In South Korean political circles, Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in are close friends that no one knows. In 2009, Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide under public opinion attacks. Moon Jae-in took office eight years later, and vigorously arrested the two presidents after Roh Moo-hyun. At the same time, he vigorously promoted the reforms advocated by Roh Moo-hyun, and completed his unfinished business in the ten years after Roh Moo-hyun's death.
Personally announce the death of a close friend
Moon Jae-in was born in Juji, Gyeongsangnam-do in January 1953. He was the eldest in his family and graduated from the Law Department of Kyunghee University.
His family conditions are not good, there are many brothers and sisters in the family, and his parents are also ordinary working class. When he was a child, Moon Jae-in also made a living by helping others deliver briquettes.
When he was in school, Moon Jae-in was not a good student in the traditional sense. He smoked and drank, and was persuaded to leave the school four times.
In college, Moon was also sentenced to eight months in prison and expelled from the university for participating in the "anti-dictatorship" movement in 1975.
In 1978, Moon Jae-in, who was retired from the special forces, took the first round of judicial examinations that year and passed smoothly, but was arrested again for participating in activities such as the "Kamma War" in 1979 and the "Seoul Spring" in 1980.
A poor family, two arrests, and a college graduate. Anyone who bears such a few negative labels will not have a good future in people's general cognition. However, Moon Jae-in not only broke the secular cognition, but also became the president of South Korea.
In fact, Moon Jae-in can shine in the political arena. In addition to his own great talent, he is inseparable from his close friend Roh Moo-hyun.
Roh Moo-hyun, like Moon Jae-in, was born into a poor family and both studied the Fa, but unlike Moon Jae-in, Roh Moo-hyun had excellent grades in school and was admitted to the law without going to law school. Lawyer.
Roh Moo-hyun studied hard for 10 years and finally got a lawyer qualification certificate on March 27, 1975.
After becoming a lawyer, Roh Moo-hyun became famous for defending ordinary laborers against dictatorship. In 1981, Roh Moo-hyun became famous for defending 12 college students accused of "hiding banned books," and became the famous "human rights lawyer" in South Korea at that time.
Moon Jae-in, who was keen to participate in the democracy movement, could not be a prosecutor because of his repeated arrests, but could only be a lawyer. By chance, he came to Busan and met Roh Moo-hyun. At this point, the two shining stars in South Korean politics officially met., and Moon Jae-in was able to embark on the political path.
Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in have hit it off since they met, and quickly became close lifelong friends, inseparable from each other, and jointly participated in many movements to promote the democratization of Busan.
In April 2002, Roh Moo-hyun was elected as the presidential candidate of the "New Millennium Democratic Party", and Moon Jae-in, who developed in Busan, became the chairperson of the Election Countermeasures Committee of the Busan region. With outstanding political talent, Roh Moo-hyun won the presidential election that year. At this time, both of them belonged to the progressive party in South Korea.
On December 19, 2002, after Roh Moo-hyun was elected president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in also entered the Blue House with Roh Moo-hyun as the chief secretary of civil affairs, but a year later, in February 2004, he resigned and left the political center on the grounds of too much pressure.
After Roh Moo-hyun came to power, he changed his previous South Korean policy and vigorously rectified Chaebol. At the same time, he also adopted an affinity policy towards North Korea, alienating relations with the United States and continuing to establish diplomatic relations with China.
His series of measures is tantamount to moving the interests of the Korean political and economic circles that have been formed for a long time, making the Conservative Party greatly dissatisfied and wanting to create trouble for Roh Moo-hyun to step down as soon as possible.
Because Roh Moo-hyun himself hated bribery, and even had a tendency to be morally clean, the Conservative Party started from the people around Roh Moo-hyun, claiming that Roh Moo-hyun's deputy, wife and brother took bribes, thus impeaching Roh Moo-hyun many times, making him the first president in South Korean constitutional history to be suspended due to impeachment.
After learning the news, Moon Jae-in returned to Roh Moo-hyun's side and dealt with various forces as the acting commander-in-chief of the impeachment trial, and finally helped Roh Moo-hyun through the crisis in May 2004.
After Roh Moo-hyun returned to power, Moon Jae-in assumed the post of Chief Secretary for Civil Society, and resumed his previous post of Chief Secretary for Civil Affairs in January 2005.
In March 2007, Moon Jae-in was appointed as the head of the presidential secretary office, overseeing Blue House affairs and becoming the most influential role in the Roh Moo-hyun government.
But the huge opposition struggle continued. In 2009, under the operation of the Conservative Party, Roh Moo-hyun's relatives took bribes and were once again noticed by the South Korean prosecutor's office.
In early April 2009, under the overwhelming negative public opinion, Roh Moo-hyun personally admitted that his wife received $1 million from Park Yuanchi in 2007, and at the same time his niece-in-law also admitted that he received 5 million yuan from Park Yuanchi. Benefit.
On May 14, 2009, Roh Moo-hyun's older brother, Roh Jianping, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined 570 million won for two bribery cases.
On May 23 of the same year, Roh Moo-hyun, who was deeply involved in the bribery scandal of relatives and friends, committed suicide by jumping off a cliff.
Moon Jae-in, Roh Moo-hyun's closest friend and his biggest supporter, personally announced this fact to the media and released Roh Moo-hyun's suicide note to his family to the media.
Moon Jae-in lost his respected brother in a fierce power struggle. Moon Jae-in himself said that the day announcing Roh Moo-hyun's death was the longest day of his life, and this year was also the longest for him. The most difficult and painful year.
Defeat the Conservative Party
After Roh Moo-hyun stepped down, the Conservatives finally got their wish to return to the pinnacle of power. Lee Myung-bak became the new president, while Moon Jae-in, tired of the troubled political circle, bought a house at the foot of Ryangshan Mountain in Gyeongsangnam-do, Live a life of "self-exile" style.
After Roh Moo-hyun's death, Moon Jae-in vehemently refused to participate in politics.
However, after Lee Myung-bak took office, he overthrew all the policies implemented by Roh Moo-hyun during his tenure, not only anti-DPRK and pro-US, but also re-established the chaebol's monopoly in South Korea.
Seeing that Roh Moo-hyun's efforts for South Korea were all overthrown overnight, Moon Jae-in gradually felt very unhappy for Roh Moo-hyun, and South Korea's future seemed to run counter to his ideals under the leadership of Lee Myung-bak.
At the end of 2010, after careful consideration, Moon Jae-in decided to return to politics.
In May 2011, Moon Jae-in published his autobiography, "Moon Jae-in's Fate," which spends a lot of time describing his deep friendship with Roh Moo-hyun and shared political ideals.
At the end of 2011, Moon Jae-in participated in the grand unification of the opposition camp with "reform and integration" as the core, and made great contributions to the creation of the Democratic Unification Party, which combines Roh Moo-hyun's New Millennium Democratic Party with Independents progressive party.
Since then, he participated in the 4.11 parliamentary election and was elected as a member of parliament in Sashang District, Busan, and has since embarked on the road to presidential candidacy.
On November 12, 2012, Moon Jae-in officially announced that he would participate in the presidential election as a candidate of the Democratic Unification Party of Korea.
It is a pity that in this election, Moon Jae-in was labeled as "pro-North" by Park Geun-hye and missed the presidency.
But he was not frustrated, but continued to work silently in the political arena to enhance his popularity and trust in the hearts of the people.
The opportunity came soon. In October 2016, Park Geun-hye's "cronies interfering in politics" broke out. On December 9 of the same year, the South Korean Congress passed the impeachment bill against the president, and Park Geun-hye became the second president to be impeached after Roh Moo-hyun.
On March 10, 2017, the Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled that Park Geun-hye abused her presidential power, and the eight judges unanimously passed a resolution to remove Park Geun-hye from the presidency, and the Park Geun-hye era ended.
In May 2017, Moon Jae-in became the new president, and at the same time, South Korean prosecutors further accelerated the trial of Park Geun-hye's case.
In October of the same year, Moon Jae-in's government announced that it had discovered documents that Park Geun-hye's government had operated to prepare the report log of the "Sewol Incident", and then the court extended Park Geun-hye's resistance period.
In her public hearing, Ms. Park spoke out against the court, declaring that she "hopes that political reprisals in the name of the rule of law will come to an end from me."
I don't know if this sentence sounds familiar to her. Isn't Roh Moo-hyun also a victim of political struggle in the name of the law?
On December 29, 2017, Moon Jae-in conducted his first amnesty since taking office, benefiting 1.65 million people, but Park Geun-hye was not among them.
On April 6, 2018, Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
In addition to Park Geun-hye, Moon Jae-in has not forgotten the other driving force of the Roh Moo-hyun incident - another political general of the Conservative Party, Lee Myung-bak, who succeeded Roh Moo-hyun as president.
On March 14, 2018, the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office summoned Lee Myung-bak on nearly 20 charges including bribery, embezzlement of public funds, dereliction of duty, abuse of power and violation of election laws.
On March 19, South Korean prosecutors decided to apply to the court to arrest Lee Myung-bak early, and Lee Myung-bak, like Park Geun-hye, said the prosecutors' investigation of themselves was a long-planned political revenge.
Moon Jae-in will naturally not allow them to make such sophistry. In this regard, he hereby said that Lee Myung-bak's words are outrageous, an insult to politics, and an insult to the government.
In October 2018, Lee Myung-bak was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
So far, the two leaders of the Conservative Party have been arrested on various charges related to bribery, and it has been nearly a decade since Roh Moo-hyun's death.
The Conservative Party has also been divided internally by successive scandals over its leaders, with many looking to form a new party to draw a clear line with Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak.
So far, Moon Jae-in's great cause of "revenge" has been completed more than half.
Regain Roh Moo-hyun's old business
Next, Moon Jae-in has a more important task: to complete the "task" left by Roh Moo-hyun: defeating the chaebol and advancing judicial reform.
On May 10, 2017, Moon Jae-in successfully served as President of South Korea. In his inaugural speech, he unequivocally said that his policy direction would focus on the chaebol, the censorship agency and income inequality. Among them, suppressing the big chaebol ranks first., the same as Roh Moo-hyun's political methods.
In March 2019, the "Victory Gate" incident broke out in South Korea. Moon Jae-in, who already hated the chaebol, specially issued a statement in response to the incident: "If the truth of these incidents that happened within the privileged class of society cannot be found out, then our society will not be called a just society. I am willing to block my life and investigate thoroughly."
It was the tenth anniversary of Roh Moo-hyun's death, and Moon Jae-in formally stated his political stance with a tough speech against the chaebols.
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in February 2020, the Moon Jae-in government cemented its position through its outstanding performance during the epidemic, winning 180 seats in the parliamentary election, which means that the Moon Jae-in government can pass almost all reforms, which is important for Moon Jae-in. Reform is crucial.
This undoubtedly put significant pressure on Chaebol. On May 6, Lee Jae-yong, the head of Samsung, who was deeply involved in the "Victory Gate" case, held a press conference to apologize to all South Koreans, and also made it clear that he had no idea of inheriting the management of the company to his children. decision.
These remarks undoubtedly broke the institutional foundation of Chaebol's hereditary system.
On June 4, the Moon Jae-in government launched a new round of offensive against Samsung. South Korean prosecutors applied to the court to arrest Lee Jae-yong on the issue of management rights. The contest between the government and the chaebol continues. It is not easy to get out of the trial.
In addition, after Moon Jae-in became president, he also decided to push forward judicial reforms to weaken the power of prosecutors and achieve a balance of power between prosecutors and the police. This judicial reform had initial results during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Results, but were then ignored by conservative successor Lee Myung-bak and shelved.
In April 2019, the Moon administration formally submitted four amendment bills for government officials and South Korean elections, including the Public Office Election Law, to the National Assembly, and took this opportunity to start his formal action on judicial reform.
Although conservatives have many objections to this, for the first time in the history of the South Korean constitution, a bill submitted through the legislative electronic system has appeared. So far, the 65-year-old monopoly of South Korean prosecutors with the privilege of public prosecution has been broken, and Moon Jae-in's judicial reform has achieved preliminary victories.
On December 16, 2020, Moon Jae-in approved Qiu Meiai's decision to suspend Inspector General Yin Xiyue for two months.
At the New Year's press conference in January 2021, Moon Jae-in said in response to reporters' questions that now is not the time to amnesty Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, and once again stated his political position.
In 2021, also the last year of Moon Jae-in's five-year term, after several reforms have achieved initial success, Moon Jae-in's government said that in order to stabilize people's hearts, Moon Jae-in's governance plan for the remainder of his term will focus on "stability".
On December 24, 2021, due to Park Geun-hye's health status and changes in public opinion, Moon Jae-in specially pardoned Park Geun-hye.
On March 10, 2022, Moon Jae-in's Progressive Party failed to win, and the Conservative Party's Yin Xiyue was successfully elected as the new president. The relationship between Yin Xiyue and Moon Jae-in's government is also very delicate.
In the two cases led by the Moon Jae-in government, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, Yoon Seok-hyuk was the prosecutor in charge of the review, and he was arguably the main driver of the arrests of the two former presidents.
However, as Qiu Meiai took office, Yin Xiyue gradually broke with Moon Jae-in's government. Two months after he was impeached and removed from office by Qiu Meiai, he and Moon Jae-in completely parted ways.
In an interview with Yoon as a presidential candidate, he has publicly stated that if he takes office, he will start investigating Moon Jae-in's regime abuses.
On May 4, 2022, Moon Jae-in and his wife were awarded South Korea's highest medal: the "Grand Medal of Infinity Flower" at his last state meeting.
On May 9, 2022, Moon Jae-in officially stepped down. In his resignation speech, Moon Jae-in reiterated the theme of democracy and peace.
Yet he has not escaped the "Blue House spell" of successive South Korean presidents: none of South Korea's presidents, starting with Roh Moo-hyun, have had a good ending.
On his first day in office alone, South Korean civil society groups joined together with many citizens to speak out, demanding that the South Korean District Prosecutor's Office investigate Moon Jae-in's "abuse of power" in pursuing a policy of eliminating nuclear power.
After that, a steady stream of protesters gathered in front of Moon Jae-in's house to hold protests, which not only affected Moon Jae-in's daily life, but also made nearby residents unbearable.
Less than half a month after Moon Jae-in left office, he was already on the cusp of negative public opinion.
However, on May 23, at the mourning ceremony for the 13th anniversary of Roh Moo-hyun's death in South Korea, Moon Jae-in, who was plagued by negative news, attended the ceremony to express his thoughts and respect for Roh Moo-hyun.
The matter is not over yet. On September 13, the South Korean State Adjustment Office publicly stated that the "Electric Power Industry Basic Fund Project" led by Moon Jae-in had serious illegal and corrupt problems. The relevant parties in South Korea will investigate this, and Moon Jae-in did not respond.
On September 19, Yin Xiyue's government held a 4-day political meeting for the first time. The opposition party and the ruling party launched a heated debate on Moon Jae-in's series of incidents. The Republican Democratic Party accused Yin Xiyue's government of only focusing on political revenge after taking office, and had no actual political achievements., while Yin Xiyue's National Power Party refutes Moon Jae-in's policy implementation improperly.
In the end, there was no winner in this fierce political meeting, and both sides broke up with their own opinions.
Is the Moon scandal yet another means of a new round of partisan power struggles? Will Moon Jae-in escape the "Blue House Curse" and enjoy his old age? All the answers are unknown.
But it is undeniable that Moon Jae-in has undoubtedly achieved quite a bit politically.
Moon Jae-in, who likens his relationship with Roh Moo-hyun to two creeks that support each other and eventually flow into the same river, is admirable in some ways, noting in his autobiography that he believes the best way to say goodbye to Roh Moo-hyun is to take the burden on his shoulders and complete his unfinished business.
In this way, Moon Jae-in, who did not give up easily, completed the mission of "revenge" for Roh Moo-hyun in ten years, and also ushered in new changes and processes in the more rigid South Korean political arena. Even though there were many inappropriate policies during his administration, it is undeniable that he has brought a new direction forward for South Korea.
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"Samsung's" Head "Lee Jae-yong Sends a Letter of Apology: Deep Reflection"; China News Network; 2021.01.26
"Korean Legal Prosecutor's" Confrontation "Difficult to End? The Attorney General will apply to the court to cancel the punishment"; China News Network; 2020.12.17
"Amnesty for Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak? South Korean President Moon Jae-in:" Not Yet "; China News Network; 2021.01.18.
"Moon Jae-in's governance focuses on" stability "for the remainder of his term; Rule of Law Daily; 2020.04.26.