Cho Kuk courts controversy again with Facebook post on 'far-right' youth

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Cho Kuk courts controversy again with Facebook post on 'far-right' youth

Published: 30 Aug. 2025, 18:15

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Cho Kuk, head of the Institute for Policy Innovation at the minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party, speaks during an event for party members in Gochang County, North Jeolla, on Aug. 27. [REBUILDING KOREA PARTY]

Cho Kuk, head of the Institute for Policy Innovation at the minor Rebuilding Korea Party, stirred controversy over the weekend by sharing an article on his Facebook account that suggests that economically privileged youth in Seoul are more likely to hold far-right views.

Cho previously attracted criticism with his remarks that Korean men in their 20s and 30s are turning toward the far right.

The article he shared on Saturday was an interview published last month by the weekly magazine SisaIN with Changhwan Kim, a sociologist at the University of Kansas who studies inequality.

In the interview, Kim argued that “the far-right turn among Korean men in their 20s and 30s is real and accelerating,” and that those most likely to fall into this category were upper-class men and male residents in Seoul.

Kim estimated that 15.7 percent of men in their 20s and 16 percent of men in their 30s could be classified as far-right, compared with 10 percent of men over 70. By his measure, young men in their 20s and 30s were two-and-a-half times more likely than the general public to align with extreme conservatism

According to Kim, Korea’s far right youth are “socioeconomic elites,” pointing to survey data indicating that young men with monthly household incomes above 5 million won ($3,650), who also perceived themselves as middle class, were more than twice as likely to hold far-right views compared with their peers.

By Kim’s estimate, nearly 40 percent of young men with high incomes who self-identify as upper class could be considered far-right. He noted nearly one in five young voters supported the main conservative candidate Kim Moon-soo in the June 3 presidential election and 15 percent of those who backed minor conservative candidate Lee Jun-seok could be classified as far-right.

Kim’s conclusions were based on a nationwide survey of 2,000 adults conducted from June 4 to 5 that was commissioned by SisaIN and carried out by Korea Research.

The study defined far-right orientation by factors such as tolerance for violence, emphasis on individual responsibility for welfare, strong support for sanctions on North Korea, advocacy of the Korea-U.S. alliance and hostility toward refugees.

Park Sung-hoon, who serves as the chief spokesperson of the conservative People Power Party (PPP), was quick to denounce Cho’s post as “divisive” in a statement on Saturday.

“Not long after he smeared ordinary men in their 20s and 30s as far-right, Cho is now quoting a controversial academic to back his claims,” said Park, who accused Cho of “trying to capitalize on intergenerational and gender conflict by stereotyping young men as extremists.”

Park also questioned whether by Cho’s daughter, Cho Min — who grew up in a wealthy household in Seoul — would also be considered far-right by his own logic.

The PPP spokesperson argued that Cho risks “angering young people who were already hurt by his college admissions scandal that undermined fairness and justice” with “his reckless political posturing.”

Cho, who was convicted on charges of forgery, bribery and obstruction of an official audit into his wife’s falsification of academic documents used to help his children gain admissions into prestigious universities, was released from prison earlier in the month after President Lee Jae Myung issued him a pardon.

Kim Sung-yeol, a senior official in the minor conservative Reform Party, echoed the Park’s criticism, deriding Cho as the “leading lecturer in the politics of division” in a Facebook post.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]