In the 1997 Asian financial crisis, South Korea’s external debt exceeded $117.5B, putting the country on the brink of national bankruptcy.

It sought emergency assistance by borrowing from the IMF, but was forced to sign conditions—compelling the opening of the capital markets. In May 1998, it canceled the cap on foreign investors’ equity ownership (previously 20%).
Large inflows of foreign capital (mainly from Wall Street) entered, gaining control of key companies such as Samsung. In all eight major South Korean banks, foreign shareholders’ stakes were each over 2/3.
A few days ago, news reported that 1.2 million leveraged accounts triggered margin calls—equivalent to 1 out of every 30 adults facing liquidation. Some retail investors could even borrow credit loans at 500% to trade stocks.
In this round of the steep drop, positions totaling 2.3 trillion KRW were forcibly liquidated, and 360k retail investors were wiped out.
Foreign investors exploited the retail leverage structure for structural short selling; academically, it is called:
"Predatory Trading" (predatory trading) — knowing the counterparty has leverage, they intentionally smash prices into the forced-liquidation line to trigger a chain reaction of liquidations.
"Margin Call Cascade" (margin call cascade reaction).
On Reddit, some people even call it “class war” (class war)—institutions with houses and money versus workers who borrow money to buy stocks.
At its core, this is a structural imbalance: foreign investors know that all Korean retail investors are leveraged. As long as they drive the price to a certain level, it will trigger a chain of forced liquidations, while they can step in to pick up the assets at a low price—so it is indeed part of a capital game.