Autocratic and repressive. Syngman Rhee wasn’t really an “organic” leader either - essentially picked by the US because he spoke decent English. Imprisoned commies, eventually forced to resign (read: evacuated by the US government) after college kid protestors were murdered by police. South Korea was under autocratic military regimes for most of the second half of the 20th century.
Syngman Rhee’s political philosophy also had an ethnostate aspect to it - a sense of Korean superiority.
I’m not an expert in Korean history, but an autocratic, militaristic government which cracks down hard on communism and believes in a “master race” is getting into “if it quacks like a duck” territory. There are as many definitions of fascism as there are scholars of fascism, but I think it fits a traditional Eco/Griffin mold.
Autocratic and repressive. Syngman Rhee wasn’t really an “organic” leader either - essentially picked by the US because he spoke decent English. Imprisoned commies, eventually forced to resign (read: evacuated by the US government) after college kid protestors were murdered by police. South Korea was under autocratic military regimes for most of the second half of the 20th century.
Syngman Rhee’s political philosophy also had an ethnostate aspect to it - a sense of Korean superiority.
I’m not an expert in Korean history, but an autocratic, militaristic government which cracks down hard on communism and believes in a “master race” is getting into “if it quacks like a duck” territory. There are as many definitions of fascism as there are scholars of fascism, but I think it fits a traditional Eco/Griffin mold.