A photo of Cho Kuk, a leader of a smaller third party in South Korea, was edited to falsely portray him holding a banner calling for a boycott of Japanese imports. Posts with the doctored image circulated in Facebook groups supporting the incumbent president Yoon Suk Yeol and went on to say that this showed that Cho had tried to drum up support for his party by stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment. The original image, however, showed him holding a sign appealing to voters to support his party at an election rally in April 2024.
“Kukki, not wanting to lose to the Democratic Party, tried to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment yesterday,” the post said in Korean. shared on Facebook on July 4, referring to the leader of the smaller opposition party, Cho Kuk, by a nickname.
Cho, a former justice minister under former President Moon Jae-in who founded the Reconstructing Korea Party, appeared to be holding a meeting flag calling for a boycott of Japanese products.
The same flag was widely used during Moon’s tenure after South Korea and its neighbor Japan. negotiated retaliatory economic blows over a dispute over compensation for forced labor during the war.
South Korean progressives have long cautious to transform security cooperation with Japan into an alliance (archived link).