South Korea's Jeolla regional rift over Suncheon medical college ahead of elections
South Korea’s regional politics are heating up as a dispute over a planned national medical school in Suncheon spills into the inaugural Jeolla/Namdo special mayor election. Gwangju Mayor Kang Ki-jeong, who is running in the election, proposed establishing a 100-student national medical college in Suncheon, a move that immediately drew pushback from Mokpo and other western Jeolla leaders.
Kim Won-i, a Democratic Party lawmaker representing Mokpo, criticized Kang on social media, asking, “Are you sane?” He argued that the plan to locate a national medical college and its attached hospital in Suncheon would not settle the broader debate over medical education in the region, but instead ignite new conflicts and divide residents across Jeolla province.
Kim noted that Mokpo and western Jeolla have pursued a medical school for more than three decades, and that Mokpo University and Suncheon University had begun to show a path toward medical education by signaling openness to collaboration. He warned that moving the debate to a Suncheon location could threaten that fragile progress.
On the same day, Kang Seong-hwi, a Democratic Party candidate for Mokpo mayor in the June 3 local elections, said the issue of Jeonnam’s national medical college is tied to residents’ lives. He criticized it as inappropriate to polarize voters during the primary and said a broad framework for medical education had already been reached among the Jeollanam-do government, Mokpo University, and Suncheon University, warning that reversing course could reignite East–West regional tensions.
The Mokpo University Alumni Association held a press conference in the Jeollanam-do Assembly calling for Kang Ki-jeong to step down, arguing that the proposal undermines long-running local efforts and undermines trust in regional planning.
In response, Kang defended his stance at a Gwanging City Hall press conference, saying issues like base-site decisions should not be postponed and that a 100-seat national medical college would not be split into smaller, uneven segments. He reiterated his plan to establish the national medical college in Suncheon while proposing to attract the “BIG4” hospitals to Mokpo’s western region as part of an integrated special-city funding approach, arguing that decisive leadership is needed in such policy choices.
The debate highlights a core tension in Korea over where to locate new medical education capacity and how to distribute scarce healthcare resources across regions. For U.S. readers, the episode illustrates how local and regional rivalries shape long-term national policies on healthcare training, hospital networks, and regional development, with potential implications for South Korea’s healthcare workforce, education funding, and cross-regional collaboration on health technology and medical research. It also signals how upcoming local elections can influence planning for major infrastructure and public-health projects that may affect future investment and policy directions.