The Decibel - Chaos in South Korea: martial law, impeachment, resignations

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Martial law. Impeachment. A treason investigation. All of this has happened within a matter of hours in South Korea.The Globe and Mail’s Asia Correspondent James Griffiths is in Seoul covering it. He explains what led to all this political tumult and who South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is – the person at the centre of it all.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

I'm currently in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, where I've been covering the fallout from the attempt by the president this week to enact martial law and been going to and reporting on various protests which have been taking place across the city all this week. James Griffiths is The Globe's Asia correspondent, and he's covered the Koreas since 2015. It's very peaceful on the streets. This is a culture that has a long history of protests and marches

and really active civil society. Thousands have been turning out to protest President Yoon Suk-yool, with many carrying signs saying, Step down now, coup leader Yoon. People have been gathering at two places, both the National Assembly, the country's parliament, and in the center of Seoul itself. So gathering at Gwanghwamun Square, which is right in the middle of the city, and then marching from there down a main street, chanting for Yoon Seok-yool to resign and expressing their displeasure at what he did this week. You know, I spoke to a lot of people who kind of expressed disbelief

that this kind of thing could happen in South Korea in 2024. You know, this is a country with a long history of coups and martial law, but that was something that people felt had been put behind them. And so, you know, they're really determined to say that this can't happen in the modern age. A 70-year-old protester named Li Chaowu told a journalist that it's a regression of democracy, and with that, the freedoms that have been made from democracy,

such as freedom of the press and personal liberties, are all going to be lost. I've experienced the pain of torture myself in the 80s. I worry that such oppression could once again be inflicted upon our people. And that's why I'm here in the protest. Today on the show, James explains what's happened in South Korea, about the president who started the turmoil of this week's events, and what it means for the foundations of the country's democracy. I'm Mena Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. James, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. So, James, you and I are talking when it's Thursday night in Korea, you're in Seoul. So I think we should just establish a bit of a timeline of what's been happening in the country this week. What was the event that really started the recent political turmoil in South Korea? On Tuesday night, in a surprise unannounced address on TV, President Yun Suk-yeol, the embattled conservative leader of South Korea, said that he was enacting martial law, declaring that there was a state of emergency in the country and a need to save it from what he called pro-North Korean and quote, anti-state forces. And as part of that, the military was deployed to key sites around the country, including the National Assembly. They moved to try and take control of the media and they threatened to arrest or even crack down on protests should they arise. So the martial law essentially gives the military control of the country with the

supervision of the president, who as a top general was kind of put in control of overseeing the martial law and troops were deployed to the streets of Seoul, helicopters were fired overhead, huge numbers of police and soldiers were sent to the National Assembly and other sites. Okay. And so I guess I'm wondering about the response to this. Like how did South Korea's National Assembly, which is of course the legislature, how did they respond to President Yoon's martial law? would be potentially even asleep and wouldn't be able to gather in time to block him. But what we saw instead was almost 200 lawmakers managed to make it to the National Assembly, bypassing police and soldiers. Some of them climbed over walls. The leader of the opposition live streamed himself on social media, climbing over a wall to break into the National Assembly. And once inside, them and their staff barricaded themselves inside the main chamber chamber where they were able to call a quorum, hold a unanimous vote to overturn this martial law order and essentially end it, you know, almost as soon as it had begun.

Wow. OK. And so it was called at 1030 at night on Tuesday. It sounds like kind of within a number of hours then this martial law was rescinded. Yeah, so the martial law itself only lasted six hours, you know, the shortest time in South Korean history, and basically ended in, you know, huge embarrassment for President Yoon, who, you know, looks like someone that completely overreached, was condemned both by members of his own party, condemned by the conservative media that previously supported him, sparked huge opposition, was already hugely unpopular, and now is facing massive, massive opposition from across huge swaths of society. And so this overreach really backfired on him. So what happened next then? After they actually rescinded martial law, what happened in the country? The opposition, Democratic Party and other smaller opposition parties have said that they will

move to impeach President Yun and remove him from office. We're expecting a vote on that on Saturday evening. It's unclear at this stage whether that initial vote will be successful because to do so, the opposition will need a two-thirds majority in the parliament and that will require at least eight members of President Yun's party to join with the opposition in voting to remove him. That potentially may happen. A number of members of his party did join in voting to overturn martial law and have been very critical of him. But the party itself has suggested that they won't back the measure. Outside of Parliament, we've already seen protests. Protests broke out

almost immediately on the streets when the martial law was declared. They've continued every day since then. They're growing. We're expecting them to grow significantly over the weekend. And if the impeachment motion is unsuccessful, then protests are expected to grow significantly. We previously saw in 2016 and 2017, almost six months of continuous mass protests calling for the removal and eventual impeachment of then President Park Geun-hye. So, you know, Korean civil society has a strong record on this and people are committed to taking to the streets when necessary. Yeah, it sounds like the public has really come out then to show their thoughts on this situation. I wonder, what did President Yoon say about

why he decided to declare martial law in the first place? In calling martial law, he did blame the opposition for causing a gridlock in parliament and suggesting that they were undermining the country by doing things like vetoing his budget and launching investigations of him and other top officials. He tried to suggest that there was some kind of North Korean element to this, which most people regard as ridiculous.

And he described the opposition as anti-state. Part of that justification is because under the constitution for him to declare martial law, there has to be a state of emergency. And almost all Koreans would agree that there is no state of emergency currently for him to justify doing this. And for this to have been a legal measure, he kind of has to say that there was some kind of extreme situation that required martial law. OK, it's interesting, James, because I think from an outside perspective, this seems like a set of really extraordinary events. Like but I guess I just wonder how out of place is this kind of political drama in South Korea, like with martial law being invoked and the legislature impeaching its presidents?

Is this out of place? Martial law is a rarity in South Korea. I mean, at least in the modern era, since the country's transition to democracy in 1987, there hasn't been martial law. But in the decades prior to that, there was long periods of military rule, both through martial law and through various generals launching coups. So South Korea has a history with this, but not for many decades. And everyone I've spoken to in the country felt that the country was long beyond this. When we talk about political turmoil and impeachment, that's a bit different.

That is something where there is a kind of strong recent history on. Park Geun-hye, who was the last conservative leader of South Korea, she left office in 2017 when she was impeached. She was later jailed for corruption. Multiple other leaders have either been impeached or they've been jailed on various charges after leaving office. This tends to be something which haunts South Korean presidents. It is a very, very kind of competitive, polarized political system with the parties often accusing each other of corruption and other misdealings and trying to impeach each other. We'll be back in a moment. James, I think we should maybe get some wider context here of politics in South Korea. This might help us, I guess, understand kind of the current situation. Let's start by talking about

who President Yoon is. Can you tell me about him? Yoon Suk-yeol is a former prosecutor. He was originally actually appointed by the Democratic President Moon Jae-in, who was his predecessor, but he later fell out with Moon's liberals after targeting a justice minister in a corruption investigation and also going after various other kind of scandals during the Moon administration. After Moon's single term ended, Yoon kind of put himself forward as a potential presidential candidate. But he was really, you know, not a veteran politician at all. He only joined the People Power Party, which is now the ruling party, a year before the election in which he became president.

He was, you know, mainly a prosecutor who kind of attracted media attention through his anti-corruption campaigns. During the primary, he was known for these very kind of controversial gaffes. He once called for a 120-hour work week. He complimented a former military dictator. And so he was seen as this slightly out there figure, popular with quite a lot of people on the right, but widely distrusted in the center and the left. And when he was elected in 2022, it was by the narrowest margin in South Korean history. He beat the Democratic Party's candidate, Lee Jae-moon,

by 0.73% of the vote. So an incredibly, incredibly slim margin. And with the National Assembly, which was then controlled by the Democratic Party, that he immediately fell out with and struggled to legislate through. Then there were elections earlier this year, which gave the Democratic Party an even bigger majority in the legislature and kind of emboldened them to really try and sabotage Yun's programs and really go after members of his government and also his wife, the first lady, for allegations of corruption. And so he's faced a very, very difficult and fractious period in office. Well, James, can you tell me a little bit more then about those attempts, I guess, to investigate his wife for corruption?

Yeah. So the first lady of South Korea, Kim Kyo-un, he has faced various allegations regarding business dealings and other matters, and also how she exercised her power as First Lady that the opposition have kind of been determined to hold her to account for. So far, President Yun has been successful in using his powers to really block a lot of those investigations and using kind of prosecutors loyal to him

to refuse to take the case. And we actually saw several prosecutors successfully impeached by the legislature just this week in relation to some of these scandals. You know, while we still don't really know for sure why President Yun attempted to launch martial law, one of the reasons that has been suggested is kind of his determination to stay in power, partly to protect his wife. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like there's a few pieces to this. I'm curious, because you said earlier that he was kind of an embattled leader, it sounds like he won by slim margins there.

He sounds like he's a relatively unpopular leader, then? According to polling, he's extremely unpopular. His polling is essentially underwater with about a 20% approval rating. And he lost a lot of support that he managed to gain, you know, to get that incredibly slim victory in 2022, and was essentially seen, especially since the elections earlier this year, as already a lame duck, even with three years to go in his term. Do we know, I guess, how he initially did get elected in the first place? Like, how did he get enough support to kind of get him through?

Yeah, one of the things he almost kind of pioneered, and something we've now seen adopted in the United States as well, was really appealing to angry young men who were upset with what they saw as kind of out of control feminism or gains made by women. President Moon's administration was a very kind of avowedly and proudly feminist one and made a lot of efforts to address South Korea's yawning gender gap. And this did spark a backlash, which Yoon was able to ride to a certain extent to victory. So we've talked a little bit about kind of recent politics in the country, James. Let me ask you, I guess, too, about the social situation in the country, because this can also obviously affect political sentiment. When we talk about the economy, social issues, how are things right now in South Korea?

Not so good. South Korea was obviously one of the leading Asian tigers back in the day, but it has struggled in recent years. The economy is kind of stagnant. Growth this year missed targets. Income inequality is among the worst in the OECD. There are growing problems with youth unemployment. Housing is a major issue. And the country is also grappling with what is among the lowest birth rates in the world. And seemingly nothing the government has done over about the last decade has done anything about that. So there's a lot of challenges facing South Korea, both economically and socially. So yeah, it sounds like those issues would put pressure on all parts of society, as well as the political side of things as well.

Absolutely. And all those problems have not helped President Yun's popularity. The president would say is that he's not been able to enact a lot of his program, a lot of the potential solutions to that because of a gridlock legislature and the refusal of the opposition to prove things like his budget and approve various other measures he wants to take. But then, of course, they would argue that he also isn't meeting them halfway, given that they control a huge majority in the legislature. James, a little bit earlier, you mentioned how President Yoon, in his decision to invoke martial law, how he talked about the threat of North Korea. So what role has North Korea played lately, I guess, in shaping South Korean politics? President Yoon has taken an extremely hard line towards the North,

as conservative leaders in South Korea generally do. And, you know, it is essentially, if we can judge it by the metric of, you know, North Korean aggression and disruption and insecurity on the peninsula, it's essentially failed, as these approaches often have in the past. During the administration of his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, there were a number of historic peace talks between North and South Korea, also involving then US President Donald Trump. But all of that has kind of fallen away in the years since. North Korea has massively increased aggression, testing missiles, threatening to annex South Korea, including using nuclear weapons against South Korea. Earlier this year, Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, said he was abandoning the cause

of unification, which has been the longstanding goal for people on both sides of the Korean Peninsula since the end of the war, and instead described South Korea as the North's primary enemy, and, you know, suggested that if the two countries were ever joined again, it would be because North Korea conquers the South. So, you know, things are very, very tense on the peninsula. And so, you know, obviously not the ideal time to have huge political instability in Seoul, potentially for months. So James, we are expecting an impeachment vote on Saturday in South Korea. Is there anything else, I guess, expected to happen in the future as a fallout from all of these events?

So lawmakers have also suggested that they will seek to have President Yoon prosecuted for treason, suggesting that his original martial law edict was illegal and therefore, you know, essentially an attempt at a coup. The police have already said this week that they are opening an investigation into President Yun and some other top officials after several complaints were made. Most analysts I've spoken to don't expect that to necessarily go anywhere. In the immediate future, likely he would have to be removed from office before he can be successfully prosecuted. But certainly his problems aren't going to go away, even if he manages to survive Saturday's vote. So just lastly here, James, we've talked about a lot of different things happening in the country

this week. I guess, what does all of this say about the stability, really, of South Korea's democracy? That's an interesting question, because obviously, it's not great when the leader of a country declares martial law and, you know, essentially tries to enact what some people regard as a coup. But at the same time, South Korean democracy was successful in blocking this. Lawmakers from multiple parties across the spectrum came together to reject martial law. Civil society groups sprung into action. People took to the streets immediately. People blocked the military trying to go into the parliament. We even saw one lawmaker try and grapple an assault rifle out of a soldier's hands when yelling at him to have more shame. The media here, even though there were

censorship orders as part of the martial law edict, the media continued to cover all of the drama. They were live streaming from inside parliament as the vote was happening. While this week has kind of shown a level of fragility in South Korean society, it's also really shown that the resilience that this country has and the kind of determination people have to protect democracy. James, thank you so much for being here. I know it's been a long day and it's a tiring one, but really appreciate your time. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Welms. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.