South Korea: Martial Law and President Yoon’s Impeachment
22:51 Share

This is CNA Talks, the flagship podcast of CNA, a Washington, D.C.-based research and analysis organization. December 3rd, 2024, Seoul, South Korea. President Moon Seok-yool declares emergency martial law for the first time in 40 years. The declaration was opposed by both the country's political parties and resulted in protests.

Three hours after the declaration, South Korea's parliament passed a motion to lift martial law. In this episode, we explore why President Yoon ordered martial law, where the country goes from here, and what it means for the United States Republic of Korea alliance. Welcome to CNA Talks. I'm John Stimson. Today, we're going to be talking about the martial law declaration in South Korea and the ensuing controversy of what's happened since.

And we've got two members of CNA's Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Program to talk about this with us today. First, Tom Bickford, who is a principal research scientist in the Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Program. At CNA, his research has focused on Chinese maritime strategy, Chinese national security policy, and China's relations with its neighbors. Tom, appreciate you being here today.

Glad to be here. Also happy to welcome Corita Reid, who is a research assistant for the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at CNA. Her research focuses around the Korean Peninsula with an interest in the domestic environment of both Koreas, nuclear proliferation, democratization efforts, and human rights. Corita, appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me.

So just to set things up, at 10.30 p.m. local time on December 3rd, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yool declared martial law. He accused the opposition party of being a, quote, anti-state den of criminals who were trying to overthrow democracy by impeaching members of his cabinet and blocking his budget plans. The declaration was opposed by all of the major political parties in Korea, including Yoon's own People Power Party, as well as by the majority of Yoon's own cabinet.

Members of Korea's legislature, the National Assembly, called an emergency session where they lifted the declaration of martial law. Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly on December 4th, and it's now up to the Korea's constitutional court to determine if he'll be removed from office.

So this was a really fascinating story when it came out and included things like, you know, members of parliament staff using fire extinguishers to hold back members of the military and members of parliament dodging around police barricades to get into the National Assembly in the first place, which is a really fascinating thing to watch from overseas. Corita, can you provide some context as to what led up to the declaration of martial law and what Yoon was hoping it would accomplish?

Yes. So the country itself was extremely polarized even prior to the martial law declaration. Yoon's party, once he was put in, established several different laws and orders that people just did not like. And it included a lot of different parts of the population. So it included women, farmers, doctors who have continued to be on strike for almost a year now, as well as some conservative voters that felt alienated from Yoon. It

became even worse after the general election that happened in 2024 and what we saw was yoon becoming somewhat of a lame duck president a lot of his officials that he wanted to put in were impeached and or not confirmed from the national assembly and you could see this this increasing paranoia and frustration between both the ppp party and the dp party and so all of this felt like it

culminated to this one moment where Yoon decided to take matters into his own hands and decided to lay against this idea of being a lame duck and put martial law into place. And so we saw that, like you said, barred National Assembly members and was really trying to push for his own agenda that the National Assembly just would not accept.

And I understand that culturally South Korean people have a history of resisting these kind of power grabs, in particular that many members of parliament were involved in the democracy movement decades ago.

Yes, that's correct. So you have this generation referred to as the 365 generation who have been heavily involved in politics stemming from the Korean War and then during the Park Chung-hee dictatorship in the 70s and 80s. And so a lot of the population really mobilized during this martial law effort. And although you

Yoon's objective still was pretty unclear, even after a lot of the trial that has been happening so far. A lot of the Generation 365, as well as the current Gen Z movement, just completely disregarded the idea of martial law and decided to take matters into their own hands. You saw how history kind of built upon itself, how it stemmed from recent memory and now turned to something similar. Thanks for that, Corita.

Okay, so Yoon has been impeached by the National Assembly, but like in the United States, that does then trigger a trial process in order for him to formally be removed from office. In the case of Korea, that's held by the Constitutional Court.

you know, assuming that he is removed by the constitutional court, there will be an election to replace him. So who are some of the leading candidates in that? What does that look like right now? So that is correct. There will be a new election if Yoon is impeached within 60 days. So that means we'd probably have a presidential election in May if they end up having their verdict by mid-March, which is what we're anticipating. And so it's really interesting how

The country has been shaken up from this, actually, especially both major parties, the Democratic Party and the People Powers Party. Specifically, looking towards the DP party, it's very interesting that media and the party have really sided and really promoted the DP leader, who is Lee Jae-myung.

and have been pushing for him to be in the spotlight. A lot of the work that he's been doing has been talking about how the PPP is authoritarian and how the DP needs to step up and take place. But it's been very interesting because despite

this backing that Jae Myung has both in the polling seemingly from the populace but also his own party members he's actually awaiting trial for a corruption case and so it's very possible that within this D60 days and even more specifically within 20 days after impeachment from Yoon he

he might not actually be able to run for president at all. If he is convicted in his case, he will actually be suspended from running from elections for years. So this would include not only the general election for the National Assembly in 2028, but also this current presidential cycle, if possible. And so in his wake, there has been a slight adjust. Some media talking about another runner up,

Kim Kyung-soo, who was a former governor, he actually also was recently convicted a few years ago of corruption as well. But he is now technically scot-free, can run. There hasn't been too much push for him, but there's been some murmurs here and there. So he might be a possible candidate if Lee Jae-myung actually ends up not being able to run. On the other hand, for the People's Power Party, there have been several different potential candidates, but

But we're in a very interesting time where the PPP party candidates don't necessarily want to say that they're running. Yoon still hasn't received his verdict. And so no potential candidate wants to come off as a traitor. Nobody wants this to be used against them if they do end up running for a primary and winning. And so we see at least four candidates in the media that have been kind of pushed out there. And I'll try to go through each one of them.

So you have the former leader of the PPP, Han Dong-hoon, who was very close to Yoon Seok-yeol, but honestly has been kind of deemed somewhat treacherous, somewhat as flip-flopping back and forth, considering he had voted against Yoon. He voted to impeach Yoon during the National Assembly, as well as speaking out during the

a few hours after the martial law attempt and express his disappointment and dislike of it.

However, he hasn't, again, specified that he was running, but he has been talking to a lot of the what they call South Korean political elders and different CEOs and definitely looks like he's putting up a potential race. You also have Oh Se-hoon, which is a Seoul mayor. He's maintained his popularity as much as a PPP party member can at this point in Seoul. But again, he also has just not specified if he is running. He just said that we needed to wait for the courts to give their verdict.

You then have Hong Joon-pyo, who is a mayor from Daegu. He has been the only person within the PPP that has expressed explicitly that he wants to run and he is running. So he is the only one so far that we know will be in a primary, but we don't know if he will actually be picked.

What's interesting about all three of these candidates is that they also potentially, as much as we continue to talk about, have corruption cases. We have Myung Tae-goon, who is a businessman who had a long case that's very complicated, very difficult to talk about. But basically, he is currently having a case that

That has to do with the first lady, as well as Yoon, in terms of election corruption, in terms of swaying political polls and opinions. And so these three candidates, Han Dong-hoon, Oh Se-hoon, and Hong Chu-pyo, have been

talked about within these cases. Now, all three say that they have nothing to hide, that, you know, that they're not really implicit in this, but that could be a possible problem for them in the future. And very lastly, you have Kim Moon-soo. He is currently the Minister of Labor and Employment in the Yoon administration. He currently is only talked about

solely because he has the highest rating for polling. People like him a lot. But again, he, more than anybody else, has not stated that he's running. There's been no implication that he will run, but he does have the highest percentage in polling. And so it's very possible that he sees this and he does like his chances and he might run in the future. Wow, yeah. That sounds like a lot going on there. And a lot, especially a lot of like subtle maneuvering within the People Power Party. Yeah.

Karida, you were recently in Korea, and I just was curious if you could tell us a little bit about your experience there with the, you know, just like what the vibes are like in Seoul and in Korea in the aftermath of what happened there. Yeah, so it was very interesting. I mean, I actually went to Korea a few years ago, and...

It was a little bit right after the presidential election. And so I didn't notice anything too extreme. But going there this time, it was very interesting to see how much media I was just being constantly pushed with.

And that's beyond just it being cold and having the government tell us to be careful on the roads. So there was a bunch of, you know, news media being played no matter where I went. So we're going to different restaurants, going to different just like places. You would see whether someone was paying attention actively or passively that people were watching the news and the news was constantly talking about Yoon, talking about martial law, talking about his impeachment and talking about

the Constitutional Court and their hearings that were currently going on. And so it was just so interesting to see how many people were actually paying attention and how many people were constantly having that one in the background. So

I can only assume based off of so much news input that people are really paying attention to this and people are really trying to make their own opinions of what happened that night, as well as really figure out, OK, if Yoon is impeached, then how do I change my perspective?

And so it's been really interesting seeing the populace. And I think, honestly, it's been slightly reflected in polling. Although some polling has been slightly skewed in either way, given a day, it's really interesting seeing how the country changes, whether they support the DP or they support the PPP. And I think seeing so many Koreans watch the news media while I was there really made sense then why polling skewed so heavily

depending on the day. So it was just overall very fascinating to see people really listening to what was happening and, in my opinion, eventually formulate their opinions on possible presidential candidates from that in the future.

It's interesting to think of a country that is so politically polarized that's also seeing like a continuous shift in how in things like opinion polling and things like that. I suppose that does speak to the idea that like there is a lot of new information coming out about this story and people are sincerely taking that in and forming their opinion based on what they're what they're learning.

Yes. Just to also input here, I do agree with that. I mean, now that all of, you know, the witnesses and all the main trials are over and it's just Yoon and the prosecutors giving their final hearing, their final testimony, it'll be very interesting to see how everyone interprets now that they have all the facts seemingly to evidence.

then make their opinion about, okay, well, this is what I support. This is who I believe. If you believe in Yoon, you might still vote for PPP. If you don't, you might vote DP. And that might change depending on any given day or all the information that you have at the end. It'll be really interesting to watch how that plays out.

Tom, I want to bring you in here. The United States and South Korea are security partners. What was the state of security cooperation between the two countries under Yoon? The state of security relations was very good. Yoon, it wasn't just South Korea-U.S. interaction. Yoon leaned forward more than any other previous Korean president in terms of the trilateral relationship between U.S., Japan, and South Korea. There was a lot of

progress made. President Biden in particular was very grateful for that. And he was also very active in a number of other forums. He, for example, visited Ukraine more than once, and he was active in a number of European forums for security issues. So he was very active, very forward-looking, much more so than any previous Korean president. Okay. So with that in mind then, how might these things shift if a new party is elected in the coming election?

As Corita kind of mentioned, Yoon tended to govern as if he had a very large mandate, even though he won by the smallest margin of any Korean president in any election. And I just don't see, given South Korean popular attitudes towards Japan,

any president, regardless of which party they come from, being as active and forward-leaning in terms of the trilateral relationship. I don't see it going backwards very much. There's no incentive for either of the two Korean parties to backslide, but I don't think you'll have as much forward momentum going forward.

As for the U.S.-South Korea relationship, I don't see any particular major changes. Exercises will continue. Cooperation will continue. I think there might be some relief on the U.S. side because I think there's still some lingering concerns that Yun was able to order the martial law without actually notifying the U.S. That was, I think, a problem. I think where you might see a significant difference, especially if

the Democratic Party wins is I think you'll see improving relationships with China. Yun was particularly prone to antagonizing China. And while a lot of South Koreans are suspicious of Chinese intent and do worry a little bit about the economy being too dependent on China, I think historically the Democratic Party has been much more open to relationship with China. So you might see some warming of that.

And indications are, I think that certainly China is interested in going into more investment

into the South Korean economy. So I think you're going to see a little bit more balance in South Korea's relations between the U.S. and China. And the other thing that I think is worth looking at is historically, the Democratic Party is much more willing to engage positively with North Korea. Yun, on the other hand, was very antagonistic with North Korea, and there was a very sharp decline in a relationship, which even at the best of times is a little touchy.

So the impact will more be on regional players like Japan and China, North Korea, than it will with the United States. That bilateral relationship seems like it'll be pretty stable regardless of which party comes to power. Barring any unforeseen changes, that would be expected. The relationship with the U.S. is absolutely essential for South Korean national security, and I don't see either party wanting to damage that relationship.

Understood. We're just about out of time, but I did want to offer both of you a chance to offer any final thoughts you might have on this. Corita, we can go to you first. So I just want to also reiterate what Tom said previously in terms of North Korea, DP and relationships. I think it's important to remember, like Tom said, that the

The DP party typically is a lot less escalatory with North Korea. We can definitely interpret that the DP party will be a lot more willing to work with North Korea, especially after hearing the new U.S. administration say that they might be interested in talking with North Korea. Like you said,

U.S.-South Korea relationship, they've continued, both governments have continued to say that they are sticking to their ironclad alliance. So there shouldn't be too much difference between the U.S. and South Korea. But it will be very interesting to see how both countries look at regional stability and how that'll work. I mean, even the DP party during their impeachment motion said

mentioned that Yoon basically was creating uneasy and uncontrollable tension within the geopolitical region with China, North Korea, and Russia, considering how escalatory they were towards North Korea. So it'll be very interesting to see even more specifically how under these two new possible governments that they'll deal with North Korea, especially North Korea working with Russia. So that's something that will be very interesting to look forward to.

Thomas, how about you? Yeah, I just want to repeat something that you build on something that Karina just said, which is, of course, there's also a relationship with Russia. You lean very heavily on the Ukrainian side in the conflict.

And obviously there were North Korean troops in Ukraine, but there is some concern within South Korea about what the future relationship with Russia would be, especially if there is some sort of ceasefire or more permanent agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Where does that leave South Korean relations with Russia? South Korea, prior to the conflict, had a lot of investment in Russia. There's a lot of interest in reinvesting in Russia.

And Russia obviously is, it's important not to antagonize Russia in terms of any future relationships with North Korea. So China is a very important factor in the two Koreas in relationship and Russia is also a factor. So it'll be interesting to see

how that plays out in the coming years. Absolutely. And I think that element of the, you know, the downstream impacts of these relationships, how like, you know, like you were just kind of saying, the treatment of one country impacts the treatment of another is always a very interesting and challenging dynamic when it comes to these geopolitical conversations where like every, everything has like multiple layers to it. And there's not just one

impact that any action has. But Thomas and Corita, thanks so much. I've learned a lot about this. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for giving us the opportunity. This is a lot of fun. And I hope we'll have a chance to do this in future when we sort of see how things go in a year or so. Absolutely.

So we'll have links to both Thomas and Corita's research programs in our show notes if you'd like to explore any research they've done on these topics. I want to thank you all so much for listening, and we'll see you next time on CNA Talks.

The views expressed are those of the commentators and do not necessarily reflect those of CNA or any of its sponsors. CNA Talks is produced, edited, and mixed by John Stimson. Our theme music is by Edward Granga. If you enjoy our show, we'd love it if you could give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends about us. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you in two weeks.