President's New Year speech slammed for failing to reflect reality

By Nam Hyun-woo

President Moon Jae-in highlighted the achievements of his administration during his last New Year speech as the country's chief executive, but faced criticism that the government again failed to reflect on the difficulties people are facing due to COVID-19 restrictions and the widening wealth gap between the haves and have-nots.

During the televised speech, Moon said that Korea is now a developed country and highlighted his government's achievements with regards to pandemic responses, economic recovery, democracy, social fairness and inter-Korean relations. He also stressed that the accomplishments should not be downplayed.

“During the past 70 years, Korea has become the most successful country in the world,” Moon said. “It is the only country which has seen its status elevated to a developed country from a developing one since World War II. … No one would be able to deny or belittle the national achievements of our people,” he added.

Moon said the country's COVID-19 restrictions and disinfection measures have proven to be “superior” compared to those of other countries and that 2022 will be “the first year of recovery toward normal life.”

Korea received international plaudits for its early response to the coronavirus outbreak. However, the daily caseloads increased at the end of last year, following a hasty easing of the country's social distancing measures which then had to be abruptly reversed.

Coupled with insufficient compensation for restriction-affected small business owners and their deteriorating finances, doubts have been increasing over the government's overall response to the pandemic.

But Moon remained optimistic.

“With the public's cooperation, the strengthened restrictions are showing desirable effects. The number of cases is declining, patients with severe symptoms as well as the death toll are also expected to show a downturn,” Moon said.

Moon said the Korean economy grew stronger in spite of the pandemic.

“During this crisis as well as the rapid changes, our economy has become stronger, showing noticeable growth in quantity and quality,” Moon said. “Among advanced nations, Korea posted the highest average growth rate in the past two years, consolidating its status as the 10th strongest economy globally.

“Along with the growth, the country's income inequality and social polarization are being alleviated, with its income quintile share ratio, Gini coefficient and relative poverty rates all improving. In addition, this is all the result of the government's consistent inclusive growth policies and efforts to protect the livelihood of the underprivileged class.”

Though Moon cited three indices that are improving, other statistics have shown that the country's income gap between the rich and poor has been widening in the wake of the pandemic.

According to data from Statistics Korea, the average net assets of the upper 20 percent of Koreans stood at 1.29 billion won in March last year, up 125.5 times more compared to that of the bottom 20 percent. This is an uptrend from 99.8 times in 2017, 106.3 times in 2018, 125.6 times in 2019 and a staggering166.6 times in 2020.

His government has been criticized for failing to curb the inflated prices of homes in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area. In fact, Moon did not mention this, but just said, “The government will strive to keep the recent housing price downtrend stable and expedite efforts to provide homes to meet actual market demand.”

Moon also said his administration reformed investigative agencies “for checks and balance” among them and “to prevent them from abusing power.” However, his remarks did not reflect the recent controversy that the new investigative body, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO), examined phone records of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, dozens of PPP lawmakers, journalists and civilians.

The PPP said Moon's speech was tantamount to “self-praise” and described it as “an empty novel” which “failed to see the real world.”

“The President talks about 'advancement in democracy' while the Moon government damaged the separation of powers and constitutionalism through the monopoly of the National Assembly. He praised the 'reform of investigative bodies' although he created a 'monstrous' CIO that conducts illegal surveillance of opposition lawmakers, journalists and citizens,” PPP spokesman Hwang Kyu-hwan said in a written commentary.

“Self-employed people are about to decide whether to temporarily shut down their businesses (in protest of the government's social distancing restrictions) and people are suffering from skyrocketing prices. But the President was busy praising himself by mentioning the soon-to-be-achieved per capita income of $40,000, a figure which people can't actually feel,” he said.