South Korea’s President Commits Self-Immolation

Rarely has a politician so completely destroyed his career in so little time. In the space of about six hours, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared and then abandoned martial law. In a country with a long heritage of military rule, he bungled the attempt, as legislators outwitted Special Forces troops deployed to seize the National Assembly building and “drag out the people” by voting to overturn his decision. His attempt to override political opposition to him and his budget by imposing military rule in peacetime violated his nation’s constitution, triggering his impeachment and indictment.

Even if he is restored to office — he has been suspended while the Constitutional Court acts like the U.S. Senate and decides on his removal — his authority has dissipated. He had just 17 percent approval before claiming dictatorial powers and even many members of his own party have since abandoned him. Democracy has survived, but the country’s bitter partisan divide has deepened and may be even more visceral than America’s.

In recent days Seoul has showcased an ongoing confrontation between presidential bodyguards and police officers. The latter arrived to arrest him but were barred from entering his residence by the Presidential Protective Service, the South Korean equivalent of the Secret Service.

A crowd of his beleaguered supporters also showed up, attempting to prevent his arrest. Some waved American flags in a bizarre plea for American intervention. In fact, no one outside knew if he was even home, so completely has the disgraced politico disappeared from public life. The police are now investigating PPS personnel and may bring charges against them.

Theoretically, the acting president should be able to order the PPS to stand down but he may not have control over the residence of Yoon, who remains president, though suspended. Indeed, in an imbroglio that only a political junkie could love, no one knows who is really in charge of the government. With Yoon’s suspension, Prime Minister Han Duck Soo took over as acting president. However, the latter refused to add three legislative appointees to the court, now operating with the bare minimum of six, also the number required to oust Yoon.

So the National Assembly voted to impeach him as well. However, the constitution left unspecified whether ousting an acting chief executive requires a two-thirds vote (for president) or a simple majority (for prime minister). Only the Constitutional Court can resolve this question. Han nevertheless stepped aside, and in the meantime, the finance minister has taken over. Alas, he only agreed to two of the three nominations, causing the angry, activist legislative majority to threaten him with impeachment as well. Next in line is the education minister.

If Yoon is ousted, an election must be held within 60 days. Polls indicate an easy victory by the opposition Democratic Party over Yoon’s People Power Party. In normal times the electorate tends to divide roughly in three, split among the two major parties and undecideds, with the latter bouncing between left and right. However, Yoon’s powerplay has pushed independents and even many PPP members toward the DP. The result would likely be akin to America’s post-Watergate 1974 off-year poll, in which Republicans suffered a net loss of four Senate and 45 House seats, as well as four governorships.

The current frontrunner is DP leader Lee Jae Myung. However, he faces criminal charges that could keep him off the ballot. With some justification, his supporters complain that the prosecutions are politically motivated. If Lee or another DP candidate is elected, U.S.–Korea relations are likely to change markedly, along with South Korea’s foreign policy.

There likely wouldn’t be much difference over the core alliance, since South Korea, left as well as right, enjoys U.S. defense subsidies. With twice the population and more than 50 times the GDP of North Korea, Seoul no longer should need American military support, at least conventionally. However, even the most noteworthy left-wing presidents — Kim Dae Jung, Roh Moo Hyun, and Moon Jae In — wanted U.S. troops to stay.

Nevertheless, a left-wing president would be less likely to agree to a major increase in host nation support. Candidate Trump wants an almost ten-fold hike, to about $10 billion a year. In response, Biden began negotiations early and agreed to a sweetheart deal with the ROK. However, that won’t stop Trump from demanding a reset. A new liberal president is unlikely to offer more money, making a game of geopolitical chicken very possible, with Trump perhaps ready to withdraw some or all of America’s 28,500 troops on the peninsula, something he previously threatened to do.

If so, South Korean interest in creating a nuclear deterrent could grow. Although liberals have traditionally opposed this option, even they might consider nuclearization if the North continues to expand its arsenal and the U.S. downgrades its commitment. Despite the foreign policy establishment’s aversion to allied proliferation, it could be a security boon to America, constraining China as well as the North.

In fact, the biggest difference between the ROK’s left and right is dealing with North Korea. Historically, progressives have had a bizarrely naïve view of the nature of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Kim dynasty is now in its third generation, with Kim Jong-un ruling over a desperately poor nation forced to venerate him and his ancestors. It is a totalitarian horror, setting the global standard for repression. And now it possesses nuclear weapons in abundance, along with missiles to deliver them.

To Trump’s credit, during his first term, he tried a new approach and met Kim three times. Unfortunately, the effort ended in failure at the Hanoi summit, after which the North turned inward. The Biden administration made no effort to open a dialogue on issues other than denuclearization, an obvious dead end.

Elected in 2022, Yoon took a similar approach, and hit it off with Biden, who employed “karaoke diplomacy.” Although the Korean cold war has grown quite frigid, especially after the North and Russia embraced so enthusiastically, Trump may try to revive the bromance with a “love letter” or two. In this endeavor, a new liberal administration might prove helpful, though so far Pyongyang has dismissed the significance of Trump’s election.

South Korea vs. U.S. Priorities

So too is South Korean policy toward China likely to change, but in the opposite direction. While public opinion moved sharply against Beijing after the controversy over the ROK’s installation of the THAAD anti-missile system, which sparked Chinese economic retaliation, the left preferred conciliation to confrontation and has even mooted the possibility of revisiting the THAAD deployment. Under progressive rule Seoul is also likely to resist further economic sanctions and trade restrictions on China, potentially undermining U.S. policy.

Finally, a change in South Korean leadership is likely to turn the ROK back from Europe. Yoon played along as NATO, whose European members long have refused to do much to defend themselves, pretended to treat Asia as a growing security interest. Of course, the Europeans would be utterly bereft in the Pacific. Three years ago Germany sought to intimidate the PRC by sending a lone frigate to traverse Chinese waters. Three months ago Berlin sent two ships. Progressives are more realistic about Europe, expecting to neither provide nor receive support.

South Korean politics may provide welcome relief to Americans weary of domestic controversies. Here Democrats only imagined sending the police to battle the Secret Service to arrest Trump. In South Korea, fantasy has become reality. Reports on the continuing saga could become the ROK’s next big cultural export after the Squid Game.

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Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World, and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.

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