This is an opportunity for President Moon Jae-in to end the chaebol political and economic system formed in South Korea since Park Chung-hee. Its significance is no less than the political democratization in the 1980s.

Ending the plutocratic system will make electoral democracy no longer a game of voting.

Samsung's "Prince" Lee Jae-yong was recently sentenced to 5 years in prison. This "trial of the century" has come to an end for the time being.

No matter how long the final sentence is, Lee Jae-yong has been punished by South Korean law.

Former President Park Geun-hye is also very likely to be imprisoned in the future. For a former president, a "prince" of South Korea's largest business empire, to be imprisoned, does it mean that the era of Korean chaebols is coming to an end?

The trial is a big challenge for Moon Jae-in, who has been in office for more than three months. He has vowed to limit the influence of chaebols and crack down on corruption caused by collusion between government and business.

Lee Jae-yong's trial has revealed many mysteries of the "girlfriend scandal" that caused a major earthquake in South Korean politics.

Where did the horse that Park Geun-hye’s bestie Choi Soon-sil’s daughter Jung Yoo-ra posted on social media come from?

It turned out to be a gift from Samsung, and it was also because of this horse that the huge network of political and economic collusion behind President Park Geun-hye was exposed.

Lee Jae-yong was arrested in February this year. After several months of frequent interrogations, the prosecutors accused Lee Jae-yong of bribery, corruption, hiding overseas assets, perjury, etc., and requested that Lee Jae-yong be sentenced to 12 years in prison.

years in prison.

During the six months that Lee Jae-yong was interrogated, Samsung did not seem to be affected too much. On the contrary, in the most recent quarter, Samsung’s profits hit a record high.

In the short term, the outcome of Lee Jae-yong's trial will have the greatest impact on the Lee family, especially Lee Jae-yong's personal fate.

Among the mistakes he made were promoting corporate mergers in order to consolidate his personal position and to better succeed himself.

Although Samsung was founded by the Lee family, chaebols like Samsung have been institutionalized, especially since daily decision-making does not rely on Lee Jae-yong. Lee Jae-yong basically denied the prosecutor’s accusations, including bribing Choi Soon-sil.

Jae Rong claimed not to know.

This may be true, but if you think about it carefully, it’s terrifying. In other words, the transfer of interests between Samsung and the government has been institutionalized, and the top decision-makers don’t even need to know about it.

On the other hand, Lee Jae-yong met Park Geun-hye three times and hoped that the president would take care of him. In return, he received Jung Yoo-ra's horse and a "donation" of up to 17 million US dollars from the Choi Soon-sil Foundation.

Regarding this behavior, Lee Jae-yong said that the president forced investment and I was the victim. Who can refuse the president?

Just this alone is enough for Park Geun-hye to drink a pot.

Because the amount of information is too large, it is the president who uses his political power to force large financial groups to "bleed"; Park Geun-hye and her best friend Choi Soon-sil are not simple besties, but more like conspirators, or Choi Soon-hye helped Park Geun-hye "hold" power on behalf of others.

Wealth; most importantly, not even Lee Jae-yong dared to disobey the president's wishes.

Lee Jae-yong's charges have been basically clear. The prosecutors conducted an interrogation every two or three days on average and summoned 59 witnesses. It can be said that South Korea's judicial independence is already very high.

At the same time, South Korea's prosecutors also worked very hard to remove Lee Jae-yong and Park Geun-hye. Of course, this is the result of the joint "efforts" of several generations of presidents.

A series of sparks fly between independent judicial investigations and a plutocratic political and economic system.

Chaebol (chaebol) is a combination of family (clan) and wealth in Korean words. It specifically refers to those giant family companies in South Korea that can have a significant impact on the country. Samsung is one of the most representative ones.

The output of a company is equivalent to 20% of a country's GDP. People also need to ask, is it Samsung's South Korea, or South Korea's Samsung?

Judging from the relationship between Lee Jae-yong and President Park Geun-hye, South Korea is still Samsung. But if Park Geun-hye is just a presidential candidate or a loser in the election, how could Lee Jae-yong condescend to meet Park Geun-hye?

There is no doubt that Samsung is already influencing South Korea's political economy.

Samsung's expansion itself is a symptom of the "Korean disease". It is precisely because of the existence of chaebols that it has a crowding-out effect on social resources and national policies. Under the constraints of resource scarcity, if you give it to Samsung, you cannot give it to other companies.

Therefore, superstar companies are like cancer cells, squeezing the space of small and medium-sized enterprises.

When Park Geun-hye took office, she also proposed to achieve economic democracy and develop small and medium-sized enterprises. However, she was already in jail and was first captured by Samsung and South Korea's chaebol political and economic system.

President Moon Jae-in also holds a similar view. As a liberal president, he values ??equality more.

There have also been trials of executives of large companies in South Korea's history, but they were either suspended or pardoned. Lee Jae-yong in prison and Park Geun-hye in the future are touchstones for Moon Jae-in's realization of economic democracy.

This is an opportunity for President Moon Jae-in to end the chaebol political and economic system formed in South Korea since Park Chung-hee. Its significance is no less than the political democratization in the 1980s.