The sudden declaration of martial law this month by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was motivated largely by domestic political divisions. Though martial law was revoked hours later, the consequences will reverberate far beyond the country’s borders.
For now, democracy remains alive in South Korea. Nevertheless, the failure of the motion to impeach President Yoon underscores the likely long-lasting consequences of the actions by the president, who faces ongoing domestic opposition and must now try to salvage a tarnished national and international reputation.
After opposition parties filed a motion to impeach Yoon, all but three of the 108 members of the ruling People Power Party boycotted Saturday’s vote. With the ruling party’s lawmakers walking out of the National Assembly chamber before the vote, any hopes that the motion would swiftly pass collapsed, as a quorum failed to be reached.
Yoon may hold on to his presidency for now, but inter-party factionalism looks to continue as the main opposition grouping, the leftist Democratic Party, plans to hold another vote to impeach him at the end of this week.
All about domestic politics
For all the speculation that last week’s actions were a response to the growing North Korean nuclear threat or the US presidential election of Donald Trump, recent developments suggest that the motivations were largely domestic.
Yoon faced – and continues to face – an opposition-dominated National Assembly, and an approval rating that dropped to a record low of below 20 per cent at the end of November. His extreme decision to invoke martial law seemed to be largely driven by ongoing frustration with an inability to pass legislation, as well as a fear of prosecution in light of scandals engulfing the president and his wife.
On Saturday, in his first television appearance since he revoked martial law last Tuesday, the president apologized for ‘causing anxiety and inconvenience’ to South Korean citizens. Deeming the imposition of martial law to be a result of his ‘desperation’, he pledged that he would ‘not avoid any legal or political responsibility’ for his actions and ruled out any subsequent imposition of martial law.
These words, however, did little to assuage the concerns of the South Korean population, and only fuelled further calls from opposition lawmakers for Yoon’s departure. Even after the president’s apology, protests continued outside the National Assembly building and across Seoul. Yoon’s domestic approval ratings plunged even further to an all-time low of 13 per cent.
International consequences
While the tumult in South Korean politics remains at its core a matter of domestic politics, the consequences will likely extend into the foreign policy domain at a time of heightened tensions in East Asia.
These effects will go far beyond the weakness of the South Korean won that followed the imposition of martial law. Yoon’s actions have not only tarnished his own image, but have also focussed international attention on internal division in South Korea, just as the foreign policy threats facing Seoul increase in severity.
President Yoon sought to justify his declaration of martial law by citing the need to remove pro-North Korean forces from South Korea. This claim reflected his misplaced hope that he could exploit the threat of an increasingly belligerent North Korea to garner support from his ruling party, opposition parties and the South Korean public more broadly.
Indeed, the threat from North Korea is both very real and intensifying. Pyongyang’s ever-increasing vertical nuclear proliferation poses one notable threat to South Korea and, more broadly, the West.
A related and urgent threat is the renewed relationship between North Korea and Russia, which shows few signs of abating amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Despite recent speculation that the majority of the 11,000–12,000 North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s Kursk region have not engaged in direct combat, it seems possible that Pyongyang will send further troops, whether frontline soldiers or otherwise. Moreover, North Korea’s recent provision of long-range rocket and artillery systems to Russia only underscores that so long as the war continues, Pyongyang will remain a provider of artillery, missiles, and manpower.
South Korea has said it would ‘consider’ supplying lethal aid to Ukraine in light of recent requests by the Zelenskyy government. Yet Seoul remains hesitant towards upgrading its assistance to Kyiv from current, non-lethal aid. Domestic political infighting looks set to hinder the Yoon administration’s handling of such important foreign policy discussions, and risks the possibility for these concerns to be sidelined.
Trilateral engagement
The picture is further complicated by a year of significant elections among South Korea’s ‘like-minded partners’ and allies, including Taiwan, Japan, and the US.
The recently elected Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has sought to pursue a somewhat idiosyncratic approach towards North Korea, raising – and subsequently toning down – far-flung possibilities of establishing joint liaison offices in Pyongyang and Tokyo.
Ishiba has also expressed scepticism over the value of sanctions on the Kim regime, an approach which would contrast with that of South Korea under Yoon’s presidency.
