People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik on Tuesday called on President Lee Jae Myung to dismiss Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, saying the minister's "very existence is a mockery of the military."
Speaking at a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly, Jeong said Ahn's recent remarks had drawn widespread condemnation. He said Ahn, during a visit to the Air Force Academy in June, cited the phrase "cheobyeonbulgyeong" — meaning remaining unshaken even as circumstances change — attributed it to Mao Zedong, and told cadets that Mao's personal motto was also his own.
"In an administration that cannot even name its principal enemy, a defense minister facing desertion allegations stood before military academy cadets and boasted of holding Mao Zedong's personal motto as gospel," Jeong said. "What country's military is this, and what country's minister is this?"
He added that some attribute the phrase to Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, not Mao, meaning Ahn had adopted it as his own motto without knowing its origin. "Because a person like this occupies the minister's post and is inverting the military's sense of friend and foe, our national security is rotting from within," Jeong said.
He said the problems extended to frontline units, where soldiers had reportedly stood guard with unloaded rifles and nearly opened fire on a US military drone by mistake. "Minister Ahn is disqualified on the desertion allegations alone," he said.
On the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's decision to review its proposed ISA reform and legislation to prevent share price suppression, Jeong criticized what he called a pattern of selective appeals to public sentiment. "The Democratic Party complained that we were criticizing hasty policymaking and asked whether a policy, once decided, should not be pushed through even when the public raises objections," he said. "Stop this shameless politics of invoking public opinion only when you want to shield amateur governance, while thoroughly defying that same public opinion when you should be following it."
PPP Secretary-General Jeong Hee-yong separately criticized the government's real estate policy, saying the administration was highly likely to fall short of its own housing supply targets in its very first year. "The ruling party, which has pushed through every bill it wanted at will, now blames the opposition for obstructing housing supply legislation — who could possibly accept that?" he said.
Jeong said the Lee Jae Myung administration had reversed the loan conditions for the New Home mortgage program aimed at low-income, non-homeowning buyers and had produced such a flawed tax reform proposal that tax accountants were said to be giving up on capital gains tax consultations. "I urge the administration to squarely face its responsibility for the surge in home prices and the shortage in housing supply," he said.
mp1256@heraldcorp.com
