{"id":68196,"date":"2024-12-06T22:21:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/06\/k-pop-and-autocrats-jolt-to-democracy-lays-bare-south-korea-two-sides"},"modified":"2024-12-06T22:21:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:21:20","slug":"k-pop-and-autocrats-jolt-to-democracy-lays-bare-south-koreas-two-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=68196","title":{"rendered":"K-pop and autocrats: jolt to democracy lays bare South Korea\u2019s two sides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While some say political turmoil has harmed country\u2019s cultural reputation, others say it proves resilience<\/p>\n<p>In the global battle for soft-power supremacy, a clear winner has emerged in recent years: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/south-korea\">South Korea<\/a>. Spearheaded by the boyband phenomenon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/bts\">BTS<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/mar\/06\/bts-blackpink-squid-game-kimchi-whats-the-secret-of-south-koreas-world-conquering-culture\">Korean Wave<\/a> has turned a country that few knew much about into a cultural behemoth.<\/p>\n<p>But just days ago, as anticipation grew over the start later this month of the second season of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2024\/dec\/03\/streaming-new-releases-australia-december-netflix-squid-game-stan-binge-disney-prime\">Squid Game<\/a> \u2013 the first season of which is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/netflix\">Netflix<\/a>\u2019s most-watched show \u2013 real-life dystopia intervened when the South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/03\/south-korean-president-declares-emergency-martial-law\">imposing martial law<\/a> to root out \u201canti-state forces\u201d and overcome political opponents who were obstructing his policy agenda.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/06\/k-pop-and-autocrats-jolt-to-democracy-lays-bare-south-korea-two-sides\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While some say political turmoil has harmed country\u2019s cultural reputation, others say it proves resilienceIn the global battle for soft-power supremacy, a clear winner has emerged in recent years: South Korea. Spearheaded by the boyband phenomenon BTS,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,80,222,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-protest","category-south-korea","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68197,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68196\/revisions\/68197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}