Today, Explained - Seoul searching

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

South Korean lawmakers impeached not only their martial-law-declaring president but also the guy who stepped up to replace him. The Wall Street Journal's Korea bureau chief Timothy Martin explains the political K-drama. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Protesters with both American and South Korean flags and 'Stop the Steal' placards gather to show support for the impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul. Photo by Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In April of 2023, President Biden hosted South Korean President Yoon Sang-yol for a state dinner. Normal stuff. But something very abnormal happened. President Yoon provided the entertainment. Younes kept it abnormal this past month. He declared martial law on December 3rd. He took it back within hours. It didn't matter.

They impeached him. And just this week, South Korean police tried to arrest him, but they failed. We're gonna check in on South Korean democracy on Today Explained and remind you why it's an especially important one. The day, the music, the world. Support for the show comes from Delta Airlines. No matter who you are or where you're going, Delta believes that you deserve to fly in the utmost comfort and style.

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for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. You are listening to Today Explained. President Yoon Suk-yol had never held elected office before he became the president of South Korea. He was a career prosecutor who is now at the center of one of the most heated political investigations in the history of South Korean democracy. Timothy Martin's been covering the story from Seoul for the Wall Street Journal. We started with the martial law of it all.

South Koreans were already asleep when President Yun appeared on national television around 1030 local time and said, I'm declaring martial law. He sensed the country was under threat by what he called North Korean communist forces. He called the opposition legislators and the National Assembly a den of thieves. He considered them to be anti-state forces. The media, political activity, even medical services would have fallen under the government's control. So this is not a modern democracy but something of a military dictatorship, military rule. And that set off a really chaotic six hours or so. There was almost immediately a rush by opposition lawmakers

to try and get to the legislative building. You can hear probably behind me the chanting and people are chanting, you know, bring down the dictatorship, stop the martial law, and arrest President Yun. The one way to circumvent the martial law decree was to have lawmakers pass a vote asking the president to lift martial law. So it was a race against time. On one hand, you had President Yun and the police

and the military seeking to stop lawmakers from entering the building. On the other, you had lawmakers scaling fences, quarreling with soldiers to get inside the National Assembly building to hold the vote. There were protesters, many of whom were alive during South Korea's military rule that had ended in the late 1980s. They were back on the streets protesting against the police presence there. They acted as human shields against armored vehicles.

They tried to block police. We saw soldiers landing on the legislative compound in helicopters, smashing through windows. We saw physical confrontations. The citizens who showed up to protest this, it wasn't just, hey, they're news hounds and they showed up. They were summoned by the head of the opposition party, Lee Jae Myung, who took to YouTube Live and said, we got a problem on our hands. Show up on the streets and help us fend off the police. And that's what they did.

Have you no shame? This to both people inside South Korea and certainly outside of it, this looked like a movie and lawmakers within about two hours of President Yun's national address were able to hold the vote asking the president to lift martial law. And then we had several hours after where we were in doubt, would President Yun follow the direction from legislators or perhaps turn to some other method to keep it in place. So these are the wee hours of the morning by dawn. President Yeun had said that he would agree to lift martial law after holding a cabinet meeting.

Yeah, a lot of people who may have heard about this during their workday and then gotten home, turned on the news, pulled up some articles and found out it had ended, may have thought, oh, well, it was a little, you know, temporary lapse in judgment, that's the end of it. But what's happened since is it's gone on and on and on. So let's talk about everything that's transpired since December 3rd, starting with, I imagine, his impeachment, right? President Yun is impeached almost immediately.

Just hours after the martial law decree was lifted, the movement to impeach President Yun began. The opposition party said they would call a vote by the weekend. And what we saw was growing public backlash against Yun, legal scrutiny of his inner circle that helped carry out the ill-fated martial law order that included his defense minister who was detained. In the buildup to the first impeachment vote against Yoon, Yoon gave a couple of public addresses. He apologized. He said that he would work with the party to run the country. And that led to the first vote. And I guess I should say that

South Korea is run by a unicameral 300 seat legislature. So to impeach Yoon, they needed a two thirds vote. So they needed 200 votes out of the 300 legislators. The opposition controls 192. So they needed at least eight of Yoon's party to cross the line and vote for impeachment. Ultimately, there were not 200 votes cast. So impeaching Yoon was taken off the table. But South Korea really plunged into a leadership crisis. The vast majority of South Koreans wanted to see Yoon out. So, this was a very popular idea.

In the buildup to the second impeachment vote, we saw the detained defense minister who had resigned and had said he was the one to give Yoon the martial law idea. He tried to commit suicide. He was unsuccessful. He remains behind bars. We saw North Korea take potshots against South Korea and they called the South a fascist dictatorship. North Korea called South Korea a fascist dictatorship. Seems hypocritical of them. Nice.

Nice one. We saw hundreds of thousands of people outside of National Assembly on a frigid December afternoon, and the vote was held on December 14th. This time it worked. The opposition was able to get more than 200 votes. Members of of Yoon's ruling party crossed the line. This was an anonymous vote. We don't know who exactly defied Yoon. So Yoon was up and that meant his presidential powers were suspended and the acting president became Prime Minister Han Deok-Sung. Yoon did not fight this or contest this.

He said he would transition powers to the prime minister and he signaled that, yes, I have to step away, but he left open the possibility that he might one day return to continue this journey that he had been on with the people. And South Korean presidents by law serve one five-year term. So Yoon is about halfway through his five-year term that should end in 2027, but now he's impeached. So how long does his number two, his prime minister last in his place?

The number two lasts about two weeks. Nice. By December 27th, the number two was also impeached. The number three in line is a deputy prime minister, and he's also the minister of economy and finance, and his name is Jay Sang-mok. And yeah, he's got four jobs now. Minister of Economy and Finance and his name is Chae Sang-mok. And yeah, he's got four jobs now.

He's the acting president, acting prime minister, and he's got his old job of deputy prime minister and minister of economy and finance. And- What? When does he sleep? Yeah, exactly. I wonder if he gets a pay raise during this period. So you can imagine you go down the line, how far would it go for the opposition would stop?

But it looks like the number three is acquiescing. Okay. So there's some semblance of stability for the moment. Meanwhile, what's going on with President Yun? President Yun is believed to be holed up inside the presidential residence, which is in central Seoul. He is fighting for his political life and probably is his freedom. Investigators say they will seek an extension to the arrest warrant for President Yun Suk-yul. Authorities tried and failed to arrest the impeached leader

on Friday. Yun and his defense team, they've refused to show up for questioning three times. Special investigators received a detainment warrant. President Yun and his secret service bodyguards and some protesters, they were able to fend off an arrest attempt on January 3rd, last Friday. They consider the legal case, the criminal case against him to be unwarranted, to lack legal merit. This goes back to Yun's point that he believes the martial law decree was simply an act of governance, not a criminal act. So we have a very defiant stance from Yoon at this moment. Does all of this amount to a constitutional crisis in South Korea?

It feels like it. Is that how South Koreans feel? Yes. I think it is a legal crisis, a constitutional crisis. It's certainly a political crisis and a leadership crisis. We're not really sure who's running the country. Sort of depends on the topic that comes up. And to see South Korea in flux like this at any point would be

an unfortunate sight. But this is a very critical moment for Seoul. This happens with North Korea becoming more belligerent and bellicose right on the border. We see this turnover in the US administrations where South Korea has a deep relationship with the US and a pretty dramatic shift from Biden to Trump.

And in recent days, we had this tragic plane crash where 179 people died. So this is a moment when you would want firm, trustworthy leadership. And we have the exact opposite at this moment. We're going to talk more about South Korean democracy with Tim when we're back on Today Explained comes from Shopify, as it has before, as it does again. 2025, new year, new opportunities, Shopify says. Maybe this is the year you finally start that business, that one you've been dreaming of since you were a kid, but every time you thought of it, you got overwhelmed with questions.

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Visit superstore.ca to get started. Today Explained is back with Timothy Martin, Korea Bureau Chief at the Wall Street Journal in Seoul. Tim, can you remind our listeners how long democracy has been around in South Korea? Because it hasn't been that long. No, it hasn't. The modern democracy that we see today is really quite young. Democracy came to South Korea after LeBron James was born. It happened in the late 1980s.

If we look at Korea over the centuries, during the Joseon dynasty, they were run by a royal family for hundreds of years. And that takes us to the Japanese occupation in 1910. And that colonial rule lasted through the end of World War II. Then geopolitics intervened and we saw the two Koreas emerge.

There was the Korean War from 1950 to 53. And what happened after that was US-backed military rule for decades. South Korea was run by brutal military rulers who would frequently call martial law order. And the last of those leaders, just to give you a sense of how not long ago this was, the last of these military dictators is a guy named Chun Doo-won, and he had seized power through a martial law order. This was 1980, and President Yun would have been a young college student at that time. And this is not just a sort of dusty chapter of history. This is a lived experience by many people showing up at the office, certainly by many

parents, grandparents. They vividly remember the time of curfews, government crackdowns, of a lack of civil liberties. So to see this reemerge in really any country, but particularly here, was quite traumatizing to South Koreans. And what about South Koreans' views of their political leaders? Have they seen one get impeached before, or is that notion sort of beyond the pale? Seeing a South Korean president with legal problems is unfortunately the norm, not the exception.

If we look at South Korean leaders elected this century, one committed suicide after his family came under investigation for corruption charges. The former human rights lawyer took office in 2003, but state prosecutors questioned him last month about allegations that he took more than six million dollars in bribes While he was president the subsequent president went to prison former South Korean president He met back has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption bribery and embezzlement President after that went to prison more prison time for the disgraced former president

Park Geun-hye. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced the former leader Park to eight years in prison for taking off book funds from the country's intelligence agency and interfering in the 2016 general elections during her administration. That takes us through 2017 and the left-leaning Moon Jae-in, who orchestrated diplomacy with North Korea. His family is the target of legal scrutiny. I don't think anyone is expecting at this point that President Moon himself faces prison. Yoon, it certainly looks that way.

So this century, if former President Moon Jae-in avoids prison, his post-presidency would be the exception, not the norm. Does that mean this latest bout of tumult and upheaval is less shocking for South Koreans? Were they sort of politically you know, politically prepared for this moment and and thusly, you know, will they get through it? Nonetheless, this was still shocking to South Koreans that, you know, opening up prosecutions, criticizing your opposition, railroading proposals, that's all normal stuff. Literally summoning an old school move like martial law, this was not on the bingo cards

for many South Koreans. So Yoon's decision to press that button was shocking, almost inconceivable to South Korean citizens given how painful that part of the country's history is. And given how proud South Koreans, conservative or liberal, are about the transition to democracy and where it stands today. So you're saying that in declaring martial law, Yoon crossed a red line. And you know, four years ago in the United States, a lot of people thought, you know, a certain political leader crossed a red line. There were hearings, there were impeachment

trials, there were criminal trials. And now here we are four years later, and he's about to, you know, re-enter office with the popular vote. re-enter office with the popular vote. Do you think this is a test of South Korean democracy and South Korean democracy will once again prevail? I think it certainly is a test of South Korean democracy. I will say, unlike some of the legal case and certainly the political stress of January 6th and Trump's reelection, the South Korean case is a bit more straightforward. This is centered around one action, martial law, that played out very publicly and has

actually run through the contours of South Korea's democracy and constitution. Yoon declared martial law. It was voted that he lived. He did it. He didn't then send tanks to mow down the National Assembly lawmakers or people in the streets, the investigators who sought to arrest President Yun, they didn't show up with tanks themselves and haul Yun away. They're in effect trying to make a legal argument to execute the arrest warrant. So yes, I think it is a political crisis, a leadership crisis, and a constitutional crisis in South Korea. I don't know if it's quite yet a democracy crisis for those reasons.

Hmm. You know, we were comparing and contrasting democracies a second ago, and I want to point out a key difference between our democracies, and that is our neighbor to the North here in the United States is going through the democratic motions right now. And the neighbor to the North in South Korea is an actual dictatorship. So I just wondered, does that put undue pressure on South Korea to soldier through this moment, no pun intended, and get back to business so North Korea can stop taking cheap shots at its democracy? Is there extra pressure to prove that South Korean democracy can sustain itself?

The stakes are very high and beyond cheap shots, you're worried about actual shots coming from North Korea. Yeah. beyond cheap shots, you're worried about actual shots coming from North Korea. And I think the leadership vacuum is that creates the high stakes for South Korea sort of in this flux. And I will say, you know, when it is difficult to take one country's political dynamics and transpose it onto another, but the two major parties here traditionally have differed most greatly on their view of North Korea. The conservatives, Yoon's conservatives, have wanted a very confrontational stance with

the North. And Yoon himself has said, peace is achieved through power. And meanwhile, the opposition wants to prioritize diplomacy, engagement with Pyongyang. So beyond the leadership vacuum creating a potential opening for North Korea to do something, there's also sort of the prospect of South Korea's leader shifting dramatically how Seoul looks at the Kim Jong-un regime. So the stakes are really high here. Going back to even the original martial law decree, the threat of North Korea and how

North Korea might view the situation was certainly front of mind for the US, for many other countries. In this confusion, might North Korea try to do something that otherwise it would not? Because, well, the president is commander-in-chief. Who's actually calling the shots for the country's military? This was a question that diplomats, journalists, even people within the South Korean government were asking right in the aftermath of this martial law decree and certainly in between impeachment number two and everything in between. Who's actually calling the shots?

And we actually did not get an answer for several days. President Yun is still technically commander-in-chief until he's ousted from office, but he's, you know, not running the country on a day-to-day basis. So we're in this sort of weird spot of South Korean leadership that does give concern to people in the military.

Timothy Martin, Wall Street Journal, find his work at wsj.com. Victoria Chamberlain made our show today for vox.com. Matthew Collette edited. Laura Bullard fact checked, Andrea Christensdottir and Rob Byers mixed. I'm Sean Rames for him and this is Today Explained. you