Min Hyeong-bae, the friend who read Kant, takes charge of unified South Jeolla-Gwangju's future

My sincere congratulations go to Min Hyeong-bae, who was elected inaugural mayor of the unified South Jeolla-Gwangju Special City in the June 3 local elections.

Having previously served two terms as Gwangsan-gu district chief and two terms as a National Assembly lawmaker, Min has now won five consecutive elections. His margin in this race was particularly striking — a 79 percent share of the vote that underscored the deep trust and high expectations residents have placed in him.

To me, Min is more than a politician. He is an old friend who sat in the front row of the same classroom in high school and studied in the same department at university.

One memory of him has never left me.

During our senior year of high school, he would pull out a thick philosophy book whenever a break came between classes. It was Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." The title alone was daunting to me at the time. Watching a friend work through that notoriously difficult exploration of human cognition and the limits of reason came as quite a shock.

Perhaps even then he was already developing his own way of seeing the world and his own sense of what questions mattered.

Even last month, while still a candidate, he said he loved reading and writing. Decades had passed, yet it struck me that a person's essential nature does not change all that much.

Min and I studied at the same university in the same department, and we shared a rented room behind the campus. We were close enough that he served as emcee at my wedding.

He pressed on with his studies despite financial hardship. He took a leave of absence at one point during his university years, but after returning he became a central figure in departmental life. After completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees, he went on to work as a reporter for the Jeonnam Ilbo, covering South Jeolla Province's provincial government.

Looking back, those years on the beat at the provincial office must have given him a closer, more visceral understanding of local administration and regional development than almost anyone else could claim.

It may be no coincidence that a former journalist has become the inaugural mayor of the unified South Jeolla-Gwangju Special City.

He later moved through civil society work before being appointed as an administrative official at Cheong Wa Dae under the Roh Moo-hyun government. I still clearly remember the phone call he made from the train on his way up to Seoul: "I've been assigned as a Cheong Wa Dae official — I'm on my way up now."

During the years I covered Cheong Wa Dae, we would meet and talk from time to time. Before he left Seoul to return to Gwangju after finishing his posting, a group of friends gathered to see him off.

Through all of that, what stood out most about Min Hyeong-bae as a person was his commitment to principle and his diligence.

Even when dining with friends during his time as a presidential secretary under the Moon Jae-in government, he was careful about how a public official should conduct himself — quietly paying his own share of the bill. It may seem like a small thing, but it said something real about what he believed a public servant's bearing should be.

On the way to meet him in Yeouido a few years ago, Kang Bang-cheon, chairman of AssetPlus Asset Management and a mutual friend, told me: "Hyeong-bae is a genuinely clean politician." It was a view shared by everyone who had watched him over the years.

Min went on to win election as Gwangsan-gu district chief and was re-elected, then served as presidential secretary for local governance development and social policy before winning a seat in the National Assembly. In the 2020 general election he recorded an 84.05 percent share of the vote — among the highest in the country — reflecting overwhelming support from his constituents.

And now he has taken on the weighty responsibility of leading the historic project of unifying South Jeolla Province and Gwangju as the city's inaugural mayor.

But the real work starts now.

South Jeolla Province faces the structural challenges of population decline and aging. Gwangju must reinvent itself as a hub for AI and future industries. Reversing regional decline while strengthening industrial competitiveness at the same time will not be easy.

During the campaign, Min pledged to build a broad regional industrial and economic zone anchored in AI, semiconductors and energy, to develop a megacity powered by RE100 renewable energy, and to realize a government rooted in civic sovereignty. He also laid out a vision for creating a southern growth corridor built on the merger of South Jeolla Province and Gwangju.

The unification of South Jeolla Province and Gwangju goes beyond a simple administrative merger. It is a historic challenge to ease the dominance of the Greater Seoul metropolitan area and forge a new model for balanced national development — which is precisely why the role of the inaugural mayor matters so much.

Above all, the success of the unified special city cannot rest on the mayor alone. The combined efforts of 3.17 million residents and a large corps of public officials must be brought together.

The civic sovereignty government that Min has championed can only be fully realized when citizens and public servants build it together.

As a longtime friend and as a fellow journalist, I congratulate Min Hyeong-bae again on his well-deserved victory.

The friend who once read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" during high school breaks is now the inaugural mayor of the unified South Jeolla-Gwangju Special City, entrusted with the future of 3.17 million people.

I hope that the philosophy he has cultivated, the administrative experience he has accumulated, and the warmth with which he regards people will together drive a new chapter for South Jeolla-Gwangju.

I also sincerely hope that the unified South Jeolla-Gwangju Special City will set a new milestone for decentralization and balanced national development in South Korea.