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South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and her husband Lee Yill-byung, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, at the Blue House in 2017. (Yonhap News)

The latest controversy in South Korea concerns the news that Lee Yill-byung, husband of Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and professor emeritus at Yonsei University, headed to the US to buy a yacht despite a travel advisory issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) urging South Korean citizens to avoid traveling to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Lee ignited public outrage when he was quoted as saying, “Why should I make sacrifices in my personal life because of other people?” These remarks were especially infuriating considering that the government has been constraining basic civil rights, including the freedoms of assembly and movement, in its efforts to combat the pandemic.

Although Kang offered a quick apology, many members of the ruling party have said that her husband’s behavior was inappropriate. Criticism is due when a family member of the government minister asking the Korean public not to travel overseas sets off on a leisure trip to the US, which is facing a dangerous outbreak of COVID-19. On top of that, Kang has taken every opportunity to aggressively promote the excellence of Korea’s approach to disease control, which relies heavily on the voluntary participation of the populace.

But several aspects of this controversy deserve to be considered in greater depth than reflexive criticism. While Lee’s statement that he shouldn’t have to make personal sacrifices for other people is at odds with the average sentiment among Koreans, it does make one think about the social responsibility that’s demanded of the family members of high-ranking government officials.

“As a professor emeritus at a university and the spouse of a government minister, Lee can be regarded as a public figure. I think he needs to hold the attitude of a public figure. It’s very regrettable that he didn’t refrain from taking this trip,” said Choe In-ho, a senior spokesperson for the Democratic Party, during a radio appearance on Oct. 5.

Park Won-seok, policy chief for the minority Justice Party, acknowledged that “Koreans are bound to be critical of Lee’s behavior when they’re resisting the urge to go overseas even for important events, such as friends’ weddings.” But Park also said that “Lee is only the spouse of a public figure, and I don’t think we can demand the same words and behavior from him as we do from public figures.”

South Korean society has long considered it a natural duty for high-ranking public officials to police their family members and enforce proper behavior. There’s a tendency to hold Kang responsible for not stopping her husband from taking a trip that she wasn’t even a part of. That tendency is a legacy of Confucian ethics for public servants, which include the idea that self-discipline and family discipline are the prerequisites to ruling the country and maintaining order in society. While Kang happens to be a woman, this familial prescription has often been applied to the wives of politicians.

Lee Yill-byung’s other statement — “Considering that COVID-19 won’t be going away any time soon, we can’t just stay at home every day but need to enjoy some degree of normal life” — also provide food for thought. Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Nam-guk criticized Lee for “deviant personal behavior,” which triggered a rebuttal from Lee Jun-seok, a former member of the supreme council of the People Power Party. “The time has come for us to reconsider the standards of disease control,” Lee Jun-seok said.

“The controversy is based on the fact that [Lee Yill-byung’s] behavior went against the extremely strict rules that the government has set for ordinary people. But it’s time for those rules to be adjusted a little. If this gentleman quarantines himself in the US and then does his self-quarantine period after returning to Korea, it’s probably not going to present a big problem to our containment of the disease,” Lee Jun-seok went on to say.

As the COVID-19 situation becomes protracted, we’re all making sacrifices and exercising self-restraint in order to keep the community safe. But considering that everyone is getting more and more exhausted, perhaps we ought to think about the sustainability of the government’s coronavirus measures and have a serious debate about the extent to which we should tolerate the sacrifice of personal freedoms, with the goal of reaching a social consensus.

By Lee Ji-hye, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]