Policy Review

Communicating Government,
Founded in the Spirit of Candlelight

“Every single day over the past year, it has hit home that the ordinary
citizen is the greatest force in our society. In the square where the Candlelight
Revolution took place, I could see each and every ordinary citizen rather
than a crowd. My fellow Koreans readily gave their invaluable time for the
country. You gave us the strength to set the nation on the proper path.
Now is the time for the country to answer the call of the people.
I have to promise a more just and peaceful, safer and happier society.”

- Opening remarks by President Moon Jae-in at the 2018 New Year’s Press Conference -

Written by Park Ji-yeon, Photos courtesy of Yonhap News Agency

TOP 3 POLICIES
Moon administration’s top-three policies in first year

Looking back at the Moon government’s first year,
the <KOREA> magazine will choose and cover
three of President Moon’s policies that were carried out well
in the next three issues starting this month.

[ COMMUNICATION ]

Governance With the People

One of the government’s New Year’s resolutions was “a more just and peaceful, safer and happier society.” How much of it has been fulfilled, and how? The government declared that it was “time for the country to answer the call of the people.” Let’s take a look at how responsive this new government has been.

President Moon Jae-in, who advocates the “Candlelight Spirit,” has exerted significant efforts to communicate with the people. His principles of communication are openness and practical dialogue.

To instill the “Candlelight Spirit” into the lives of the people, the government has increased its transparency and kept the citizens more involved. National agendas were set up together with the citizens, and an ad-hoc committee was established to gather public opinions on the suspension of a nuclear power plant. Over the past year, President Moon traveled a total of 25,843 km across 33 regions to communicate directly with the common people. The most-visited city was Pyeongchang, totaling eight visits. This shows how hard the president worked to ensure the success of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The president’s efforts to communicate with the citizens were also shown online. Cheong Wa Dae’s website was transformed into an online communication platform, and online petitions have been on the rise, too. Petitions with the highest number of signatures are addressed in Cheong Wa Dae’s daily social media broadcast, titled “11:50 at the Blue House.” Recently, an online platform (koreasummit.kr) was set up specifically for the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit so that anyone in the world could easily access the latest news.

Post-Authoritarian Communication

President Moon came under the spotlight for his casual style of communication. In the early days after his inauguration, he announced the members of his presidential staff in-person to journalists. Cheong Wa Dae did not designate questions to be asked, and journalists enjoyed a rare tour of the presidential offices.

Presidential ceremonies now revolve around the citizens. Children were seen at welcoming ceremonies of state visits, and family members have been invited to attend appointment ceremonies to congratulate their loved ones. In the past, people thought that only the president and invited leaders were qualified to stand before the national flag and the phoenix presidential standard. Today, however, ordinary citizens visiting Cheong Wa Dae are free to take photographs on the premises.

The role of the president’s bodyguards has changed, too, from protecting the president to serving as a bridge between the president and the citizens. The bodyguards have been instructed to not only protect the president, but also to treat the citizens like VIPs.

The doors at the Blue House are now wide open after remaining shut to the public for half a century due to security reasons. Over the past year, Cheong Wa Dae has been visited by all kinds of people, from 1-year-old babies to North Korean envoys. The Blue House website is regularly updated with details about the president’s schedule.

The government’s efforts over the past year have laid the foundation for greater public support. Whether this trend will continue is unclear, but the expectations are higher than ever before.