It's a time of unrest in South Korea, where the narrowly elected president shocked allies and opponents alike by declaring martial law. That sent thousands of demonstrators into the streets and has set up a confrontation with lawmakers. So, what's happening in the nation long seen as a bastion of democracy in the region. Joowon Park, director of the Asian Studies program at Skidmore College, spoke with WAMC's Ian Pickus on Wednesday.
A lot of people were surprised by the situation unfolding. Were you?
I was, I was very surprised, and I started getting phone calls and text messages from both friends, colleagues and former students.
And what were they telling you about the situation?
Basically, they were asking me, hey, what's going on? I think everybody was surprised, the same way that I was.
What can you tell us about the president, President Yoon?
So, President Ian is a political outsider. He was never a politician prior to being president, and he was a prosecutor and you know, just a few years ago, he won an election from from a liberal previous president, and but he won by very thin margins and and he won the popular vote, but very shortly after, he has done a lot of things that has has kind of gone against, I guess, what political norms of the country, for example, like we have what's called the Blue House, which is very much like the White House. And he, instead of working from the Blue House, he established a separate, sort of presidential office in a different district, right? And so, he did a lot of things that were kind of quirky. And over the years, the you know, his approval, approval ratings have really gone down and and so I think he he's in a place where he was just very frustrated with the the politics and some of his opposition party members.
I know this is a question that people around the world are trying to answer right now, but to the best that we understand, why did he take this drastic step?
so leading up to yesterday's moment, so I mentioned the approval rating, but in addition to that, the shortly after his presidential election, basically like during our midterm elections, the opposition party won A lot of the National Assembly seats, and since then, the opposition party has impeached many of his cabinet members, and many have attempted to start investigations into his wife's conduct over charges of corruption, which he has vetoed and blocked, I believe, three times already, and they have blocked many of his bills and his budgets. And so, I think he was at a moment where he was just very frustrated with the kind of not being able to move forward with with his vision and with his plan for the country.
How does the balance of power work in South Korea? To my understanding, now, lawmakers are considering going forward with an impeachment process of the President, and, you know, he could be removed from office?
Yes. So, we have the president, and then below that, we have what's called the National Assembly. And the National Assembly has about 300 seats, and currently there are, he has about 108 seats that are occupied from his political party, and there are about 175 seats that are occupied from the opposition parties. But in South Korea, there are more than two parties, and so there are multiple parties, and so some of those fewer seats are occupied by like the third and fourth and fifth parties. So basically, they would need about two thirds of the votes of the National Assembly to move forward with the impeachment process. And that essentially means 200 out of 300 votes. And it means that about eight, eight people would need to desert, you know, or vote against him from his own political party after after they vote for impeachment, then it goes to the Constitutional Court, and the Constitutional Court will then decide, you know, whether to follow through with this impeachment or not, there are, you know, nine seats in the Constitutional Court. I believe three of them are currently vacated. So, of the six, it's three women and three men who are the appointed judges.
So, what's your prediction for his his long-term outlook here in power?
I think it really is going to depend on the public opinion. Because, you know, in in Korean history, in South Korean history, only two presidents have been impeached, and that was back in 2004 there was a president called Roh Moo-hyun, and he was impeached, but the Constitutional Court overturned it. And then there was another moment in 2017 with our first female president. Her name was Park Geun-hye, and she was impeached, and then it was upheld in the Constitutional Court. So, I you know this, the declaration of martial law was, was very shocking to many South Koreans, and frankly, to, you know, other people around the world. And you know, we haven't seen something like this since the authoritarian years, in over 40 years. And so, I think depending on, you know, if there's enough public support for the impeachment, I think that's going to really influence how the how the national Assemblyman make, how they choose to cast their votes.
I'm glad you raised the historical context, because I did, I wanted to zoom out just a little bit. And I think it's probably fair to say that the reason this has been so surprising in the West is that, you know, we often consider South Korea as stable and liberal and so on, especially in comparison with with many of its neighbors. So, is that a misunderstanding, or is that reputation changing now, given the events of the past few days?
I, you know, yes, so I have seen a lot of shock in the news, right? Like how, you know, we thought that South Korea was supposed to be a model of democracy in Asia and and so the martial law was it was a shock to many, but I think despite that, I think we did also see Democracy at Work in that, you know, within the hour of the martial law declaration, we saw thousands of people show up and take to the streets we saw. I think maybe the President thought that people, you know, he declared it at 10:30 p.m. he thought maybe people would go to sleep, were, or something. But, you know, Korea is a sleepless city. It's, it's a city that's waking up at 10:30 people are, you know, still out and about. So, so people showed up, you know, I, I saw that there were over, you know, after he declared martial law, there were over, close to a million tweets about martial law. So, people were talking about it. People were writing on their social media pages. People were streaming live from YouTube and Instagram. And so, I think a lot of the Korean citizens were actively monitoring and sharing and marching. And so, in some ways, I would like to argue that it kind of illustrated, or it showed, demonstrated, the resilience of South Korean democracy.
So just, just one more thing, you know, we're going to have a change in leadership here in the US in a few weeks. And we know that President elect Trump has taken a much different approach to the Korean peninsula than most other US presidents, including, you know, meeting with the North Korean dictator and so on. So, what are your expectations for what that might portend for that area of the world, given the change we're about to experience here?
I think there will be a lot of it will just be a lot of uncertainty in the next couple of years, and part of it has to do with the historical alliance between the United States and South Korea. And you know, as you may know and as others may know, you know the Alliance goes back to the Korean War. And even before that, and and with, with President Trump, I know that he has in his first presidency, and also looking forward to the next one, he has been throwing around the idea of, you know, South Korea paying for, you know what he calls a fair share of their burden, right? So, for like the costs for like military bases, for for the deployment of certain missile technologies and things like that, which has, has caused, which has really stirred up some discussion around what the future of that military alliance might look like. So, it is still kind of uncertain, and we'll kind of watch to see how it unfolds as he resumes the presidency.
