Disinformation not new to Korea

Within hours of President Yoon Suk Yeol declaring martial law on 3 December 2024, a rabid right-wing YouTuber contended that 99 Chinese spies were apprehended at an election management facility and transported to a US military base in Okinawa, Japan.

- LEE KYONG-HEE

Thereafter, social networks were rife with rumors that the Chinese accounted for 30 percent of anti-Yoon protesters demanding his impeachment.

Nonsensical online demagoguery? Of course. But to many supporters of the disgraced YouTube-addicted former president, it rang true. After all, during his turbulent presidency, Yoon often blamed Chinese influence on domestic politics and elections without providing evidence.

Yoon supporters eventually descended on an enclave of lamb skewer restaurants mostly run by ethnic Koreans who left China for their ancestral homeland in search of better opportunities. Screams of "Go back to China!" and "Commies, disappear quickly from the Republic of Korea!" filled the air near Konkuk University, eastern Seoul.

The pathetic scene of violence evoked a sense of deja vu.

Rewind to July 1931, when Japan hyped a minor dispute between local Chinese farmers and Korean settlers in Manchuria to justify its aggression. The dispute began when a group of Koreans subleased land outside Wanpaoshan village, north of Changchun, Jilin province, and began digging an irrigation ditch in an area not included in the sublease.

Some 400 Chinese farmers, armed with farming tools, confronted the Koreans, and the Japanese consulate in Changchun dispatched police under the pretext of protecting subjects of their empire. The Chinese security authorities also sent police. The clash ended with several Chinese wounded, but Japanese police officers and Korean farmers unharmed.