It must be said that South Korean politics is a cycle: previously, Lee Jae-myung went on a hunger strike to protest Yoon Suk-yeol, and now, Jang Dong-hyuk is on a hunger strike to protest Lee Jae-myung.

According to the Korean media "Hankyoreh", on January 22, the leader of the opposition party "People Power Party", Jang Dong-hyuk, has been on a hunger strike against the Lee Jae-myung government for the eighth day. The latest situation is that Jang Dong-hyuk has announced to stop his hunger strike after being persuaded by Park Geun-hye, and he has been sent to the hospital for treatment.

Park Geun-hye "visits" Jang Dong-hyuk

The "main character" of this hunger strike, Jang Dong-hyuk, emerged as a "new face" in the People Power Party after the failed 2024 Yoon Suk-yeol martial law incident.

In short, after the failure of that martial law incident, the People Power Party politicians who covered up Yoon Suk-yeol, such as Han Dong-hoon and Kwon Seok-dong, either resigned or became quiet due to public pressure, or were involved in Yoon Suk-yeol's case and have been cleansed by Lee Jae-myung.

After the high-ranking officials of the party were swept away, this gave Jang Dong-hyuk, who holds more conservative views and is more inclined towards the far right, an opportunity to rise. He distanced himself from people like Han Dong-hoon and put forward radical slogans such as "supporting Yoon Suk-yeol's comeback" and "fully overturning the Lee Jae-myung government," and was elected as the new leader of the People Power Party in August of last year.

Jang Dong-hyuk has been sent to the hospital for treatment

On the day of his victory, Jang Dong-hyuk declared that he would "unite all right-wing citizens and do everything possible to overthrow the Lee Jae-myung government," and called this victory "the beginning of reform."

The trigger for Jang Dong-hyuk's hunger strike was demanding that the ruling Democratic Party accept the "Double Special Investigation Act," which would establish two independent special investigation teams to investigate the "Unification Church bribery case" and the internal public nomination scandal of the Democratic Party.

Jang Dong-hyuk portrayed these two political scandals as "concrete evidence of corruption and authoritarianism by the Lee Jae-myung government," accusing the Democratic Party of refusing the special investigation as "cowardly fear" and announcing a hunger strike starting on January 15.

However, during Jang Dong-hyuk's hunger strike, neither Lee Jae-myung nor the Democratic Party made any formal concessions or official statements of慰问. There were even voices within the Democratic Party mocking it as "a desperate last stand," with no intention of cooperating with Jang Dong-hyuk to create public opinion. This protest ultimately ended with Jang Dong-hyuk stopping his hunger strike.

Korean media mocks Jang Dong-hyuk's hunger strike as giving up

Although Jang Dong-hyuk's move resembles a poor imitation of Lee Jae-myung's 24-day hunger strike in 2023 to protest Yoon Suk-yeol and Japan's nuclear contaminated water discharge policy, hunger strikes have long ceased to be a novelty in South Korean politics and have become almost a ritualized tradition. It allows politicians to quickly gather support within their party and shape a "sympathetic hero" image. Historically, it has repeatedly proven effective, such as when Kim Young-sam went on a 23-day hunger strike to protest the military government of Chun Doo-hwan and later successfully won the presidential election.

However, in recent years, this "hunger strike tradition" in South Korean politics has increasingly come under question and criticism. Many Korean media outlets and political figures believe that "hunger strikes" have become a form of performance, a means to gain sympathy and attention. For example, Korean legislator Park Ji-won once criticized, "No one dies from a hunger strike, but hair gets longer when shaved. Such 20th-century Stone Age methods should be abandoned."

There have been early criticisms in South Korea that hunger strikes, shaving heads, and resignations are political performances.

Indeed, most hunger strikes by South Korean politicians in recent years have ended midway with reasons such as "health deterioration," "being persuaded," or "hospitalization," and no one has ever actually starved to death. Like this time, Jang Dong-hyuk's hunger strike against Lee Jae-myung ended abruptly after being persuaded by Park Geun-hye, and it was mocked by Korean media as "returning empty-handed," which proves the rationality of such criticisms.

It should be said that the repeated use of extreme measures like hunger strikes in South Korean politics highlights the deep-rooted problems in its political culture, namely the failure of dialogue mechanisms.

Hunger strikes used to be a means for democratic activists in South Korea to protest the military government's dictatorship, but now they have become more often a symbol of political polarization in South Korea. Politicians take turns performing the same act, which only intensifies the division and gains political capital for themselves, without ever pushing for real policy breakthroughs. As a result, the country has fallen into an emotional, confrontational internal struggle.



Original: toutiao.com/article/7598497730092941875/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.