distance themselves from the sins of the older right-wing, which they viewed as stagnant and out-of-touch. Describing themselves as "rational conservatives," these groups expressed a more flexible attitude towards North Korea through a willingness to recognise it as a separate country and to provide humanitarian aid for the citizens of North Korea. However, they balanced this with an anti-communist attitude and a support for human rights in North Korea and free-market economic policies in South Korea. They also rejected the totalitarianism of the past and placed an emphasis on civil rights and liberty; overall, their views were associated with classical liberalism.

Initially, these "New Right" groups contained many figures connected to the traditional conservative establishment and as a result they initially struggled to differentiate themselves from old-school conservatives from the dictatorship era. This could be seen following the victory of conservative Lee Myung-bak in the 2007 presidential election; Lee's administration succeeded in replacing many progressive members of government-affiliated deliberative and advisory committees with members of "New Right" organizations. Lee's successor, Park Geun-hye (the eldest daughter of the "Old Right" authoritarian Park Chung Hee), continued to maintain close relationships with these New Right conservative social groups, even as her administration displayed an antagonistic attitude towards anti-government leftist demonstrations and labor strikes.

Unlike the moderate early New Right movement in the 2000s, the New Right movement has become increasingly extreme since the 2010s. It began with the rise of "Taegukgi rallies" (Street Mobilization), who were outraged by the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, which was seen by her supporters as politically motivated. Mainly elderly conservatives, they became increasing disillusioned at the conservative establishment for having supported the impeachment process, an unforgivable act in the politically polarized political environment of South Korea. The movement previously operated via seminars and books then escalated into massive weekly street protests aimed at delegitimizing the liberal Moon Jae-in government, which was further fueled by conservative YouTube channels, which weaponized disinformation, extreme anti-communism and conspiracy theories regarding Park's downfall. New Right scholars began to come under criticism for supporting the historical revisionist and extreme right-wing view of Gwangju Uprising. Critics viewed Moon's engagement policies toward North Korea as either a dangerous delusion or a deliberate capitulation to Pyongyang and argued that his administration was overly trusting of the Kim regime, undermined national security and weakened the alliance with the United States.

In the early 2020s, the movement broadened its reach to disenfranchised young men in their 20s and 30s after having shifted part of its focus towards modern grievance politics, utilizing fierce anti-feminist rhetoric and economic populism to court young voters who felt alienated by the liberal social policies of the Moon administration. Mainstream conservative politics began to integrate these hardline elements, which was a contributing factor to Yoon Suk-yeol election as president in 2022.

There is an evaluation that the New Right movement has a direct or indirect effect on the Yoon Suk Yeol government.

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