South Korean protesters and opposition political leaders are calling for President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign or be impeached over his shocking and short-lived declaration of martial law this week. He had issued the order on Dec. 3, and about 300 troops massed on the National Assembly as lawmakers forced their way in and voted 190-0 in the 300-member legislature to overturn the declaration, a move Yoon then heeded just hours later by rescinding his order.
Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, walks us through the events and the aftermath. In an interview with Just Security’s Viola Gienger, he explains what happened and why, the potential risk to regional stability and relations with the United States amid leadership transitions in the U.S. and Japan, and what’s likely to come next. The following has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Before we turn to the events since President Yoon rescinded his martial law declaration, can you unpack a little bit of what the martial law order entailed, and the reasons given for the declaration?
Well, the reasons given for its enactment were concerns expressed by Yoon that the National Assembly was fundamentally anti-state in its practices, and that it constituted a threat to the governance of the country. Those were the stated reasons. The reality was that he was extremely angry and frustrated by the inability to get anything through an opposition-dominated National Assembly, as well as the efforts by opposition lawmakers to go after corruption investigation charges against his wife. And so, I think, in a fit of frustration and anger, he made this really unprecedented and inexplicable decision to do that.
And what the order entailed was the deployment of military troops to the National Assembly. There are two forms of martial law declaration, and he used the emergency declaration, which gives sweeping powers to the government to restrict the right of assembly, to restrict the freedom of press and everything. Of course, that was not implemented nationwide. We just saw some activity around the legislature building campus, and of course, it was all repealed six hours later.
Q: Right. So, all of that obviously very unexpected as you say. What were some of the larger, broader, more medium- to long-term dynamics that led up to these events? You mentioned the tensions with the Assembly, which is controlled by the opposition, the investigations into Yoon’s wife. Is there anything else that we need to know to put this into context?
In addition to the more proximate political issues, there are mainly two larger structural issues. One is that South Korea has a single five-term presidency, which effectively makes every president — after they pass the halfway mark, or in this case, after they lose a midterm election — effectively a lame duck, and makes them quite unpopular. So, for every single past president, when they’ve gotten to this point in their single five-year term, they have been extremely unpopular. The second structural factor is that, if you look at the way the Korean electorate self-identifies, about a third define themselves as progressive, a third are conservative, and a third are either moderate or undecided. And so, what this means is that no president ever gets elected into office with a popular mandate. They’re generally just squeaking by, usually with less than a majority of the popular vote. So, those are kind of structural things that make every incumbent politically vulnerable.
In terms of the proximate political issues, part of this goes back to the midterm elections that were held last spring where the ruling party suffered a big defeat and the opposition gained seats. They already had a majority, but they were able to increase their majority. And since then, they have been basically blocking every piece of legislation that the government has tried to pass, and they also had been blocking the budget that the administration is trying to get passed before the end of this year. And so, these things made the president very angry, basically creating gridlock in the government — potentially, I don’t know, but potentially a plan to block the budget, to try to shut the government down, which we’ve seen happen in other countries.
And then on top of that were these efforts to conduct special investigations on corruption charges to go after the president’s wife. Yoon has systematically vetoed all of those measures. But it’s a very adversarial relationship between the legislature and the president, and there were some rumors that there might be protests and demonstrations in December. So, this was like a powder keg that was about to explode at some point, and a lot of people worried about it. They weren’t talking about it openly, but a lot of people were worried about it. And then, of course, we saw that, rather than the demonstrations occurring first, it was the declaration of martial law, which, of course, will now, for certain, create massive demonstrations in the center of Seoul from now until whenever, whether he’s impeached or he resigns.
Q: The protesters and the opposition, as well as even Yoon’s own party, mobilized quickly in objecting to the martial law declaration. Is there any chance that that short period of comity could actually build into a little bit more cooperation between the two sides, or does this create an even wider rift?
It’s hard to say right now. I mean, there was that moment where they did vote together to overturn the declaration, but since then, the ruling party seems to have consolidated, and they’ve said that they are not going to support an impeachment bill. So, that is some sign. The opposition also wants to investigate treason charges against the president, and I don’t think the ruling party is going to support that either. The opposition parties want to vote on impeachment this weekend, and they need about eight lawmakers from the ruling party side to be successful. But right now, it doesn’t look like they have those eight.
But who knows. If 70 percent of the public right now thinks that he should be impeached, if there are massive demonstrations every day, the lawmakers may feel a lot of pressure to join. But this could be protracted, in the sense that they may not be able to get the votes to impeach, the president won’t resign, and we’ll just see these massive demonstrations going on every day in the streets of Seoul.
The other possibility is a scenario we’ve seen before: a previous South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, was impeached too. So, we’ve seen this before. And when it was done then, it was done in a very sort of constitutional way. And so, one of the interesting things to look for is whether the constitutional process will hold. South Korea is politically very chaotic, and people get impeached, but the process holds, it manages to speed on in a lawful fashion. We just don’t know at this point whether the ruling party will join in. I think they will feel a lot of pressure to, and the pressure will come from these public demonstrations that are showing the will of the people.
Q: So, how do some of the regional dynamics, the geopolitical dynamics, play into what’s happening domestically in South Korea and vice versa — the increasing tensions with North Korea, the U.S. pressure for South Korea and Japan to work more closely together? China? Is there anything there that we should be taking into consideration as we look at what’s unfolding?
Well, this political chaos is happening in South Korea at a time when the North Korean threat is unprecedentedly high. North Korea is not only causing trouble on the peninsula and in the region, it is killing Europeans in the middle of Europe, with 11,000 troops helping the Russians, helping Putin against Ukraine, and providing millions of rounds of ammunition. So, this is not really the best time for there to be political instability in South Korea.
Also, at a time when the North Korean threat is very high, there’s a political transition in the United States. And these political transitions are often times when North Korea likes to push the envelope in terms of threats. They carried out nuclear tests right after then-President Barack Obama came to office, and they carried out a nuclear test after then-President Donald Trump came to office last time. So, it’s really not a good time to have this sort of political instability.
In addition to that, if Yoon gets impeached or he resigns, then we’re going to face a situation where the leaders of the U.S., Japan, and Korea are all new and will not be the same ones as those currently leading the efforts to consolidate the trilateral relationship. That was something Biden, Yoon and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan did, and the idea was that, when the transition happened in the United States in January, Yoon would be the common remaining element. He was key to this trilateral cooperation, and so it was important that he be there as Trump comes into office and as Shigeru Ishiba, the new Japanese prime minister who just started, gets his feet wet. Yoon’s role was actually critical in that regard. And now we’re going to have a situation where none of them are there. And meanwhile, the China-Russia-North Korea-Iran relationship is just growing stronger and stronger.
Q: Wow, that’s really important context looking ahead. If we turn back to South Korea’s domestic crisis and next steps there, the National Assembly has introduced a motion to impeach the president, but his party is saying they’re going to oppose that move. What can we expect in terms of the impeachment dynamics, and what incentive does Yoon’s party have to continue supporting him in the wake of all of this?
Yeah, it’s a very complicated dynamic. The top line is that they’ll probably move for an impeachment vote this weekend. The way all things stand now, they won’t have the votes to do it, because they may not be able to get eight lawmakers from the ruling party side, and this is also assuming they’ll get support from a handful of splinter parties that they were able to get to overturn martial law – and they would have to get those too. I think they will just keep trying to get the votes. Meanwhile, starting this weekend, there’s going to be massive candlelight protests in the center of Seoul — all peaceful, but massive candlelight protests in the center of Seoul calling for Yoon’s departure.
South Koreans really value their democracy. They had one of the most peaceful transitions to democracy in history. When you compare it to Taiwan or even to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China or the past democracy movement, South Korea’s was relatively peaceful and completely home-grown. There, the people rose up and called for direct presidential elections in 1987, and they were successful. So they find what Yoon has done as absolutely unacceptable, and they will be out there in big numbers, and they will continue to be out there. He will not be able to get anything done in the legislature. I mean, he will not be able to govern at this point. And so, the question then becomes, will he resign, or will there be enough pressure built up on members of the ruling party that they will join the impeachment vote?
The one thing that I am concerned about, which I don’t think is on the radar screen right now, is that if the protests continue, and if the legislation is blocked, and if the opposition continues to try to go after Yoon’s wife, he might declare a second state of emergency, which would then make this a really overall, full-blown political crisis in South Korea.
Q: Okay, so, that’s one scenario. Another scenario might be that he resigns or is impeached, as you mentioned. If the latter occurs, what would happen next? Are there any obvious successors? Would it be a given at that point that the opposition would come back into power?
That would most likely be the case. If he’s impeached, then he would immediately be suspended from office. The prime minister would take over as acting president, and then the Constitutional Court would rule on whether the impeachment legislation is legally justified. And for that to happen, a certain number of the nine Constitutional Court judges would have to rule in favor of the legislation — it may be six or seven. But the added wrinkle is that the court is short of a full bench of justices, so that could delay this for months.
The prime minister is from the ruling party – his name is Han Duck-soo — but he’s widely seen as very balanced. He was once ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C. Part of the reason Yoon chose him as prime minister — and he has only had one prime minister the whole time he’s been president — is for Han’s ability to work with the legislature.
Q: Is there anything else that we should be looking out for, going forward? Anything else that we should touch on?
Something that is really not on the radar screen is the possibility I mentioned that, if this deadlock remains, and we have all these demonstrations and everything is blocked, that Yoon might declare a second state emergency, which would really then throw the country into a deep political crisis. The Biden administration has tried to be very careful about what it’s saying —focusing on rule of law, political stability, calling South Korea a good ally — but really not trying to take sides in this, which I think is right. But if this ends up in this sort of out-of-the-box scenario where he declares martial law again, that would be a very bad situation, very difficult for the United States.
The other thing in terms of the broader picture is that all this is happening when Korea is not just important in terms of security on the peninsula and the trilateral cooperation, but, you know, Korea is a big supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia. They provided a lot of economic support, humanitarian support. They provided ammunition indirectly to Ukraine through Poland. They’re also critical in terms of Biden’s efforts to secure supply chains and implement the CHIPS Act on semiconductors. In all these things, Korea is a critical player with Japan and Taiwan and others. So, it’s not helpful for the United States at all to see this sort of crisis at this time.
(Tess Bridgeman, Paras Shah, Clara Apt, and Maya Nir contributed to this report.)