South Korea politicians pile in after billionaire’s ‘crush commies’ campaign goes viral on social media

A slew of conservative voices have used the hashtag #myulgong since a retail magnate stirred controversy with the phrase, which dates back to the Korean war

Presidential hopeful Yoon Suk-yeol has even chimed in, with an enigmatic phrase some suspect stands for ‘destroy President Moon, annihilate communists’

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Presidential hopeful Yoon Suk-yeol, the candidate for South Korea’s People Power Party, made what some saw as a veiled reference to the #myulgong hashtag. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 1:48pm, 10 Jan 2022Updated: 5:09pm, 1 Mar 2022

South Korea’s conservative politicians, including presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, are backing a billionaire’s online anti-communism campaign using a slogan harking back to the Korean war.

The word myulgong, which means “crush commies” or “annihilate communism”, has been trending on social media in the past week after Chung Yong-jin, head of the country’s retail giant Shinsegae, wrote a series of Instagram posts with the hashtag. The platform initially removed the posts but then restored them, saying they had been automatically taken down as they contained offensive words instigating violence.

Chung, undeterred, followed up with further Instagram posts including “I hate communism” and “let’s all shout myulgong together”, grabbing news headlines and attracting hundreds of “likes” and supportive comments from other users.

UN troops fight in the streets of Seoul in 1950. The phrase ‘myulgong’ dates back to the three-year conflict between North and South Korea that ended in 1953. Photo: AFP

The use of the word myulgong was common after the three-year conflict between North and South Korea ended in 1953. The North was backed by China and the then-Soviet Union while the US backed the South. While the US and North Korea signed an armistice in July 1953, there has never been a formal peace declaration between all parties, which liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in wants to rectify before his five-year term ends in May.

However, Yoon’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) has opposed Moon’s plan. If elected, Yoon has vowed to ditch the policy of “strategic ambiguity” – which aims to reinforce Seoul’s security alliance with the US while also maintaining friendly ties with largest trading partner China – and replace it with closer alignment to Washington. South Korea’s diplomacy must be based on universal values such as human rights, democracy and the rule of law, he has said.

His comments reflect a deepening political divide in the country over South Korea’s balancing act between the two superpowers. But opinion polls, including two published on Monday, show Yoon is now trailing behind the ruling Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-Myung by a margin of six percentage points.

On Saturday, Yoon posted a photo on Instagram of himself shopping at a convenience store, part of the Shinsegae franchise, in the residential Dongjak district of Seoul alongside the hashtags #E-Mart, #dalgyal (meaning egg), #pa (spring onion), #myulchi (anchovies), and #cong (beans). A video released by his campaign also shows an AI-generated avatar of Yoon speaking the phrase dal pa myul cong – a combination of the first syllables for the four foodstuffs in Korean.

Park Chan-kyong

Park Chan-kyong is a journalist covering South Korean affairs for the South China Morning Post. He previously worked at the Agence France-Presse's Seoul bureau for 35 years. He studied political science at Korea University and economics at the Yonsei University Graduate School.

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