Regulatory vice chair resigns for defending high school baseball team that mocked pro-democratic uprising

The vice chair of the Presidential Regulatory Rationalization Committee, a prime ministerial government position, resigned after his controversial remarks about the May 18 Democratization Movement drew backlash within the ruling bloc.

Kang Yu-jeong, the Blue House's chief spokesperson, confirmed in a press briefing Monday that Lee Byung-tae had stepped down from the post after the Blue House earlier in the day said it had recommended that Lee resign as vice chair. Kang said that Lee had tendered his resignation and that the Blue House had accepted it. 

Lee, a conservative figure appointed in what the administration described as an effort at national unity, came under fire after writing on Facebook on Saturday that “May 18 has become sacrosanct” in a post about the controversy surrounding Paichai High School’s baseball team.

"Because history has become sacrosanct, even what amounts to childish misconduct by students can no longer be tolerated and has become a matter of adults’ politics," Lee wrote on Facebook on Friday.

"What does it say about our society that this is how we respond to students' misconduct during a high school baseball rivalry game? It is no different from North Korea, where people cry over a newspaper carrying a photograph of Kim Il Sung getting wet in the rain."

"The core of my opinion is 'freedom of expression'; this is one of the universal basic rights of human beings," the former vice chair added in his post. "This post is no different. Yes. As a certain politician once said, even shouting 'Long live Kim Il Sung' in the middle of Seoul should be allowed. That is a basic right."

The Blue House issued a stern warning Saturday, but the criticism did not subside.

The presidential office's recommendation for Lee's resignation followed public demands from the ruling Democratic Party (DP) leadership and lawmakers on Monday.

“Defending the perpetrators of the May 18 mockery by talking about things being sacrosanct and North Korea is to disqualify oneself as a public official in the Lee Jae Myung administration,” DP Supreme Council member Hwang Myeong-seon said at a party Supreme Council meeting Monday. “Regardless of rank, anyone who insults democratization has no qualification to be part of the Lee Jae Myung administration.”

DP Supreme Council member Kang Deuk-gu said the Blue House warning was not enough.

“The Blue House issued a stern warning, but this is not a matter that can end with a warning,” Kang said. “Vice Chair Lee should voluntarily resign as soon as possible.”

After the DP leadership publicly joined the push, lawmakers’ demands for Lee Byung-tae's resignation intensified.

“Intellectual Lee Byung-tae’s idea of basic rights is Chun Doo Hwan-style,” Rep. Park Jie-won wrote on Facebook on Monday. Chun is the former military dictator who seized power through a 1979 coup and whose dictatorship violently suppressed the May 18 Democratization Movement in Gwangju the following year.

“I urge him to take his utterly unacceptable Chun Doo Hwan-style view of basic rights and disappear.”

Rep. Choi Min-hee repeated a demand she had made on Sunday.

“He is trying to muddy the waters over an extreme-right verbal assault that shakes the foundation of democracy with pedantic wordplay,” Choi wrote. “Those who should step down must step down quickly.”

Rep. Jo Seoung-lae called Lee's views "destructive."

“Vice Chair Lee’s political and historical views and his attitude toward freedom are extremely narrow and destructive,” Jo wrote on Facebook on Monday. “It is very dangerous for someone with such a narrow and destructive view of regulation to serve as the regulatory control tower.”

Rep. Kim Nam-kuk said Lee no longer fit the purpose of his appointment.

“The justification for Vice Chair Lee’s appointment was unity and pragmatism,” Kim said. “A personnel appointment that has lost its original purpose can no longer serve as a driving force for state affairs.”

Lee, before his resignation on Monday evening, posted and later deleted an essay titled “The Cost of Keeping One’s Convictions" on Monday morning. In it, Lee shared a line attributed to British statesman Thomas More: “If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.”

Lee had written that More used the line to criticize, by irony, a real world in which people abandon honor and faith in pursuit of profit alone.

Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, but the pope refused to allow it. Henry VIII then broke with the Catholic Church and established the Church of England. More kept his Catholic faith because he believed the king’s demand violated his faith and moral conscience, and he was eventually executed for treason.

“He left behind the steadfast final words, ‘I die the King’s good servant, but God’s first,’” Lee wrote. “As he said, he chose a life in which he chose honor, or conscience, over profit, meaning life and power.”

The post appeared to have suggested Lee would not withdraw his claim that “May 18 has become a sacred ground,” even if pressure to resign threatened the benefits of his prime minister-level title.

BY LEE CHAN-KYU [[email protected]]