Political Turmoil and the Struggle for Democracy in South Korea

This week we talk about Yoon, martial law, and impeachment.

We also discuss the PPP, chaebol, and dictators.

Recommended Book: Starter Villain by John Scalzi

Transcript

In the wake of WWII, Korea—which was previously held by the recently-defeated Japanese Empire—was split into two countries, the north backed by the Soviet Union and the south backed by the United States and its allies.

North Korea had a guerrilla fighter and staunch Soviet-style communism activist, Kim Il Sung, placed at the head of its new government, while South Korea was to be led by a longtime local politician named Syngman Rhee, who had run the country earlier, from 1919 until 1925, at which point he was impeached, and then again in 1947-1948, as head of the country’s post-war provisional government.

Rhee was a hardcore Korean independence activist during a period when the Japanese were clamping down on their mainland holdings and doing away with anyone who caused trouble or sparked anti-colonial protests, so he spent some time in exile, in China, returned to the US, where he was educated, for a bit, and then the US military returned him to Korea to run that provisional government once the dust had settled and the Japanese had been ousted from the area.

Rhee was an ideal representative in the region by American standards, in some ways, as he was vehemently anti-communist, even to the point of killing and supporting the killing of something like 100,000 communist sympathizers during an uprising on South Korea’s Jeju Island. He was president when North Korea invaded, sparking the Korean War, and then refused to sign the armistice that would have formally ended the conflict in 1953, because he believed the only solution to the conflict between these nations was a military one, and he held out hope that the South would someday conquer the North and unify Korea as a nation, once more.

Rhee then won reelection in 1956, and changed the country’s constitution to allow him to remain in office, getting rid of the two-term limit—which was not a popular move, but it worked, and he was able to run uncontested in 1960, because his opponent died of cancer in the lead-up to the election—though his opposition protested the results, claiming a rigged voting process, and this led to a huge movement by students in the country, which became known as the April Revolution; students were shot by police while protesting during this period, and that ultimately led to Rhee stepping down that same year, 1960.

So Rhee was a western-educated, christian conservative who was vehemently anti-communist, though also living in a part of the world in which an aggressive communist dictatorship recently invaded, and was threatening to do so again—so it could be argued his paranoia was more justified than in other parts of the world that had similar frenzied moments and governments during the cold war, though of course the violence against innocent citizens was impossible to justify even for him and his government; his authoritarian rule was brought to an end following that shooting of student protestors, and that left a power vacuum in the country, and South Korea saw 13 months of infighting and instability before a General named Park Chung Hee launched a coup that put him in charge.

Park positioned himself as president, and he did pretty well in terms of economic growth and overall national development—at this point the South was way behind the North in pretty much every regard—but he was also an out-and-out dictator who ruled with an iron fist, and in 1972 he put an entirely new constitution into effect that allowed him to keep running for president every six years, in perpetuity, no term limits, and which gave the president, so himself, basically unlimited, unchecked powers.

The presence of a seemingly pretty capable, newly empowered dictator helped South Korea’s economy, manufacturing base, and infrastructure develop at an even more rapid pace than before, though his nearly 18-year presidency was also defined by the oppression he was able to leverage against anyone who said anything he didn’t like, who challenged him in any way, and who spoke out of turn against the things he wanted to do, or the constitution that allowed him to do all those things.

In 1979, he was assassinated, and there’s still a lot of speculation as to the why of the killing—the assassin was in Park’s orbit, and was seemingly doing okay as part of that all-powerful government entity—but alongside speculation that it might have been planned by the US, in order to keep South Korea from developing a nuclear weapon, that it might have been the result of political jealousy, and that if might have been just an impulsive act by someone who was done being pushed around by a bully, it’s also possible that the perpetrator was a democracy activist who wanted to get a successful and long-ruling dictator out of the way.

Whatever the actual catalyst was, the outcome was more political upheaval, which by the end of the year, we’re still in 1979, led to yet another military coup.

This new coup leader was General Chun Doo-hwan, and he implemented martial law across the whole of the country by mid-year, as he ascended to the role of president, and he cracked down on democracy movements that erupted across the country pretty violently.

Chun held onto power for nearly 8 years, ruling as a dictator, like his predecessor, until 1987, when a student democracy activist was tortured to death by his security forces.

This torture was revealed to the country by a group of pro-democracy catholic priests in June of that year, and that sparked what became known as the June Democratic Struggle, which led to the June 29 Declaration, which was an announcement by the head of the ruling party—so the head of the party the dictatorial president belonged to, the Democratic Justice Party—that the next presidential vote would allow for the direct election of the president.

That party leader, Roh Tae-woo, very narrowly won the election, and his term lasted from 1988 until 1993; and during his tenure, the country entered the UN, that was in 1991, and his presidency is generally considered to be a pivotal moment for the country, as while he was technically from the same party as the previous ruler, a dictator, he distanced himself and his administration from his precursor during the election, and he abided by that previously enforced two-term limit.

By 1996, things had changed a lot in the country, the government fully recalibrating toward democratic values, and those previous rulers—the dictator Chun and his ally-turned-democratic reformer, Roh—were convicted for their corruption during the Chun administration, and for their mass-killings of pro-democracy protestors during that period, as well. Both were pardoned by the new president, but both were also quite old, so this was seen as a somewhat expedient political maneuver without a lot of downsides, as neither was really involved in politics or capable of causing much damage at that point in their lives.

In the years since, especially since the turn of the century, South Korea has become one of the world’s most successful economies, but also a flourishing example of democratic values; there are still some remnants of those previous setups, including the government’s tight ties with the so-called chaebol, or “rich family” companies, which were business entities propped up by government support, which were often given monopoly rights that other businesses didn’t enjoy, as part of a government effort to pull the country out of agrarianism back in the mid-20th century; companies like Hyundai, Samsung, and LG thus enjoy outsized economic power, to this day, alongside a whole lot of political influence in the country, as a result of this setup, which is a holdover from those earlier, dictatorial times.

But South Korea has generally erred toward rule of law since the late-1990s, even to the point of punishing their most powerful elected leaders, like President Park, who was accused of corruption, bribery, and influence-peddling, by removing her from office, then sentencing her to 24 years in jail.

What I’d like to talk about today, though, is a recent seeming abuse of power at a pretty staggering level in South Korean governance, and the consequences of that abuse for the country and for the abuser.

—

In March of 2022, Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative candidate of the People Power Party, who was hoping to oust the incumbent Democratic Party from office, won the narrowest victory in South Korea history.

In his previous role as the chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, Yoon was partly responsible for convicting former President Park for her abuses of power, and his public disagreements with President Moon, who appointed him as Prosecutor General of the country in 2019, led to his popularity in conservative circles, in turn leading to his ascension as a candidate in 2021.

Yoon ran on a conservative platform that’s become familiar in elections around the world in recent decades; basically deregulation paired with culture-war issues, like doing away with government support for gender equality and other often politically liberal efforts of that nature.

He won the election by less than a percentage point, and his tenure is office has not been favorably reviewed by democratic watchdogs, which have noted various sorts of corruption and democratic backsliding under his watch, and economic and policy analysts consider his administration to have been a somewhat ineffectual one.

Yoon’s tenure, like his candidacy, was also plagued by gaffes and seeming missteps.

He tried to raise the country’s maximum weekly working hours from 52 to 69, though he pulled back on this idea after a huge wave of backlash from young people.

He was also criticized for having just three women in his government, and two among his vice-ministerial level officials. He added two more after those criticisms, but one of them quit about a month after being appointed, following her attempt to implement massively unpopular school system revisions—and the entire government’s approval rating collapsed around this time, due to that proposed revision, which was criticized as being half-baked and nonsensical, but it was also partly the result of her ascension to the government in the first place, as she had a record of drunk driving and academic plagiarism; the president brought in a woman to placate the masses, basically, despite that woman being just a really, really bad choice for the position, which by some estimates further demonstrated his disdain for and ignorance about the whole conversation about women in government.

Yoon also tried to create an agency that would provide more oversight of the country’s police force, but this led to protests by police, who saw it as an attempt to take control of law enforcement and use it against the president’s enemies; the president’s office then worsened matters threatened to punish protesting officers.

By 2024, leading into the country’s parliamentary elections, Yoon’s government was incredibly unpopular with just about everyone, because of those and other decisions and statements and gaffes. Even his wife has been under investigation for accepting bribes and having undo influence on who takes positions of power, alongside comments she’s made about seeking revenge against people who say not nice things about her, including journalists.

The opposition swept that 2024 parliamentary election, which had the practical impact of making Yoon’s government something of a lame duck, unable to get anything done, because his party only controlled 36% of the National Assembly. He then boycotted the inaugural session of this new National Assembly, seemingly because he didn’t like the outcome, becoming the first President to do so since democracy returned to the country in 1988.

All of which leads us to what happened on December 3, 2024.

Late that night, President Yoon declared martial law, which would give him, as president, wartime powers to do all sorts of dictator-like things.

He said he declared martial law to unfreeze a frozen government that was paralyzed by his opposition: Assemblymembers had stymied a lot of his efforts to pass laws favored by his party and constituents, and had tallied a large number of impeachment efforts against people in his administration, while he, in turn, used more vetos than any other democratically elected president in the country’s history—so the executive and legislative branches were at a standoff, and this was freezing the government, so he says he declared martial law to basically get things done.

The opposition, in contrast, says his move was unconstitutional, and that he tried to launch a coup.

That latter claim seems to be backed by the fact that Yoon accused his political competition of collaborating with North Korean communists and engaging in anti-state activities, which he said were intended to destroy the country—this seems to be based, again, on the fact that they didn’t approve the stuff he wanted to get approved.

As part of this martial law declaration, he also declared a prohibition on all political activities and all gatherings of the National Assembly and local representatives, and he suspended the freedom of the press.

He apparently also ordered the arrest of many of his political opponents, alongside some people within his own party who might oppose him and his seeming power-grab.

Both parties, his own included, opposed this proclamation, and there were some dramatic standoffs following his announcement at 10:30pm local time, as protestors took to the streets and legislators gathered at the National Assembly Proceeding Hall, where they do their job, because members of the military were ordered to stop them; there are videos of these soldiers standing in the way of these politicians, trying to keep them from entering the building where they could vote to do away with the martial law declaration, and in some cases pointing assault rifles at them. The legislators didn’t backing down, and in a few cases wrestled with the soldiers while thousands of citizens protested behind them against the military action.

Eventually, the Assembly members made it inside and voted to lift martial law; this happened at 4:30am that morning. And over the next few days they began impeachment proceedings against the president, saying they would keep doing so until he resigned.

A bunch of people resigned from Yoon’s administration following his seeming attempt at a coup and, and on December 7, a few days later, he issued a public apology, saying that he wouldn’t try to do that again, though on the 12th he backtracked and defended his declaration of martial law, saying that he had to protect the country from these anti-state forces, accusing his opponents, once more, of being on North Korea’s side.

On December 14, Yoon was impeached and booted from office, following another, failed vote; his party sticking with him for a while, though seemingly distancing themselves from him, following his doubling-down on the “my political opponents are communists” stance.

The leader of his party the PPP, stepped down shortly after that successful vote, having changed his vote from being against impeachment to supporting it, saying basically that there was no other way to remove Yoon from office, and Yoon’s Supreme Councilmembers all stepped down, as well.

South Korea’s Constitutional Court will now have to decide, within the next six months, whether Yoon will be formally and permanently removed from office, or if he’ll be reinstated.

In the two previous instances of a president being impeached, the court has taken 2 and 3 months to make their decision, and they reinstated one president, while allowing the impeachment to stand for the other.

If Yoon is removed by the court, the country will have to elect a new leader within two months, and in the interim, the country’s Prime Minister, the number 2 person in the government, is serving as president; Yoon has been stripped of his powers.

Yoon has a broad swathe of immunity against criminal charges due to his position as president, but that doesn’t apply to rebellion or treason, which could apply in this case.

He’s been banned from leaving the country, but there’s a good chance if he tries, he won’t be stopped, due to a potential conflict between state security forces and presidential security forces—it would be a bad look to have them fight and maybe kill each other.

Yoon’s presence was requested by prosecutors over the weekend, but he didn’t show up to be questioned, and there’s a chance that if this happens again, him deciding not to show up and ignoring these requests, he’ll be arrested—though that same issue with presidential security fighting with police forces applies here, too, so it’s an open question what will happen if he just ignores the whole process and keeps claiming he did nothing wrong.

A preliminary court hearing date has been set for December 27, and though the court only has six of its total nine members at the moment, it has said it’s fine to move forward with an incomplete court, though the government has said they’ll likely be able to get another three judges approved by the end of December.

So things are complicated in South Korea right now, the former president disempowered, but seemingly refusing to participate in the proceedings that will help a new government form, if his dismissal is upheld by the court, that is, and that means the interim government is even more of a lame duck than he was, at a moment in which the world is very dynamic, both in the sense of geopolitics and North Korea becoming more active and antagonistic, and in the sense that economics and tech and everything else is roiling and evolving pretty rapidly right now; a new paradigm seems to be emerging in a lot of different spaces, and South Korea is in a terrible spot to make any moves in any direction, based on that—and that seems likely to remain the case for at least a few more months, but possibly longer than that, too, depending on how the court case plays out, and how the potential next-step election turns out, following that court case.

Show Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_crisis

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/world/asia/south-korea-martial-law.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/heres-whats-going-south-korea-213322966.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/03/martial-law-south-korea-explained/

https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-protesters-photo-gallery-yoon-b17f96063a2635ebc87f35ed9ab5ac5b

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/world/asia/south-korea-president-impeached-martial-law.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/04/world/asia/south-korea-impeachment-vote-president-yoon.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/world/asia/south-korea-protest-feliz-navidad.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/14/world/asia/skorea-yoon-timeline.html

https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-martial-law-yoon-impeach-6432768aafc8b55be26215667e3c19d0

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-yoon-faces-second-impeachment-vote-over-martial-law-bid-2024-12-14/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/14/south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-downfall-analysis

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-impeached-49b0779c

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/14/south-korea-yoon-impeachment-vote/

https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1054103.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoon_Suk_Yeol

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/world/asia/south-korea-first-lady-dior.html

https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/12/12/why-romania-cancelled-a-pro-russian-presidential-candidate

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20241215050041

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2pl4edk13o

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/14/world/video/south-korea-yoon-second-impeachment-watson-cnntm-digvid

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-reportedly-defies-summons-in-martial-law-inquiry

https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-yoon-martial-law-investigation-constitutional-court-8ec38d61f0ea5c48b3bd1f683b5e9c8d

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngman_Rhee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Park_Chung_Hee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_of_December_Twelfth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol

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