Quid game: challenges for South Korea’s president
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What does the episode’s opening tell us about the focus on South Korea, India and Iran?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. Today on the show, India's Cockroach Party and Remembering Iranian author and artist Majan Satrapi.
First up though.
Look, hi, very nice to meet you because it will look good. Very nice to meet Noah Snyder.
Where where will the President be sitting just so I can place the microphone in the best place? My colleague Chris Lockwood and I recently paid a visit to an opulent blue tile complex in central Seoul known as the Blue House.
Noah Snyder is our East Asia bureau chief.
It's the home of South Korea's political leaders, and we were there to interview I J Myung, South Korea's current president. He's been in power for just over a year now, and he took over following his predecessor's turbulent rule, which ended in a declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment. We walked through well manicured grounds and into a central building, up a broad staircase and past a textile showing the entirety of the Korean peninsula in what seemed like full bloom, and into a grand meeting room with there President Lee really projected a kind of calm and confidence.
After we went, I think Chang Zao, Pijong San Chang Zao.
He was clearly trying to signal that South Korea is back on track and that he is guiding the country in the right direction, that the country can move past this abnormal period of chaos and forward towards a brighter future, and perhaps, as he puts it, even one where South Korea can be a nation that leads the world. Now that may be aspirational, but But it suggests again the confidence that he's operating with at this point in his presidency.
Noah, I'm keen to hear more about what he said, but first of all tell me a bit more of what he's actually like.
President E comes from a non-traditional political background, you might say. He grew up in an impoverished family. He was essentially a laborer as a child, didn't receive formal secondary schooling. He became a labor lawyer, self trained initially, and really rose from rather remarkable circumstances to become his country's president. But he's very much a natural politician. He has a charming affect. Which he's put to work on world leaders from Donald Trump to Xi Jinping, and that he certainly put on display with us as well. And he knows how to communicate his message. And again, I think the message he was sending to us and to our readers and listeners out there was that South Korea is back on track.
He's been there a year. Would you say that's right? Is South Korea back on track?
How does President Lee Jae‑Myung describe his rise from a labour‑law background to the Blue House?
I think he does have many reasons to feel confident. For one thing, his approval ratings remain pretty high for a South Korean president at this stage in his term, around sixty percent. It reflects, I think, a feeling amongst many South Koreans that he has restored stability, that he has restored a kind of normalcy to South Korea's political life after a period of great turbulence. He's also managed to steer South Korea. Korea's relations with its neighbors and sometimes very complicated relationships with America, with China and Japan, pretty deftly. And so I think there is a case that he has righted the ship of state that he has South Korea back on track. But at the same time, there are clearly big challenges looming.
And he has another four years left in his term, and the rest of his term may prove to be more challenging even than this critical first year.
So what's he actually done so far?
Well, he's made very clear that artificial intelligence and renewable energy are the country's industrial priorities and that his government is going to be investing big in those industries and to incentivize South Korean companies to maintain their competitiveness. And all of this is happening on the the backs of a blistering rally in South Korea's stock market thanks to the AI investment cycle globally. South Korean chipmakers Make the memory chips that are an essential part of the underlying infrastructure for AI and data centers. And that has pushed the key South Korean stock index to record highs.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What does the episode’s opening tell us about the focus on South Korea, India and Iran?
0:03–3:16
2
How does President Lee Jae‑Myung describe his rise from a labour‑law background to the Blue House?
3:16–8:37
3
Why does Lee claim South Korea’s stock market and AI‑driven chip boom signal stability?
8:37–13:38
4
What domestic challenges could threaten Lee’s reform agenda after the first year?
13:38–17:53
5
How is the South Korean president handling relations with China, the US and North Korea?
17:53–23:22
6
What sparked India’s ‘Cockroach Party’ and what are its core demands?
23:22–26:17