I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Rude, nagging, digitally illiterate: Inside Coupang hearing disaster
Coupang Korea CEO Harold Rogers, right, speaks during a hearing abhout a data breach affecting the personal data of more than 33 million of the e-commerce company's customers at the National Assembly on Dec. 30, 2025. Yonhap
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Coupang hearings show why ambitious minds no longer run for office
More than a decade ago, it was common to hear politicians complain about the declining popularity of elective office among ambitious people, arguing that those with strong resumes were no longer running for office. Instead, they were starting their own businesses or pursuing high-paying jobs in the private sector.
As they often testified, power was shifting — rapidly — from the public to the private sector. In a capitalist society, such a shift comes as little surprise.
In retrospect, however, lawmakers’ observations were not entirely accurate. The National Assembly, whose primary duties include making, revising and abolishing laws, was — and still is — a powerful institution. It remains influential enough to shape, or even determine, the nation’s fate. It is true that societal change has diversified the values people pursue, to the extent that money has become as important as honor.
The brain drain in elective office, a direct result of its declining appeal, raises a fundamental question: Who is primarily responsible?
Last week’s hearings in the Coupang data breach provided a clear answer as to why politics no longer attracts ambitious individuals. The National Assembly is becoming a laughing stock rather than a respected institution — not because of socioeconomic changes, but because of rude, nagging and digitally illiterate politicians. Insanity, nonsensical claims and even slurs dominated the hearings, while the core issues surrounding the data breach were largely left unaddressed.
Multiple factors contributed to turning the hearings into an unproductive venue for unnecessary confrontation.
First, lawmakers behaved emotionally and immaturely. Worse still, many were openly rude, prompting furious reactions from Coupang executives.
Rep. Choi Min-hee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), chairperson of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, opened the hearing by scolding an interpreter for allegedly translating English into Korean in a way that favored her Coupang client. Choi referred to her merely as “interpreter,” without using the courtesy title “Ms.” or even her name. To many viewers watching the livestreamed hearing, the lawmaker’s behavior resembled that of a complaining backseat driver — fixated on trivial details and distracting the public from the main issue at hand.
Choi lectured the interpreter on how to translate, an entirely inappropriate act. She also frequently cut off Coupang CEO Harold Rogers while he was speaking, provoking a furious response from the U.S. executive. Other lawmakers referred to Rogers as “that person,” or addressed him simply as “Rogers,” omitting the courtesy title “Mr.”
Instead of focusing on substantive issues, lawmakers wasted time and energy antagonizing Coupang executives, generating needless friction and confrontation.
Second, many committee members appeared to lack an adequate understanding of data breaches and why they matter. This lack of expertise led some lawmakers to raise abrupt or irrelevant questions that had little to do with the data theft itself. Rep. Hwang Jung-a, for instance, asked how the incident had affected Coupang’s stock price. She even pressed Rogers to admit that he was merely a “puppet leader” of Coupang Korea. What relevance did such questions have to a data breach?
According to her biography, Hwang majored in physics and previously served as a professor at the nation’s elite science institution, KAIST. The hearings thus offered an unsettling glimpse into the shortcomings of Korea’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Third, National Assembly members committed a critical blunder by failing to summon the Chinese suspect alleged to be behind the data breach. The former employee is a central figure who could hold the answers lawmakers claimed to be seeking. Yet the Assembly did not even attempt to bring him in. Hearings conducted without the key suspect were doomed to fail from the outset.
Some lawmakers further revealed themselves to be slow learners during heated exchanges with Rogers over Coupang’s Dec. 25, 2025, news conference. At that briefing, the e-commerce company shared its findings on the data breach. According to Coupang, the former employee accessed personal data belonging to approximately 33 million customers, but stored only about 3,000 records. Coupang argued that the scale of the actual breach was far smaller than initially reported.
The news conference was held just 20 minutes before the presidential office convened a meeting with relevant Cabinet ministries to discuss the case, drawing criticism from government officials.
Rep. Kim Young-bae of the DPK confronted Rogers, asking why Coupang conducted a separate internal investigation and released its findings without prior consultation with the government.
Rogers responded that a government agency — the National Intelligence Service (NIS) — had directed the company to do so.
Rep. Choi appeared visibly unsettled by Rogers’ answer and lectured him on what lawmakers expected to hear.
“You missed the point,” she rebuked. “Rep. Kim was asking which Coupang employee contacted the former employee suspected of accessing and stealing customer data. The government is not in a position to directly contact a Coupang employee and instruct him or her to do something. So tell us who that Coupang employee was.”
Rogers asked in return, “Are you asking about the person who actually made the contact, or the person who instructed that person to make the contact?”
Rep. Kim replied that he wanted answers to both questions. When Rogers reiterated that Coupang’s investigation had been conducted at the NIS’s direction, Kim reacted by suggesting that Coupang’s internal investigation and public disclosure might itself constitute a crime.
“You insist Coupang was directed by the NIS to conduct its own investigation, separate from the police probe,” Kim said. “Are you saying the employee acted on his own, or are you, as CEO, trying to evade responsibility for the crime?”
Rogers’ explanation was clear and unequivocal. Yet lawmakers appeared to grasp the situation only after hearing the same answers repeated multiple times.
The language barrier was not the primary reason communication broke down between the two sides. Rather, a psychological barrier stood in the way of constructive dialogue. A closed-minded “we, Koreans” versus “they, Americans” attitude seemed to prevail, pushing the hearings toward confrontation instead of cooperation and rendering them largely unproductive.