January 21, 2025
Seoul – The U.S. Army in South Korea on Monday denied online media reports that 99 Chinese spies were captured by the U.S. and South Korean militaries and admitted to rigging the election, calling the claim “completely false.”
“The descriptions and accusations against the U.S. military in the above-mentioned South Korean media articles are completely false. U.S. Forces Korea remains committed to maintaining the stability and security of the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the U.S.-South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty. We urge responsible reporting and fact-checking to prevent possible harm to the public dissemination of misinformation about trust,” U.S. Forces Korea said in a public statement, referring to South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
Sky Daily, a far-right platform founded in 2011, claimed on Thursday that the South Korean military collaborated with the U.S. military to detain 99 Chinese citizens at the National Election Commission building during the imposition of martial law on December 3 and 4.
The reports spread rapidly among supporters of President Yoon Seok-yeol, a disgraced leader who faces an impeachment trial and criminal investigation over his failed martial law bid. Yoon claimed his surprise move was to protect the country from “anti-national forces” and cited Chinese espionage and electoral fraud in South Korea.
Yoon, the first sitting president to be formally arrested and detained, claimed that “there is a lot of evidence of electoral fraud,” referring to the April 2024 parliamentary elections that were largely unsuccessful for the then-ruling People's Power party.
The electoral body denied the report in a public statement on Friday, as did the National Investigations Office, a police agency currently involved in a joint investigation into Yoon.
After Yoon Eun-hye issued the controversial martial law declaration, relatively low-credibility news platforms published a series of fake news related to the National Economic Council. These fake news baselessly claimed that dozens of people in the electoral body were being held against their will and that these people were Chinese hackers suspected of rigging the election.
