President Lee Jae Myung watches a presentation during a public briefing on Korea's Green Transformation Strategy at a conference venue in Seoul on Oct. 7.JOINT PRESS CORPS
Cho Gab-je
The author is a journalist and the head of ChoGabje.com and Cho Gab-je TV.
President Lee Jae Myung truly seems a man chosen by heaven. Had his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, an army commander in chief who never served in the military, not staged an illegal martial law fiasco driven by delusions of election fraud, last year's early presidential election would never have occurred. Lee might then have been barred from the scheduled 2027 election by his trial for violating election law.
Approximately 100 million people have been born in Korea since liberation in 1945. Only 14 became president, odds comparable to winning a lottery jackpot. Lee arguably faced the longest odds. Perhaps the presidency was his destiny.
The English word “fate” derives from Latin, meaning a future declared by the gods.
But destiny cannot be divided. Someone destined for the presidency must also accept its burdens, including impeachment or imprisonment. Seven of Lee's 13 predecessors experienced exile, assassination, suicide or imprisonment. Anyone aware of these dangers who nevertheless sought office has little reason to fear retirement.
After the May 16, 1961 military coup ended eight centuries of civilian rule, junta leader Park Chung Hee invited renowned fortune teller Baek Un-hak to dinner.
Baek had encouraged coup planner Kim Jong-pil, predicting success. He told Park he would rule for 20 years. Park merely smiled.
Leaving the restaurant, Baek quietly told Kim that Park would meet a violent death two decades later, according to Kim's memoirs. He had glimpsed both sides of destiny.
When Kim Jae-gyu's first bullet struck Park's chest during his assassination in 1979, two women nearby asked whether he was all right. Park replied, “I'm fine.”
According to witnesses Kim Gye-won and Shin Jae-soon, he meant that they should escape rather than worry about him. Shin described Park's final expression as seemingly resigned and liberated.
At Park's state funeral, the National Symphony Orchestra performed the opening of Richard Strauss's tone poem “Also sprach Zarathustra” (1896), inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (1883).
Nietzsche envisioned the superman as someone capable of absorbing humanity's polluted waters without corrupting his own soul, transforming them into a vast new sea.
Nietzsche also urged people to love their fate. Could Lee not embrace the destiny that made him president? Korea would be better for it.
Kim Koo, whom Lee reportedly admires most, often recalled a Zen verse about the courage to release one's grip on a cliff. It was a commitment to living boldly.
Accepting destiny can mean Park's resignation or Alexander the Great's decisive cutting of the Gordian knot.
For Lee, that means ending controversy over withdrawing criminal charges against him and returning to the presidency as a leader uniting the nation, not representing a faction.
His apparent preoccupation with dropping charges has even invited accusations that he is watching North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's reactions.
That hardly suits his name, Jae Myung, whose characters suggest enduring brightness. His cheerful demeanor once helped sustain approval ratings around 70 percent.
The Chinese character for brightness combines the sun and moon. Novelist Lee Byung-ju famously wrote that what moonlight illuminates becomes myth, while what sunlight exposes becomes history. Destiny likewise has contrasting faces.
Lee has also benefited from favorable semiconductor industry conditions, with Korea's estimated economic growth reaching 3.7 percent this year, well above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.
His vision of making Korea an artificial intelligence leader is inspiring. Reviving Chinese character education, another idea he has raised, deserves greater attention than efforts to withdraw charges.
More than a generation of exclusive reliance on hangul has, in my view, weakened vocabulary, literacy and humanistic education, contributing to today's political disorder.
Restoring Chinese character instruction could enrich Korean by combining hangul's phonetic strengths with the meanings conveyed by Chinese characters.
Mark Twain supposedly observed that people spend their lives worrying about things that never happen. Koreans are unlikely to imprison a president who leaves office to public applause. Lee should trust their judgment.
But if he delays abandoning efforts to withdraw charges until circumstances force his hand, and public sentiment turns toward the judgment that he is worse than Yoon Suk Yeol, he could face something far more damaging than lame-duck status.
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.
