One of the global leaders I think gets way too little respect these days is Mun Jaein, the president of South Korea. Although there is much about his politics that I could criticise from the left, his record thus far has been one of a solid reformist socdem whose heart is mostly in the right place. But I found it surprising that with a few admirable exceptions – notably Aleteia and CruxNow – few news sources seem to dwell on Mun Jaein’s active Catholicism.
Along these reformist lines, Mun has done a lot of legwork in his country for working-class people. He has increased the minimum wage and lowered the maximum work week from the utterly insane and inhuman 68 hours to a much more reasonable 52. He has moved to discipline the chaebol conglomerates. He has also notably been a cool head when approaching his neighbours to the north. Mun Jaein is also pro-marriage. Where he stands on the issue of abortion is trickier to pin down – he has been fairly silent on the issue, which may say something to his credit given the normally pro-abortion stance of his party. This gives him a rare and enviable proximity to Eastern European œconomically left but socially conservative leaders like Moldova’s Igor Dodon and Bulgaria’s Rumen Radev.
His rapid, effective response to the coronavirus crisis in particular seems to have been motivated by his Catholic piety, as he is on record as consulting the Catholic bishops on how to respond. The peculiarly Asian variant of Catholicism which Mun Jaein espouses reminds me strikingly of Thomas Han Hongchun and the Confucian social theory of Kang Xiaoguang (which Kang himself likened to Catholic social teaching).
One can observe Mun Jaein’s faith in action through his policies, but also through his speeches. It is particularly interesting to observe how Mun Jaein notes the example of the Catholic Church in Korea as having been built up by a great number of martyrs, and lays particular stress on how the Catholic Church ‘embraced the down and out’, ‘emulated the life of Jesus in the form of a social calling’, and opposed ‘colonisation, division, war and dictatorship’. Particularly intriguing are his references to the internationalist spirit and the Catholic emphasis on solidarity between nations as being a source of inspiration for his policy of realist détente with the North and hope for eventual Korean reunification. (One would think that this dimension of Catholicism would make him more of a liberal internationalist in terms of international relations theory, but it seems to have had the opposite effect!)
It is through statements like these that we can begin to see how Mun has formulated his priorities on peace with North Korea, and a much warmer relationship with mainland China – both of which policies have gotten him some major flak from right-wing critics, in particular the Buddhist leader of the People Power Party, Ju Hoyeong. Also intriguing is that Mun Jaein’s foreign policy realignment toward the continent has earned him a number of critics from both American Blob-aligned think tanks like the neoliberal Lowy Institute, and Korean neoliberals and security hawks like Lew Hanjin. (I note with shame and dismay that The American Conservative continues down its sorry degenerate slide toward a right-wing variant of hawkish idealism under Bloom’s supremely-inept and idiotic mismanagement.)
I observe all of this from an Orthodox Christian lay perspective – and one which has in the past been critical of Roman Catholic approaches in the East. I understand that his perspective may differ from mine on several points, but I cannot help but applaud Mun Jaein’s sincere Roman Catholic devotion to the Prince of Peace. That devotion carries him in a genuinely positive direction. Speaking for myself, I admire him for his peaceable, realistic and independent foreign policy stance; for his equally-sincere opposition to the redefinition of sexuality and family relations by crazed Western gender theorists; and for his attention (however reformist and incremental) to the bread-and-butter human needs and dignity of South Korea’s workers. This is one variant of the constructive, measured, hard-headed and big picture-oriented politics that I would like to see more of. Thank you, Mr Mun, and may God grant you many years.
