Old Jeju killing falsely tied to S. Korea's visa-free policy for Chinese tourists

Published on November 25, 2025 at 05:47
2 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

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.

"Lee Jae Myung’s visa-free policy… ended up causing a murder," reads Korean-language text on a Facebook graphic shared on November 21, 2025.

"A mentally ill Chinese entered the country and ended up killing a person."

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".

Anti-Chinese sentiment has intensified in South Korea, with street demonstrations, boycott campaigns and highly polarised online commentary prompting China's embassy to warn its nationals to "remain cautious" while visiting the country (archived link).

Immigration and tourism have become focal points in these debates, coinciding with the government's temporary visa-free entry system for Chinese group tourists, which began on September 29 and will remain in place until June 30, 2026 (archived link).

The initiative aims to boost the struggling tourism sector, but has also become a target for misleading claims linking Chinese visitors to violent crime.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on November 25, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The same graphic was also shared on Facebook and multiple forums on Naver Band, attracting comments criticising the Lee government for the policy.

"Why let the Chinese in and sacrifice [South Korean] people," one user wrote.

Another said: "That's what you get for electing a Chinese spy as president."

As of November 24, there have been no official reports about murders linked to Chinese nationals who visited South Korea under the visa-free programme.

The incident referenced in the graphic in fact occurred in 2016.

A keyword search led to the news report used in the circulating graphic -- published by right-wing outlet Maeil Shinbo on November 15 (archived link).

The report references the murder of a 61-year-old South Korean woman inside a church by Chinese national Chen Guorui on Jeju island in September 2016.

Chen had entered Jeju through the island’s long-standing Jeju-only visa-free scheme, introduced in 2002 to attract foreign visitors (archived link).

The case was widely covered in South Korean media at the time and has no connection to the 2025 tourism programme (archived here, here and here).

A separate keyword search found the photograph used in the report was taken by the Yonhap News Agency on February 16, 2017, when Chen was escorted to Jeju District Court ahead of his sentencing (archived link).

The Jeju District Court sentenced Chen to 30 years in prison the following day, noting in its written judgment that he had concealed a weapon inside church materials, attacked the victim without provocation and attempted to hide evidence (archived link).

Although the defendant was reported to have certain mental-health issues, the court rejected the defence this impaired his judgement and found him fully criminally responsible.

AFP has debunked several false claims related to Seoul's visa-free scheme for Chinese group tourists.

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