The Koreas | Politics | East Asia

Chun Jae-soo’s New Blueprint for Busan

South Korea’s second largest city will chart the country’s new maritime plan. And its new mayor will lead the way.

Busan’s Mayor-elect Chun Jae-soo attends a meeting of the Busan Sports Council, June 11, 2026.

On December 11, 2025, Chun Jae-soo arrived at Incheon International Airport. He had just returned from New York, having successfully bid for South Korea to host the 2028 United Nations Ocean Conference, the largest global talkfest on maritime sustainability. His gait was brisk. He was upbeat. So, it came as a surprise when he told the gaggle of journalists that he was resigning as minister of ocean and fisheries.

An allegation recently surfaced that he received 40 million won (about $26,000) in cash plus two designer watches from a cult known for bribing politicians for its pet projects. He categorically denied the allegations, explaining that the resignation was for him to “confidently respond to the investigations without being a minister.” Whether out of a good premonition or out of satisfaction that he was doing the right thing, Chun was all smiles as he walked off among the swarming journalists and cameras.

In April 2026, the ruling Democratic Party (DP) picked him to run for the Busan mayoral election on its ticket. The day after the party nomination, the authorities decided not to press charges for his alleged graft. Their findings, however, raised eyebrows.

Circumstantial evidence was rife; the investigators identified one of the watches allegedly given to him, discovered who bought it from where, and traced the said watch to Chun’s acquaintance and then to a watch repairer. Yet, there was no direct evidence the watch and cash fell on Chun’s lap. Even if there was, the statute of limitation would have barred law enforcement from issuing proceedings against Chun. 

Most suspiciously, his staff wiped their computers and hammered the memory hardware, for which they were charged with destruction of evidence.

The cult also purchased hundreds of copies of Chun’s autobiography, allegedly seeking to influence Chun to smooth their school project. The authorities, however, concluded that there was not enough evidence to establish Chun’s awareness of the cult’s purpose and action. “He was given an indulgence,” the opposition People Power Party (PPP) lamented.

On June 4 – six months after he resigned as minister of ocean and fisheries – Chun Jae-soo was elected as mayor of Busan. He received 50.5 percent of the votes, some 46,000 votes more than the incumbent mayor from the PPP. That difference isn’t much, given Busan’s population of 3.3 million. Still, Chun’s victory is all the more significant because Busan is historically conservative, and it’s normally harder to beat an incumbent.

Chun is no stranger to Busan. He grew up in the city until he moved to Seoul for college, where he studied history and politics. After graduation, he started working at the National Assembly as part of legislation support staff. From early on, he aligned himself with pro-labor liberal policy by joining former President Roh Moo-hyun’s presidential office. He unsuccessfully ran for parliamentary elections in 2008 and 2012, vying to represent a district in Busan. 

But he finally won his district for three consecutive terms in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He may be the only liberal figure Busan residents have come to like. In 2024, for instance, he was the only DP parliamentarian to be elected out of all of Busan’s districts. 

The pervasive sense that the incumbent mayor, Park Heong-joon, had failed to deliver for Busan has also boosted Chun’s popularity. The biggest disappointment was Busan’s failure to secure the host spot for the 2030 World Expo. Park and the former Yoon Suk-yeol administration staked so much on the bid and hyped up Busan’s potential to win so inordinately that the eventual letdown was hard to recover from. 

Meanwhile, the Park projects that did materialize are not popular. For instance, more than 80 percent of Busan residents said the city should scrap its plan to open up a branch of the Centre Pompidou, a French contemporary art museum. Critics say the Pompidou Busan project will damage coastal environment and comes at an exorbitant cost.

Chun is known for thinking up big, useful ideas backed by clear roadmaps. While he only had a short tenure of a few months as minister of ocean and fisheries, his track record shined. He moved the entirety of the ministry to Busan from an inland city, ensuring the ministry’s relevancy and proximity to maritime problems. He also........

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