[Reading the World through Han Feizi] Moon Jae-in Administration, Is There No Waiting Room for Power?

The Waiting Room of Power: The Power Brokers Beside the Powerful

There is such a thing as the waiting room of power. It is a concept Carl Schmitt spoke of. He said it is a phenomenon always found in the political arena. It refers to powerful figures who remain near the supreme ruler. They serve as channels through which information reaches the ruler; at times they distort the information conveyed through them, manipulate the ruler, and ultimately damage the political community. Yet, Schmitt said, the waiting room of power always exists. In front of every space where direct power resides, a waiting room forms that possesses indirect influence and force. Put simply, it means the real power behind the throne. One may think of Kwak Youngju under Syngman Rhee, Cha Jicheol under Park Chung-hee, or Choi Seowon under Park Geun-hye.

As time passes, power tends to concentrate less in the ruler himself and more in such waiting rooms. In the end, the master of the waiting room becomes the true holder of power; power is thoroughly privatized, and the political community tilts out of balance. Not only Carl Schmitt but also Han Feizi understood the problem of the waiting room of power. Han Feizi pointed out that there are always those who attend the king at his side, act as his hands and feet, and end up sharing power with him. In that sense, Han Feizi also identified the problem of the waiting room of power. He dealt with it in the “Eight Villains” chapter. True to Han Feizi’s method, he classified the problem by type, discussing four categories: dongsang, jaebang, buhyeong, and yuhang.

First is dongsang (同床): noblewomen and favored concubines. Is it not said that several chief ministers are no match for a single queen? Han Feizi believed that the king’s women, who plead their cases at his pillow, often become the waiting room of power. Second is jaebang (在旁): those who remain close beside the ruler—clowns, dwarfs, and homosexual companions. These are familiar intimates who discern the ruler’s intentions even before he speaks, reading his expression and grasping what is in his heart. Han Feizi said that they too abuse power and cause leakage from the king’s authority. Third is buhyeong (父兄): collateral uncles or half-brother princes who hold no formal title but can still exert influence over important decisions and even wield power over appointments. Fourth is yuhang (流行): wandering lobbyists summoned by treacherous courtiers. They are glib of tongue, and are placed beside the king so that they may speak in ways advantageous to those courtiers or utter empty rhetoric that clouds the ruler’s judgment.

Han Feizi said that these four types of waiting room of power can emerge. Looking at our constitutional history, however, the problem scarcely needs any elaborate explanation. The previous Park Geun-hye administration collapsed over that very issue alone, and the right suffered a devastating blow. There was state capture by an unelected power broker, opacity in political power deepened, and power was privatized by the unqualified. Public anger then erupted; President Park Geun-hye was impeached and imprisoned. The political comeback of the right remains uncertain even now. But then, is the current administration really free from the problem of the waiting room of power? Is there not another real power center, a person—or persons—without formal office who intervene in major decisions, while the cabinet and ministers are sidelined and matters are crafted and concluded in some strange back room?

A committee convenes for an important meeting; someone with no official title comes in, controls the atmosphere of the meeting, and even determines the conclusion. And the issues, agendas, and policy items handled by the Blue House are shaped not by the ruling Democratic Party but somewhere else. Are such things not frequent in the current administration? There is much talk to that effect. One hopes it is merely rumor. Yet it is all the more worrying when one considers that those now in power come from the activist camp. The activist camp is itself a network. It is bound together by school ties. Added to that are the ties of past struggle and experience in civil society movements. Truly, the activist camp is itself a network. If that network acts as the real power behind the scenes, and many things are decided there, how should we view that? If the unelected backstage powers are not one or two people but many, and if those many are organized, is that not truly frightening? They hold no formal office and no official political status. If they make decisions and interfere while bearing no responsibility at all, what becomes of the administration, and where does the country go?

Is the Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs system really necessary?

Is this an excessive inference? Yes. It is a story based only on plausibility and rumor. I do not myself take it to be established fact. But I still want to ask: does the current administration truly have no waiting room of power? Are there really no unelected operators in that waiting room, no abuses committed by those who inhabit it? And are policy and issues—so many agendas—really being formulated within the party? Are the people’s elected representatives, the members of the National Assembly, actually setting the agenda through debate and discussion within the party?

Since this administration took office, the ruling party has done nothing. It has no presence. The same goes for the cabinet. Is the dysfunction of state affairs simply due to the opposition’s lack of cooperation? After suffering a devastating blow from impeachment and enduring serious internal strife, is it really just their obstruction that has caused red warning lights to flash across government? There is much talk that some river runs even between the Blue House and the Democratic Party. In reality, it is hard to tell what the ruling party actually does, and it feels deeply strange that state affairs are run so excessively around the Blue House.

Let me ask one more question here: is the Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs system really necessary at all? Must such an office exist? Is relaying public sentiment and monitoring misconduct by the ruler’s relatives something that can only be done through the office of Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs? More precisely, is it necessary to create a particular person into a great power broker—someone not elected but endowed with enormous power—in order to monitor misconduct by the ruler’s relatives and convey public sentiment to the president? The waiting room of power emerges even without anyone artificially creating it, so I do not know why the law must formally establish a separate waiting room of power. What happened to Cho Kuk, who once occupied that waiting room of power? What allegations does he now face, and how much responsibility does he bear for the division of public opinion and national sentiment? Even so, should the Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs system continue to be maintained?

There is said to be such a thing as an alliance of death. Who kills the supreme ruler? Is it the people who do not support him? Or his political enemies? Is it the opposition? Or the press and the prosecutors? History says otherwise, and so does the constitutional history of the Republic of Korea. More often than not, it is the people around the supreme ruler who destroy him. What about now? It is worrying that there may be an alliance of death near the president, and that those people may be crowding into the waiting room of power—or perhaps that there are so many of them that the waiting room of power has grown grotesquely large, or even multiplied into several waiting rooms. A tragic end to power caused by the waiting room of power can only be a tragedy for the people as well. That is why it is so deeply alarming.

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Original title: [한비자로 세상읽기]문재인 정권, 권력의 대기실은 없는가?

Author: Geon-sun Im

Date: 2020-02-18

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=9&idx=22392