For Whom Is the Great Leap Forward?
Monday morning, President Lee Jae-myung, along with the heads of Samsung and SK, declared a "three-axis great leap forward." Three mega-projects: semiconductors worth 800 trillion won, physical AI, and data centers. Samsung will build a new fab in Gwangju costing 400 trillion won, while SK expands existing production capacity. Rhetoric of "balanced regional development" and "national mission" filled the announcement. Hours later, the market sold off Samsung and SK Hynix shares, pushing the KOSPI down to 8,230. What the state calls a "great leap forward," the market translates as a "threat to shareholder returns." The paradox captured in Diary #343 has now, a day later, taken on sharper political contours. The issue is not simply the market's reaction. The issue is for whom and under whose conditions this 800 trillion won is being executed.
Opposition to the Gwangju investment was immediate. This controversy unfolded along three lines: water shortage claims, political requisition allegations, and backlash from the TK (Daegu-Gyeongbuk) region. On the surface, it took the form of regional conflict. But regional conflict is a symptom, not a cause. The cause is the historical structure of uneven development, structured by the concentrated investment in the Gyeongbu axis under Park Chung-hee and consolidated by the stigmatization of the region as "anti-state" after May 18. Anti-Honam sentiment is an ideological product of this structure—a stigma to justify exclusion—and from its origins, it has been a tool of monopoly capital's spatial accumulation strategy and divide-and-rule tactics. The current opposition from TK politicians to the Gwangju investment also stems from the fact that semiconductor investment is not merely an economic issue but a matter of political resource allocation between regions. With no land or power left in the capital area for new fabs, capital's spatial reorganization inevitably generates interregional competition. This competition is the 2026 edition of an old ruling strategy: dividing the working class regionally. The Gwangju Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice pointed out that "it's not about regional confrontation but about national strategy," which is correct, but we must go a step further. It is not only a matter of national strategy but also of class strategy.
At this point, the working class needs to clarify its position. Opposing the construction of semiconductor production bases themselves is self-destructive. Without production bases, workers have no jobs, and the local economy stagnates. The problem is not the existence of production bases but who owns and controls them. Therefore, the axis of struggle should be set not as "opposition to investment" but as "opposition to free handouts to monopoly capital." Immediate demands include full disclosure of tax breaks and infrastructure privileges, binding agreements on employment scale and regular worker ratios, and the right of local labor unions to review investment plans. At the same time, we need to turn the government's rhetoric of "national strategic industry" against itself. If semiconductors are a national task, then the distribution of profits and investment decisions must also undergo public scrutiny—a logical consequence of that rhetoric. The demand for access to management information through public oversight committees composed of workers, local communities, and experts, as well as workplace-level factory councils, is a demand for control as a process of accumulating strength under conditions where state power has not yet been seized. The reality of semiconductor fabs—bearing the Samsung logo but in substance reliant on the collective collaboration of thousands and on national infrastructure—pushes the contradiction between the shell of private ownership and the content of socialized production to its extreme. Facing this contradiction is one thing; raising "expropriation without compensation" as an immediate struggle slogan without revolutionary power is another. The key is that the struggle process itself to push through defensive and transitional demands accumulates the strength for social ownership.
Meanwhile, in the Strait of Hormuz, the US and Iran agreed to meet in Qatar on Tuesday, but the substance of the agreement remains ambiguous. Trump proclaimed negotiations on social media, while a senior Iranian official retorted, "No technical working-level talks are scheduled for this week." This agreement to halt the Sunday clashes—Iran's attack on merchant vessels, US strikes on Iranian soil, Iran's attack on Gulf ally bases—is, as CNN analyzed, a series of scenes where "both sides struggle to define a vague MoU." The war is not over. Both sides have simply judged that they can gain more through localized strikes and the rhythm of negotiations than through all-out war. The S&P 500 rebounded to 7,419, and WTI rose to $70.95. Gold fell slightly to $4,042, and the KOSPI stabilized at 8,394 compared to the previous day. However, this stability is likely not trust in negotiations but the market's adaptation to the rhythm of conflict.
In Venezuela, with deaths nearing 1,500, aftershocks shook Caracas. The rescue window is closing. The image of the Fairfax County rescue team pulling a father and son from the rubble leaves not only a glimpse of rescue possibilities but also questions about why rescue is needed. Social infrastructure, hollowed out by decades of sanctions, collapsed before the earthquake, and over that collapse arrives the empire's aid. Aid fills the holes of helplessness created by sanctions, but it does not touch the institutions that created those holes.
The substance of what Lee Jae-myung calls a "great leap forward" is the spatial expansion of a comprador-monopoly alliance combining the expansion of monopoly capital (Samsung and SK) with the regime's political interests. The substance of what Trump calls "victory" is the management of imperial interests through permanent tension—neither war nor peace. The substance of what rescue teams call "humanitarianism" is the covering of tragedy created by structural violence in the name of sanctions with the empire's benevolent face. Against the politics of this language—great leap forward, victory, humanitarianism—operating simultaneously on three continents, calling things by their real names is the first step of analysis.
Opposition to the Gwangju investment was immediate. This controversy unfolded along three lines: water shortage claims, political requisition allegations, and backlash from the TK (Daegu-Gyeongbuk) region. On the surface, it took the form of regional conflict. But regional conflict is a symptom, not a cause. The cause is the historical structure of uneven development, structured by the concentrated investment in the Gyeongbu axis under Park Chung-hee and consolidated by the stigmatization of the region as "anti-state" after May 18. Anti-Honam sentiment is an ideological product of this structure—a stigma to justify exclusion—and from its origins, it has been a tool of monopoly capital's spatial accumulation strategy and divide-and-rule tactics. The current opposition from TK politicians to the Gwangju investment also stems from the fact that semiconductor investment is not merely an economic issue but a matter of political resource allocation between regions. With no land or power left in the capital area for new fabs, capital's spatial reorganization inevitably generates interregional competition. This competition is the 2026 edition of an old ruling strategy: dividing the working class regionally. The Gwangju Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice pointed out that "it's not about regional confrontation but about national strategy," which is correct, but we must go a step further. It is not only a matter of national strategy but also of class strategy.
At this point, the working class needs to clarify its position. Opposing the construction of semiconductor production bases themselves is self-destructive. Without production bases, workers have no jobs, and the local economy stagnates. The problem is not the existence of production bases but who owns and controls them. Therefore, the axis of struggle should be set not as "opposition to investment" but as "opposition to free handouts to monopoly capital." Immediate demands include full disclosure of tax breaks and infrastructure privileges, binding agreements on employment scale and regular worker ratios, and the right of local labor unions to review investment plans. At the same time, we need to turn the government's rhetoric of "national strategic industry" against itself. If semiconductors are a national task, then the distribution of profits and investment decisions must also undergo public scrutiny—a logical consequence of that rhetoric. The demand for access to management information through public oversight committees composed of workers, local communities, and experts, as well as workplace-level factory councils, is a demand for control as a process of accumulating strength under conditions where state power has not yet been seized. The reality of semiconductor fabs—bearing the Samsung logo but in substance reliant on the collective collaboration of thousands and on national infrastructure—pushes the contradiction between the shell of private ownership and the content of socialized production to its extreme. Facing this contradiction is one thing; raising "expropriation without compensation" as an immediate struggle slogan without revolutionary power is another. The key is that the struggle process itself to push through defensive and transitional demands accumulates the strength for social ownership.
Meanwhile, in the Strait of Hormuz, the US and Iran agreed to meet in Qatar on Tuesday, but the substance of the agreement remains ambiguous. Trump proclaimed negotiations on social media, while a senior Iranian official retorted, "No technical working-level talks are scheduled for this week." This agreement to halt the Sunday clashes—Iran's attack on merchant vessels, US strikes on Iranian soil, Iran's attack on Gulf ally bases—is, as CNN analyzed, a series of scenes where "both sides struggle to define a vague MoU." The war is not over. Both sides have simply judged that they can gain more through localized strikes and the rhythm of negotiations than through all-out war. The S&P 500 rebounded to 7,419, and WTI rose to $70.95. Gold fell slightly to $4,042, and the KOSPI stabilized at 8,394 compared to the previous day. However, this stability is likely not trust in negotiations but the market's adaptation to the rhythm of conflict.
In Venezuela, with deaths nearing 1,500, aftershocks shook Caracas. The rescue window is closing. The image of the Fairfax County rescue team pulling a father and son from the rubble leaves not only a glimpse of rescue possibilities but also questions about why rescue is needed. Social infrastructure, hollowed out by decades of sanctions, collapsed before the earthquake, and over that collapse arrives the empire's aid. Aid fills the holes of helplessness created by sanctions, but it does not touch the institutions that created those holes.
The substance of what Lee Jae-myung calls a "great leap forward" is the spatial expansion of a comprador-monopoly alliance combining the expansion of monopoly capital (Samsung and SK) with the regime's political interests. The substance of what Trump calls "victory" is the management of imperial interests through permanent tension—neither war nor peace. The substance of what rescue teams call "humanitarianism" is the covering of tragedy created by structural violence in the name of sanctions with the empire's benevolent face. Against the politics of this language—great leap forward, victory, humanitarianism—operating simultaneously on three continents, calling things by their real names is the first step of analysis.