The EconomistNovember 30th 2019 Asia 352 taking to the streets every week to demand
that Mr Moon step down. They accuse him
of “doing the devil’s work” and selling the
country out to North Korea by trying to im-
prove relations with it. They take credit for
securing the downfall of Mr Moon’s justice
minister, who resigned last month over a
corruption scandal.
Protestantism first came to Korea in the
19th century with American missionaries,
but its political influence dates from the
time of strongman rule. Rhee Syng-man,
the country’s first dictator of that era, who
was president from 1948 to 1960, was a de-
vout Protestant who made Christmas a
state holiday. “What mattered was growth,
and evangelical pastors told their congre-
gations that the state’s chosen approach to
the pursuit of wealth was holy,” says Kim
Duk-young of the University of Kassel in
Germany. By linking North Korea’s
communism with the devil, church leaders
appealed to Protestant landowners who
had been driven from their homes by the
North’s forces during the Korean war and
had taken refuge in the South. Park Chung-
hee, who was president during South Ko-
rea’s rapid economic rise in the 1960s and
1970s, was a Buddhist. But he encouraged
the growth of Protestant churches.
The anti-Moon protesters are proud of
their faith’s historical links with the politi-
cal elite. They carry banners with the
names and faces of Mr Rhee and Mr Park.
They also hail the leader they say will save
the country, a right-wing pastor named Jun
Kwang-hoon who has called Mr Moon
“worse than Hitler” for trying to befriend
North Korea. Mr Jun’s critics call him the
“panty pastor” because he has told female
church members they will become chil-
dren of God if they take off their underwear
for him (Mr Jun says his remarks have been
taken out of context). His followers shrug
this off. “Moon Jae-in is a communist and
he’s doing the devil’s work,” says one elder-
ly protester. “This is a spiritual fight.”
It is unlikely to be successful. The prot-
esters have not shown convincing evi-
dence for their claim that Mr Moon’s North
Korea policy amounts to treason. Nor have
they struck a chord with other South Kore-
ans, especially not the young.
Some Protestants stress that neither the
demonstrators nor the glitzy mega-
churches represent their faith. They abhor
the conservatives’ past links with dictators.
“It’s wrong to spend all that money on fan-
cy church buildings,” says Jung Byung-o of
the Christian Ethics Movement, a Protes-
tant group. Kim Yong-min, who runs a
small church in a basement in Seoul, says
his organisation is trying to stop right-
wing Christians from meddling in politics.
The tiny space doubles as a studio for a po-
litical talk show and is piled with left-wing
literature. He says most of his congregation
supports Mr Moon. 7
L
iu chungshakes her head: there are no
more tiger zoos here, she insists. This is
strange. The area around the Golden Trian-
gle Special Economic Zone (sez), a swathe
of north-western Laos where Ms Liu, a taxi
driver, plies her trade, is famous for its ti-
gers. Not wild ones, which have nearly all
been killed in Laos, but captive animals, il-
legally trafficked and bred for their parts,
which sell for thousands of dollars. Your
correspondent points on her map to a place
near the sezwhere a tiger farm is rumoured
to operate. Now Ms Liu remembers. She
starts up the engine.
A century ago, around 100,000 tigers
roamed the world’s jungles. Because of
habitat loss and poaching, there are fewer
than 4,000 wild ones today. More than
twice as many are being held in at least 200
farms across East and South-East Asia, says
Leigh Henry of the World Wildlife Fund.
These range from small backyard opera-
tions to enclosures breeding hundreds in
“battery-farm style”, says the Environmen-
tal Investigation Agency (eia), an interna-
tional ngo focusing on wildlife crime.
Breeding tigers and trading them and
their parts is banned by the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species,
but this treaty is widely flouted in Asia be-
cause of poor law-enforcement and high
demand for tigers. Belief in their medicinal
properties has deep roots, especially in
China. Tiger-bone wine, skins and jewel-
leryfeaturingclawsandteeth arestatussymbols. In Laos, carcasses can sell for as
much as $30,000, officials reckon.
Some criminals choose to operate in
Laos because “there’s no real rule of law”
there, says Debbie Banks of the eia. Indeed,
the government of Laos is allegedly com-
plicit. America’s State Department recently
reported that Laos was one of three coun-
tries that had recently “actively engaged in
or knowingly profited from the trafficking
of endangered or threatened species”. In
2016 an investigation by Britain’s Guardian
newspaper found the Lao government had
licensed two tiger farms and cut lucrative
deals with wildlife traffickers smuggling
millions of dollars’ worth of endangered
animals—including tigers—through Laos.
The government has a 20% stake in
Golden Triangle sez, a resort complex run
by Zhao Wei, a Chinese businessman
whom America’s Treasury last year accused
of engaging in illegal trade in wildlife, as
well as trafficking drugs and people (he de-
nies the allegations). With its flashy casino
and hotels, the sezis designed to attract
Chinese tourists (gambling is illegal in Chi-
na). In 2014 and 2015, eia investigators
found that restaurants in the sez were ad-
vertising “sauté tiger meat” and tiger-bone
wine; shops were selling tiger skins and
ivory tusks. Near the casino, 26 tigers
stalked the length of their enclosure, des-
tined for the slaughterhouse. Their bones
were to infuse rice wine. Since the eia’s re-
port, these establishments have closed.
Laos promised in 2016 to phase out the
tiger farms. But the eia reckons their num-
ber has increased. After a ten-minute drive
towards the mountains, Ms Liu, the taxi
driver, turns down a dirt road towards a
compound where fencing is being put up.
The guard at the gate forbids entry. But a lo-
cal with inside knowledge says the facility
houses ten to 20 tigers and a few elephants.
Thetigersaretheretobebred. 7TON PHEUNG DISTRICT, LAOS
Tigers are still being trafficked for use
as food, medicine and decorationTiger farms in LaosLaw of the jungle
A fearful symmetry of metal