On April 6, 2022, the South Korean government first allocated 36 billion won for the "Blue Wa Dae relocation", and the South Korean Ministry of Defense officially began to "give up" to the new presidential palace.

On March 20, 2022, South Korea's president-elect Yong Seo-yeol showed a schematic diagram of the new president's office after the relocation at a press conference in Seoul. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)

On April 6, 2022, the South Korean government first allocated 36 billion won for the "Blue Wa Dae relocation", and the South Korean Ministry of Defense officially began to "give up" to the new presidential palace.

The next day, white trucks drove out of the South Korean Ministry of Defense building, loaded with sacks with "confidential documents" posted. They were making room for the South Korean president's "moving plan".

More than half a month ago, South Korean President-elect Yoon Seo-yeol released a "Relocation Plan for the Blue House Presidential Office". He announced in the "Birds-Aerial View of the New Presidential Palace" that South Korean Presidential Palace will be moved from Blue House to the Ministry of National Defense Building in Yongsan District, Seoul.

Yoon Seok-yeol's "moving plan" caused shock in the South Korean government and opposition. South Korean political and military personnel said that it was "hasted" and more than 500,000 South Korean citizens boarded the official website of the Blue House to petition for the "retraction plan".

Opposition continues to roar, and Yoon Seok-young still insists on moving away from the Blue House on the grounds of "friendship with the people" and "removing the symbol of emperors".

Blue House Exterior View. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)

"Decision No. 1" as elected president

"I will end the era of the Blue House ruling the people and usher in a new era of Guanghuamen moving forward with the people." On February 15, 2022, Yoon Seo-yeol bluntly stated on the first day of the campaign: The Blue House is a "symbol of imperial power."

Moving out of the Blue House is one of Yoon Seo-hye's important commitments when he ran for South Korea's president. On March 10, 2022, after Yoon Seo-yeon, presidential candidate of the Kuomintang, won the South Korean presidential election with a support rate of less than 0.8%, he was unwilling to live in the Blue House, the "No. 1 blessed land in the world".

Since the establishment of the South Korean government in 1948, the Blue House has been the place of work and living for successive presidents.

With the slogan of abolishing the "Symbol of the Emperor" to narrow the distance from the people, Yoon Seo-yeol initially chose the new site of the Presidential Palace at Guanghua Gate, one kilometer away from the Blue House.

Gwanghwamun is the location of the Seoul office building and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building of the Central Government, and is also a financial center and a large business district in Seoul. In 2017, Moon Jae-in also vowed to be the "President of Gwanghwa Sect" in his early days in office, but the latter was abandoned because of high security and expenses.

According to Yonghara news agency , Yon Seo-yeol's Presidential Office Transfer Committee (Transfer Committee) once visited Guanghuamen and found that the "Guanghuamen Plan" had problems such as obstruction of citizens, poor external traffic information and heavy security burden.

On March 20, 2022, Yoon Seo-yeon announced the "Relocation Plan for the Blue House Presidential Office" at the first press conference of the handover committee, and determined that the Ministry of National Defense Government Building in Longshan District was the new presidential palace.

According to the relocation plan, the Ministry of Defense will relocate to the nearby Joint Staff Headquarters of South Korea and the United States (hereinafter referred to as the Joint Staff Department), which will be transferred to the Nantailing Capital Defense Command in stages.

"The Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Joint Consultative Conference have complete security facilities, and the relocation of the President's Office will hardly cause trouble to the citizens." Yoon Seo-yue said publicly.

The total area of ​​the Ministry of Defense’s office area is 276,000 square meters, including a 10-storey headquarters building, as well as the office buildings of the United Nations Office, the Ministry of Defense Investigation Headquarters, the Ministry of Defense Facilities Headquarters, the Military Court, the Psychological Corps and other departments.

Yong Seok-yeol promised the Korean people that after the presidential inauguration ceremony on May 10, 2022, the Blue House will open to the public and “return to the embrace of the people.”

Yong Seok-yeon himself has a strong desire to "mov away from the Blue House". At the press conference to announce the relocation plan, a reporter asked on the spot, "If the Korean people react badly, will it be cancelled?" Yoon Seok-yeol made it clear that he "will not give in."

"Although many people around Yoon Seo-yeon advised him not to act hasty, once he made up his mind, he would go to the end." A person from the election countermeasures department of the Kuomintang Party revealed to South Korean media.

However, the Korean National Daily commented that Yoon Seo-yeol came up with the "Blue Wa Dae relocation plan" after just ten days of his election, and this president's "decision No. 1" was a little impatient. The poor internal communication between the Blue House is considered to be another major reason for Yoon Seo-yeol's "moving".

"There are problems with the layout of the Blue House space, the separation of the main building and the secretary building, and the distance between the presidential office and the staff team (of the secretary's work) is relatively far from the staff team, which has led to obstruction of communication." Yoon Seok-yeol said at a press conference on March 20.

The Presidential Office is located in the main building of Blue House, and the secretary building is located opposite Weimin Hall. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to walk between the two places.

But the first secretary of the Blue House communication with the people in South Korea Park Soo-hyun denied this view, "If we want to find a president, we can see it within 1 minute."

Yoon Seok-young also plans to create a "lite version of the presidential room" to narrow the distance between him and the staff. The Korea Times revealed that Yoon Seo-hye plans to reduce the number of employees of the presidential office by 30% and set up a public-private cooperation committee based on the field to collect suggestions and requirements for policy by public officials, scholars and media.

On March 23, 2022, Yoon Seok-yue's handover committee further stated that the new presidential office will be located on the same floor as the President's General Office and other secretary's offices, keeping the door open during office hours, the staff team can enter and exit at any time, and a "hotline" system will be added to maximize communication.

"Longshan Era" hastily started

"Blue Watt Taiwan Presidential Era" is about to become the past, and Yoon Seo-yue also faces multiple difficulties when he starts the "Longshan Presidential Era".

High moving fees are Yoon Seok-yeol's number one problem for the government. South Korea's " East Asia Ilbo " estimates that it will take 49.6 billion won (about 256 million yuan) to move the presidential office to the Ministry of Defense building, including the relocation of the Ministry of Defense, the renovation of the Ministry of Defense building, and the relocation of the Blue House Guard Office.

However, the above costs must be budgeted and allocated by the Moon Jae-in government. The relocation fee for the Joint Staff of the South Korea-US Joint Staff Headquarters, which "releases the place" for the Ministry of National Defense, is higher. Yoon Seo-yeol's spokesman Kim Eun-hye estimates that it will cost 120 billion won to move the Joint Staff to Namtayling.

At the end of March 2022, the Yoon Seok-yue handover committee "openly solicited the name of the new presidential office" on its official website. On April 7, after the current South Korean government temporarily allocated 36 billion won relocation fees, the South Korean Ministry of Defense took the lead in moving the 5th to 7th floors.

"We will move around day and night and enter the Yongsan Presidential Palace on May 10 (Yong Seok-yeol's Presidential Inauguration Day)." Yoon Il-hee, spokesman for the transfer committee of Yoon Seok-yeol, made a promise.

has only one month moving time, and the Ministry of Defense seems to be "dragged to the shelves". According to the Asia Daily, there are currently 1,000 people working in the headquarters building of the Ministry of National Defense, and there are about 4,000 people in the entire Longshan Ministry of National Defense office area. Although the area is wide, the office is in full capacity.

Moving company is also troubled by insufficient time: given that the Presidential Palace cannot use ladders to relocate, if it is "moved day and night" 24 hours a day, it will take at least 20 days.

According to the plan of Yoon Seok-yue’s handover committee, the President’s Office will be located on the 3rd or 4th floor of the headquarters building of the best scenic Ministry of Defense, and the Secretariat, the Spokesperson’s Office, and the Security and Information Bureau will be distributed on the 1st to 4th floors.

"The first to fourth floors of the headquarters building of the Ministry of Defense will not be relocated until after joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States on April 28. It is inferred that all facilities in the Presidential Office Building will not be moved into (Longshan) in early June." said the Blue House Relocation Working Group of the Yoon Seo-yue Handover Committee.

If you cannot enter the office of the Ministry of National Defense Building before May 10, the Blue House relocation working group has also proposed two alternatives: one is to temporarily use the Tongyidong office of the Handover Committee, and the other is to build a simple temporary office within the Ministry of National Defense.

More than 500,000 people petitioned for "withdrawal of moving plan"

Korean people have been opposing "Yong Seo-yeon moving". As of April 11, 2022, on the official political inquiry platform of the South Korean Presidential Office, nearly 530,000 people launched a petition to "oppose President-elect Yoon Seo-yeol's move to the 20th President-elect Yoon Seo-yeol from the Blue House to Yongsan."

The Blue House department has responded to the standard of the number of people exceeding 200,000. The petition reads that Yoon Seo-yeol's presidency is up to five years, but he wasted hundreds of billions of won taxes to build his own office...

"The president already has an office, why does he have to go through a lot of trouble to move? Can't these funds be spent on economy, people's livelihood and the prevention and control of the epidemic?" 30-year-old South Korean youth Lu Ya told a reporter from Southern Weekend.

During this general election, Lu Ya voted for Yoon Seok-yeol at the last moment. Now, he began to question his choice.

A survey released by South Korean polling agency Realmeter also showed that more than 50% of South Korean people opposed the move of the president's office from the Blue House to the Ministry of Defense building. After the release of its "Moving Plan", Yoon Seo-yeol's poll approval rating quickly fell by 3.5 percentage points.

On April 7, 2022, the "Yongsan Joint Action Against the Relocation of the Presidential Office" (referred to as the Yongsan Joint Action) was held in front of the Seoul Municipal Government Building to oppose "Yongsan suddenly relocated the Presidential Palace without soliciting public opinion."

"The relocation of the Presidential Palace will take at least two or three years to prepare and implement, which will bring safety hazards and daily inconvenience to the people." said the Longshan Joint Action Committee.

According to statistics from the Longshan Joint Action, 58% of Longshan residents opposed the Presidential Palace moving to Longshan. Yongsan District, Seoul City, was originally the seat of the US military base and the Ministry of Defense, with high walls and barbed wire. As the US military moved from Pingze at the Longshan base, the height restrictions and security of building in Longshan District have been relaxed.

"If the South Korean Presidential Palace settles in, Longshan District may increase its security level again." said Kim Yoo-hee (pseudonym), a 53-year-old Hannamdong resident in Longshan District.

The "security gap" during the relocation of the Presidential Palace has also caused concerns among the Moon Jae-in government and the military.

"The Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Joint Affairs are the last fortresses of national security." South Korean military expert and former Justice Party member Kim Jong-dae said that the relocation of the presidential palace will also affect the normal office of the Ministry of Defense.

On March 19, 2022, 11 senior reserve generals who served as the Speaker of the Joint Staff Headquarters suggested to Yoon Seo-yeol that the relocation of the Blue House may cause the chain movement of the Ministry of Defense and the United Nations Office, resulting in a "security gap" during the transfer of power.

But Yoon Seok-young then responded that the completion of the "moving" in the shortest time will not affect the national security work. Yin Haozhong, chairman of the Emergency Countermeasures of the Joint Democratic Party, was worried, "The transfer of a front-line force will take nearly several years, and it is impossible to relocate the Ministry of Defense in just two months."

On March 21, 2022, the Blue House held a meeting of the National Security Council of to discuss Yin Xiyue's relocation plan. After the meeting, Park Soo-hyun, chief secretary of Blue House communication with the people, said that the relocation plan was hasty and insufficient preparation, which may cause national security risks.

Yong Seok-yeol tried to play the "people-friendly card" to ease public opinion pressure. On March 31, Yoon Seok-yeol's handover committee said that after Yoon Seok-yeol took office, the Blue House will be fully open to the public, and will hold an artistic performance that integrates Korean wave K-pop and traditional music on the first day.

The opening of the Blue House will also bring a certain amount of economic benefits. The Cultural Tourism Research Institute under the Ministry of Culture and Sports predicts that the Blue House will make at least 200 billion won annually after it is opened to the public. The Blue House business district economy will generate 149 billion won.

"Blue Watai Curse" is not just a Feng Shui issue?

The Presidential Palace of the Blue House stands at No. 1 Sejong Road, Jongno District, Seoul. More than a hundred years ago, it was part of the back garden of the royal palace Gyeongbok Palace .

1910, the Japanese army occupied the Korean Peninsula, and the Blue House was used as the official residence of the Japanese Governor. After the founding of the Republic of Korea in 1948, the then President Lee Seung-man made the "Jing" in the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the "Wu" in the Shenwu Gate, and named it "Jingwutai". It is backed by the North Mountain and the south by the Han River. The stone tablets in the green are engraved with "The No. 1 Blessing Land in the World". In 1960, after Yin Yishan took office as president, he changed the golden glazed tiles of Jingwutai with blue tiles and changed the name to Blue House according to the White House of the United States.

During the Korean War, a fire broke out in the Blue House and the buildings were burned for a while. It was not until the 1990s that the new building was rebuilt during its tenure.

The Blue House covers an area of ​​about 250,000 square meters, about 3.4 times that of the White House in the United States. It consists of the main office building, the Presidential Palace, the Welcome Hotel, the Press Hall and the Secretariat building.

The Blue House not only witnessed the thousand-year historical changes of the Korean Peninsula, but also witnessed the tragic ending of many presidents since the democratization of South Korea.Therefore, there are also rumors in South Korea that "the feng shui of the Green Tier Tel is not good."

Except for the current President Moon Jae-in, all 11 presidents since 1948 will not be able to die well. Among them, former President Lee Seung-man and three others were overthrown by the coup, Park Chung-hee was assassinated, Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide by jumping off a cliff, Park Geun-hye and four others were imprisoned, Kim Yong-san and Kim Dae-jung were disgraced for their relatives.

Therefore, South Korean political circles speculate that Yoon Seo-yeol hastily moved may be related to the "Qingwa Typhoon Feng Shui". Yoon Seo-yeon believes in Feng Shui. As early as when he was running for the president, he was caught in the witch customs such as "writing the king with his palm" and "the election team invites masters".

"About the Presidential Palace moved to Longshan, some people suspect that (Yong Seo-yue) consulted with Fengshui master ."

On March 17, 2022, Yoon Haozhong, Chairman of the Emergency Countermeasures of the South Korean Common Democratic Party, raised questions.

Yong Seok-yeol flatly denies the above speculation with the "common Democratic Party conspiracy theory". On March 28, Yoon Seok-hyun and Moon Jae-in met for the first time after the election and made a determination to be "friendly to the people". "The former government, the former government, and even the first literati government (Kim Yongsan) emphasized the end of the Blue House era and the reunion with the people, but in the end, they did not do it due to practical difficulties. I must do it this time."

In recent decades, successive South Korean presidents have also gradually opened the Blue House to remove its "mystery". Starting from the Jin Yong-san period, citizens can visit the Blue House Grand Courtyard and the ruins of the Water Palace. In 2001, during his tenure as Kim Dae-jung, the "Seven Palaces" of the concubines who placed the Joseon Dynasty were officially included in the tourism route.

shows that the "poor Feng Shui" of the Blue House is just a rumor, and the root of the "Blue Wa Dae Curse" is still related to South Korea's political ecology.

"The president of South Korea can be called an 'imperial president'. His personal power is highly concentrated, he enjoys a high level of personnel appointment power, and lacks the constraints of powerful power organs. For a long time, it is very easy to abuse and corruption of presidential power." Li Jiacheng, associate professor at the School of International Economics and Political Science of Liaoning University and an expert on the Korean Peninsula, told Southern Weekend reporters.

Among them, collusion between government and business is one of the lingering roots of the "Blue Watai Curse". South Korea has the characteristics of a "large enterprise and small country" and the chaebol forces are huge. Whenever South Korea's presidential campaign is running, some chaebol families will inevitably provide campaign funds for presidential candidates in order to seek "political marriage."

In 2018, South Korean prosecutors sued former President Lee Myung-bak for crimes such as corruption and bribery, involving crimes such as "accepting bribes from Samsung and giving amnesty to the group's senior management."

As a key link in the "Blue Wa Dae Curse", "clearance culture" has thus become the key to overthrowing the former South Korean president. Over the years, competition among South Korean political parties has been cruel, and the next president and factions often "liquidate" the former government in order to establish prestige. Previously, South Korean politics also tried to resolve the problem by amending the constitution, including changing the president's five-year one-term system to four-year re-election and expanding parliamentary power.

During the election campaign, Yoon Seok-yeol praised the "anti-Moon Pioneer", claiming that after being elected, he would "liquidate the accumulated problems" of the Moon Jae-in government. At the end of March 2022, the "high clothing fee" incident of Moon Jae-in's wife Kim Jong-sook was detonated, which is considered a precursor to "liquidation".

Recently, the Korean citizen group "Korean Taxpayers Alliance" raised questions. Kim Jong-sook's high-end clothing comes from the special event fee of the Blue House, and the Blue House requires the Blue House to disclose the details of the fee. On the Korean online forum Naver, netizens from all walks of life also found Kim Jong-sook's jewelry, clothing and handbags, and marked the price.

"high clothing fees" has not caused much storm yet. On March 29, 2022, the Presidential Office of the Blue House announced the investigation results, saying that Kim Jong-sook did not use the national budget and bought clothes at his own expense, and there is no reason to make the details public.

On May 10, 2022, after Yoon Seok-yeol took office as president, whether it will "liquidate" the Moon Jae-in government with the "high clothing fee" incident as a breakthrough remains to be further observed.

Southern Weekend Reporter Gu Yuebing