South Korea Could Fall Under Communist Rule: North Korean Defector

people walking on a street in South Korea

This week saw the annual gathering of conservative activists at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference held on Thursday in Orlando, Florida. There, a North Korean defector warned that the democratic country of South Korea may fall under communist rule in the event that presidential candidate Lee-Jae Myung wins the elections on March 9.

According to the Christian Post, the first day of the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC, which moved from National Harbor, Maryland to Florida, was held on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine.

One of the first showcased panels was titled "I Escaped Communist North Korea," which featured North Korean defector Lee Hyun-Seung, who now goes by Arthur. His presentation took place after a brief discussion by national security experts KT McFarland and Gordon Chang.

Lee works for KCPAC, the Korean equivalent of CPAC and he warned that South Korea could fall under communist rule despite being an American ally for years in the event that Lee-Jae Myung gets elected president. In a conversation on the main stage with CPAC Executive Director Dan Schneider, Lee remarked, "the President of South Korea [Moon Jae-in] is a socialist" and that "the candidate to replace the current socialist is a communist [Lee-Jae Myung]."

Schneider commented during the conversation, "that communist has closer ties to the Chinese Communist Party and to North Korea than to the U.S." The upcoming South Korean presidential elections are set for March 9, during which the people will elect either the Democratic Party of Korea candidate Lee-Jae Myung and People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk-Yeol.

Lee warned that Lee-Jae Myung is "fascinated by the socialism and the communism" and his administration would be interested in making South Korea a socialist country. He claimed further that they want to "rig the election" to take "absolute power in Congress" and later "[manipulate] the National Election Commission" to rig the upcoming presidential elections.

The North Korea defector warned that South Korea "is really in danger" in the face of politicians who intend to create a "one-party control." Schneider agreed and commented that South Korea may end up as "the next Venezuela."

Lee added that while both President Moon Jae-in and Lee-Jae Myung were both "human rights lawyers," they "never talk" about human right in Korea or about China's interference in Hong Kong. He then concluded that their "silence" on these matters mean that htey are both "pro-North Korea" and "also pro-China." He then called upon Americans to "fight together to preserve our freedom" in Korea.

Lee shed light on his life in North Korea, where he spent 30 years under the brutal dictatorship run by the Kim dynasty, where people are "not allowed to gather in one place to express your opinion" because everything is "controlled by the one man." Even conferences like CPAC would not be possible in North Korea.

VOA News reported that South Korea's looming elections will be "critical" for the Biden administration, as it wants the country's next president to "play a crucial role in the [U.S.'] foreign policy agenda," which includes combating the military aggression of China in Asia.