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After South Korea began receiving Chinese tour groups under a temporary visa-free policy, a nearly decade-old photo resurfaced in posts falsely claiming it showed a tourist let into the country under the scheme who proceeded to kill a local person. The posts blame President Lee Jae Myung for the murder, but the crime in fact occurred nine years before Lee was elected president.<\/p>\n
“Lee Jae Myung\u2019s visa-free policy\u2026 ended up causing a murder,” reads Korean-language text on a Facebook graphic<\/a> shared on November 21, 2025.<\/p>\n “A mentally ill Chinese entered the country and ended up killing a person.”<\/p>\n The graphic includes a screenshot of a news report dated November 15, 2025 and headlined, “‘The Chinese government planted a chip in my brain’… A Chinese man who entered the country visa-free with a murder planned, eventually acted on it”.<\/p>\n Anti-Chinese sentiment has intensified in South Korea, with street demonstrations, boycott campaigns and highly polarised online commentary prompting China’s embassy to\u00a0warn<\/a> its nationals to “remain cautious” while visiting the country (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Immigration and tourism have become focal points in these debates, coinciding with the government’s temporary visa-free entry system<\/a> for Chinese group tourists, which began on September 29 and will remain in place until June 30, 2026 (archived link<\/a>). <\/p>\n The initiative aims to boost the struggling tourism sector, but has also become a target for misleading claims linking Chinese visitors to violent crime.<\/p>\n