South Korean leader’s rash move spells upheaval at home and risk abroad
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s decision to rescind his declaration of martial law, in the face of embattled opposition from South Korea’s parliament, has at least spared the country a disastrous return to military rule. Yoon’s ignominious move is likely to seal his political fate, but also underlines the fragility of democracy in South Korea and will leave behind a disruptive political legacy.
Within the space of a few dramatic and chaotic hours last night, Yoon declared martial law in South Korea, citing anti-state and pro-North Korean forces, and ordered the military to take over the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.
The most encouraging aspect from this bizarre episode was the National Assembly’s unanimous 190-0 vote to strike down martial law, with 18 members from Yoon’s ruling party joining the opposition.
If South Korea has been spared the nightmare and embarrassment of a reversion to military rule, this owes much to the bravery of its elected representatives, who were under physical threat. Images of parliamentary staff barricading themselves inside and resisting armed soldiers with fire extinguishers poignantly captured the moment that South Korea’s democracy was literally under siege, at gunpoint. It is extremely fortunate that no loss of life occurred, though this is unlikely to spare the shame of the military personnel who took part in the assault on the National Assembly.
While few could have predicted Yoon’s impetuous move, in South Korea or outside, his anti-democratic methods have been on display for some time, resorting to legal pressure tactics against his political opponents and their family members. The President’s prosecutorial background has manifested in a tendency to rule by law. This has largely gone unnoticed internationally, because Yoon’s major foreign policy initiatives—revitalising the alliance with the United States and pursuing rapprochement with Japan—were widely and rightly welcomed by Washington and its allies.
Given the scale of this debacle, it’s hard to see how Yoon can remain in office for long. Mass protests are certain to follow. The great irony of Yoon now facing potential impeachment is that he rose to politics on the back of his central role in the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye.
Counterintuitively, Yoon’s move to institute martial law actually adds to the case for South Korean presidents being allowed to run for a second term. There is no excuse for Yoon’s irresponsibility, but his politically desperate act was shaped in part by his ‘dead duck’ status, halfway into his single five-year term. The constitutional limitation on presidential terms was introduced as a safeguard against reversion to military dictatorship. Yet it is has perversely added to the polarisation of Korean politics and the zero-sum mentality of its politicians.
South Korea became democratic only in 1987. This episode is a reminder how fragile that democracy remains—though it would be mistaken to conclude that Western democracies are immune to democratic backsliding, as the events of 6 January 2021 graphically illustrated in the US.
The fact that South Korea is surrounded by China, Russia and North Korea gives its status particular importance, one of very few democracies on the Asian continent east of India. By wilfully extinguishing South Koreans’ hard-fought democracy and resubjecting it to military rule, if only for a few hours, Yoon has unwittingly given a free gift to his autocratic neighbours. For this, his political legacy seems certain to end in shame.
While North Korea appears to have nothing directly to do with Yoon’s decision to introduce martial law—despite his claims to the contrary—Pyongyang will be watching events closely and looking for opportunities to capitalise. With Seoul domestically distracted and the US in political transition, Kim Jong Un may see a favourable window within which to conduct a long-threatened nuclear test.
Moreover, South Korea’s armed forces are likely to be thrown into political convulsions with the apparent complicity of Yoon’s Defence Minister, Kim Yong Hyun in the declaration of martial law and the subsequent Army-led assault on the National Assembly. While this will leave a lasting legacy for South Korea’s delicate civil-military relations, the immediate security risk concerns external defence, especially given likely uncertainties around military command and control in the aftermath of martial law. This will be of obvious concern to the US, South Korea’s treaty ally, and American forces in Korea.
While it seems unlikely that South Korea will deviate from its current foreign policy settings in the short term, there will be no political bandwidth available. Beyond the immediate crisis, the likelihood of impeachment proceedings followed by elections and a change of government to progressive forces is likely to complicate relations with Japan and the US. Of course, the identity of Korea’s president is not the only factor in play, given Donald Trump’s well-publicised efforts to draw down US forces on the Korean Peninsula and determination to maximise South Korea’s financial support for US troops.
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