Karishma Vaswani
South Korea’s prolonged political crisis appears to have no end in sight. It’s just over a month since President Yoon Suk Yeol declared, then lifted, martial law and since then, the domestic and regional challenges have been multiplying. To manage the chaos, citizens need to set aside their differences and find a way out of the impasse. That won’t be easy.
Animosity between factions runs deep. Attempts to arrest Yoon, who was impeached on Dec. 14, have so far ended in vain. His supporters have marched in the streets, calling for authorities to “Stop the Steal” — a reference to the chant that Trump’s camp echoed against President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, alleging his victory was rigged.
Yoon has remained frustratingly defiant. He’s also under criminal investigation for insurrection but has vowed to “fight until the end,” hiding out in his Seoul home protected by a blockade of buses, barbed wire, crowds of supporters and his own armed security guards. It’s unclear whether authorities will be able to arrest him without risking a violent confrontation.
His fate has become a lightning rod for South Korea’s growing political divisions. The gap between loyalists and those who want him out is widening, a worrying development in a relatively young democracy. In an echo of the U.S. election denialism four years ago, a Hankook Research poll showed that 65% of Yoon’s conservative People Power Party members believe April’s parliamentary polls — in which his party suffered a massive loss — were fraudulent. In comparison, only 29% of the general public believe this.
The longer this fiasco drags on, the more difficult it will be for the current government to address the nation’s most pressing problems. At home, it must deal with a weak economy and struggling currency, which fell 10% last quarter versus the dollar. And in a reminder of the threat North Korea poses, this week Kim Jong Un’s regime fired the first missile of the year toward the Sea of Japan. Pyongyang’s closer collaboration with Moscow means that the North could have access to new technology to help it further its nuclear weapons program.
The threat is now so acute that many increasingly support nuclearization, Robert E. Kelly of Pusan National University and Min-Hyung Kim of Kyung Hee University note in Foreign Affairs. According to a 2022 poll, 71% of South Koreans favor such a move. These sorts of conversations should be the focus of Korean political life, rather than the domestic crisis playing out today on the streets.
Seoul also has to navigate its ties with Washington. The missile test took place while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the capital, talking up the alliance. But this relationship is only as good as the individuals maintaining it. Yoon shared a good rapport with Biden, and together with former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida they helped to create a partnership to act as a bulwark against China’s rising influence.
There is no guarantee that President-elect Donald Trump will follow his predecessor’s lead. In a speech on Tuesday, Trump spoke of ambitions to use “economic force” to compel Canada to become the 51st state in the U.S. and suggested calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” There was no mention of his plans for Asia, but Trump is likely to usher in an unpredictable era that could include getting partners like Seoul to pay for their own defense. None of this is encouraging for South Korea’s new leader, whoever that eventually is.
Against the backdrop of a complicated geopolitical environment, citizens must put their country first and change their political culture, as Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University notes about South Korean politics, where several presidents have ended up in disgrace or jailed. “Demonizing opponents, divisive identity politics, and insular political fandoms and populism have no place in a healthy democracy,” he writes.
The alternative is further instability. Even if it’s not the Trump administration’s first priority, South Korea needs the U.S. on its side. There are approximately 28,500 American troops in the country, helping to provide a much needed security buffer against the North. Any drawdown in numbers would leave vulnerable the same political parties and citizens who are putting short-term interests before national ones.
This ongoing constitutional crisis cannot go on indefinitely. Yoon and his supporters should allow the legal process to play out unimpeded. His opponents, in return, could consider toning down their rhetoric in parliament — their goals won’t be met through a protracted gridlock.
A democracy is only as good as the respect afforded to its institutions, and the value voters give it. Compromise and unity is what is needed now, not division and strife. Otherwise, South Koreans face a future where their country is likely to be paralyzed for months, possibly years. It is they who will suffer the most.
(Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China.)
