Blue House scrambles to clarify Lee’s remarks on multicultural families, foreign workers

President Lee Jae Myung said Thursday that support for multicultural families should not lead to “reverse discrimination” against Korean families, as the presidential office rushed to clarify a series of controversial remarks about foreign-born residents of the country.

The clarification came after Lee said preferential treatment for multicultural families by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and other local authorities had become a contentious issue on Wednesday.

"Policies ensuring that multicultural families are not discriminated against compared to Korean families are necessary and should certainly continue," Lee wrote on X on Thursday. "However, some policies must not go beyond their original purpose and become excessive preferential treatment or result in reverse discrimination against Korean families."

On Wednesday, Lee shared a post on X from FM Korea, an online community, concerning reservations at Seoul's public postpartum care centers. Favored by conservative-leaning men in their 20s and 30s, FM Korea regularly features posts critical of Lee.

The online community post questioned the preferential treatment mothers from multicultural families receive.

"I really don't understand why mothers from multicultural families are given the same priority for admission to public postpartum care centers as national merit recipients and families with multiple children," the FM Korea post said. "They get a 70 percent discount funded by taxpayers."

The post included an image of a table showing that mothers from multicultural families were placed in the second priority category for reservations, alongside national merit recipients, North Korean defectors eligible for government protection, people with disabilities, single mothers and mothers giving birth to their third or subsequent child.

Responding to FM Korea post, Lee questioned the preferential treatment given to multicultural families, saying that the system had become controversial.

"I will thoroughly review whether there is a strong need to go beyond ensuring that multicultural families are not disadvantaged and provide them with preferential treatment, and whether such preferential treatment should be abolished, including consultations with local governments and possible revisions to enforcement decrees," Lee wrote on X on Wednesday.

Following a backlash over his remarks, Lee wrote in a separate post on X on Thursday that an issue's anture should not change depending on who raises it.

"Excesses in certain policies undermine public trust in policies as a whole, so any problems should be promptly addressed, regardless of who raises them," Lee wrote.

Lee also stressed that support for socially disadvantaged groups should aim to restore equality without becoming special privileges or unfair preferential treatment.

"Correcting excesses in certain policies should not be mistaken for measures that promote general discrimination or hatred against multicultural families," he added.

The presidential office also clarified on Thursday that Lee's remark on Wednesday was not intended to eliminate assistance for multicultural families.

"[Lee's remark was] to highlight the need to improve the fairness and rationality of the priority system for postpartum care centers and establish a support system that all families with newborns can accept," Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a notice to reporters.

Lim Ho-geun, the presidential secretary for population policy, also issued a statement Thursday explaining that Lee "raised the need to improve the fairness and rationality of the priority system for postpartum care centers and establish a support system that all families with newborns can accept."

Lim added that policy support for multicultural families has expanded since 2016, when an annex to the Enforcement Decree of the Mother and Child Health Act determined criteria for priority access to postpartum care centers, necessitating a review of existing regulations.

"We will consider revising the Enforcement Decree of the Mother and Child Health Act so that priority access to postpartum care centers benefits mothers who need it most," Lim said. "At the same time, we will closely examine the difficulties multicultural families may still face in Korean society and provide thorough support to ensure that no one falls through the cracks."

Lee has also drawn criticism for remarks he made about foreign workers at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

During the meeting, Lee instructed Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryung to consider providing government wage subsidies sufficient for Korean agricultural workers to earn a living.

"Bringing in foreign workers to do the work doesn't contribute much to the national economy because they send all the money they earn back to their home countries," Lee said.

Organizations representing migrant workers criticized the remarks as "hateful comments that ignore reality."

Presidential spokesperson Kang stressed that Lee's remarks on foreign workers in the agricultural and livestock industries and preferential access to public postpartum care centers for multicultural families concerned two separate issues during the same Thursday notice.

"We ask that the context and main points of the president's remarks be considered together rather than focusing on particular words," Kang said.

"The main point of his remarks at the Cabinet meeting was not about foreign workers, but that support for jobs in agriculture and fisheries is far too low, and that quality, productive jobs in these sectors must be created with guaranteed wage levels," Kang added.

BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]