Did 99 Chinese spies manipulate South Korea's elections, get arrested, and then get sent to a U.S. military base in Japan? No, that's not true: The Korean National Election Commission (NEC) stated that this incident did not happen, and the United States Forces Korea (USFK) stated that they had no involvement regarding the alleged claim.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) on January 21, 2025. The caption in the video reads, translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff:
Declaration of war against Chinese spies - South Korea's indifference to espionage is severe.
99 Chinese spies have confessed to manipulating public opinion and rigging elections.
For 25 years, South Korea has been a lawless state. Spies have infiltrated and attempted to overthrow the nation's system.
The left-wing Democratic Party and its leader, Lee Jae-myung, are key figures in this effort and must be eliminated.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 29 00:52:30 2025 UTC)
The claim about 99 Chinese spies confessing to manipulating public opinion originated from an exclusive article (archived here) on Sky Daily published on January 16, 2025. The article claimed that martial law forces and the U.S. military conducted a joint operation to raid the NEC, and arrested 99 Chinese nationals, when martial law was declared - and quickly revoked - on December 3, 2024. The Chinese spies "confessed to all charges of election interference during interrogation by the U.S. military," it stated. The article further added the South Korean and U.S. military authorities sent the Chinese spies to a U.S. military base in Japan.
The content of the Sky Daily article was refuted by the NEC, with a statement (archived here) issued on January 17, 2025. The post reads, translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff:
There have been some media reports claiming that during martial law, 90 Chinese hackers staying at the National Election Institute were arrested by martial law forces. However, this is completely false.
There are also claims that these 90 Chinese hackers were arrested at the National Election Institute during martial law and later handed over to U.S. intelligence authorities for investigation. This, too, is entirely untrue.
During martial law, the National Election Institute was operating two training programs: a promotion course for Level 5 officials and a placement course for Level 6 officials, with a total of 119 National Election Commission (NEC) officials participating. Among them, 88 officials (36 in the Level 5 promotion course and 52 in the Level 6 placement course) and 8 external lecturers, totaling 96 people, stayed at the facility. Additionally, martial law forces never entered the National Election Institute building.
In an exclusive article (archived here) reported by News1, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Cyber Investigation Unit announced they started investigating a complaint filed by the NEC against Sky Daily for obstruction of official duties and defamation on January 20, 2025.
Along with the NEC's press release, the USFK also posted on X (archived here) to refute the article's claim concerning the U.S. military's involvement in the alleged incident on January 20, 2025. The post reads (spelling as in the original, see screenshot below):
The depiction of U.S. Forces and the allegations in the mentioned ROK media article are entirely false. U.S. Forces Korea remains committed to it's mission of maintaining stability and security on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty. We urge responsible reporting and fact-checking to prevent the spread of misinformation that could harm public trust.
(Source: X screenshot taken on Feb 10, 2025 at 17:08:13 UTC)
After both official statements were issued by the NEC and USFK discrediting Sky Daily's exclusive article, several other media outlets, such as Chosun Ilbo, Yonhap News, JTBC News, Hankyoreh, and The Korean Herald similarly reported about Sky Daily's false allegations (archived here, here, here, here, and here).
