Yoon crusades against 'cartels' within Korean society

President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during the 1st World Congress of Korean Scientists and Engineers in Gangnam District, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

Concerns grow over president's description of certain professions

By Nam Hyun-woo

President Yoon Suk Yeol is waging a campaign against so-called “cartels” within certain professions in Korean society, pledging to root out groups seeking to protect their vested interests in various fields such as education, finance, communication, technology and R&D.

However, concerns are also growing that Yoon's use of the word “cartels” to describe these people could result in yet more political conflict and division.

Yoon attended the 1st World Congress of Korean Scientists and Engineers in southern Seoul, Wednesday, to deliver the government's promise to provide assistance and subsidies for the advancement of the country's science and technology sector.

“The government's budget for R&D surpassed 30 trillion won ($23.1 billion) this year,” Yoon said during his speech. “R&D investments should be directed towards world-class research.”

His comments are in line with remarks he made at a joint government briefing on economic policy objectives a day earlier.

“'Cartels' are the easiest way to rob the people,” Yoon said. “We should thoroughly examine and root out the unfair gains of power cartels, such as the monopolistic structure of specific industries and splitting government subsidies among cartels.”

Though Yoon did not specify which industry he was referring to, the presidential office said his words were targeting “unfair gains and subsidy monopolization, which prohibits the progress of finance, communication and science technology.”

These are the latest sectors where Yoon is focusing his attention regarding the so-called cartels. Throughout last month, the president lashed out at what he believed are actions resembling those of cartels regarding education authorities and private tutoring companies, while addressing issues surrounding Korea's College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT).

“In terms of CSAT, testing students with questions that are not covered in the education curriculum essentially forces students to rely on private tutors,” Yoon said last month. “Is there a cartel between education authorities and private education companies?”

Since then, the education ministry has been receiving reports on suspected cases of collusion between education authorities and private tutoring companies, and the National Tax Service has launched investigations into large cram schools.

Citizens walk past buildings covered with signs for cram schools in a street in southern Seoul's Daechi-dong, Sunday. Yonhap

Yoon also put some government officials in the spotlight.

Earlier this week, he criticized some high-ranking government officials for not being proactive enough in complying with his administration's reform efforts and told new vice minister appointees “fight against unconstitutional cartels with vested rights.”

“Our government is an anti-cartel government,” Yoon was quoted as saying by presidential spokesperson Lee Do-woon, Monday. “While totalitarianism and socialism are undermining democratic society from the outside, the ones that undermine it from within are corrupt cartels.”

However, these moves are triggering concerns that Yoon is too drastic in branding them as “cartels,” thus causing division.

“Clearly, cartels entrenching their interests should be eradicated, but this should not be interpreted as the politics of division,” ruling People Power Party Rep. Choe Jae-hyeong said in an interview with broadcaster KBS, Wednesday.

“Dissolving the cartels should not be the ultimate goal. It should be about how those efforts can result in increasing people's rights and the progress of the country, and proper explanations to the public are required.”

Yoo Seong-min, a former four-term lawmaker of the PPP, also said in a radio interview with broadcaster MBC that “the president nowadays is obsessed with the term cartel.”

Yoo compared Yoon's campaign against so-called cartels with the Moon Jae-in administration's catchphrase of eradicating deep-rooted evils from the country. Many pundits say such a framing, however, ended up establishing an us-and-them narrative and caused greater division between ideologies.

“I was deeply disappointed in the previous Moon administration, which spent its whole presidency focused on a campaign of eradicating the so-called deep-rooted evils,” Yoo said.

“While mobilizing police, prosecution and even the tax agency for that, Moon could not contribute to the progress of the country. It is worrisome that the Yoon administration's war against cartels is becoming increasingly similar to that of Moon's.”