Yoon 'created the rhetoric of a national security crisis' in South Korea, analyst says

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00:00To discuss what's happening in South Korea, let's bring in Katherine Moon,

00:03Professor of Political Science and the Wasserman Chair of Asian Studies at Wellesley College in

00:10the US. Thank you so much for being with us this evening. So why did all of this

00:15come to a head when it did? How exactly did we get here?

00:22Well, we don't know why President Moon declared martial law out of the blue. South Koreans

00:29are wondering, as is the rest of the world. What we do know, those of us who follow Korea

00:37developments, is that he has been a very, very unpopular leader with lower than 20%

00:46favorability ratings, and that he has been overwhelmed with both the National Assembly

00:54as well as media attention and pressure on his wife's alleged bribery and corruption scandals.

01:04And he has been hamstrung. He has not been able to do much of what he wanted to do in terms of

01:09his legislative agenda because he has absolutely no control over the National Assembly, with the

01:15opposition party having a majority there. They came in by a landslide in the spring, and that

01:22is a sign that the South Korean public is very unhappy about President Moon.

01:30I think what's interesting is that this martial law only lasted two and a half hours,

01:37and that, ironically, the two parties, the conservative party that is part of Mr. Moon's

01:46leading camp, and the opposition Democratic Party, the leaders of those two parties came

01:51together in the National Assembly to vote down this martial law declaration and condemn it as

01:58unconstitutional and illegal. So, Catherine, is the crisis essentially over then? What exactly

02:04happens now? Well, I think the South Korean public is already calling for impeachment and arrest,

02:15and I think the National Assembly will also take measures for impeachment. There will be a lot of

02:21pressure on him to resign, and he will have to be held accountable because he claimed that there

02:28were anti-state, pro-North Korea forces at work, and that was his justification for declaring martial

02:37law. But absolutely, there is no indication that there was any unusual activity by the North

02:42Koreans. And when he came on television just a little while ago to announce that martial law

02:50is now over, he had nothing to say about having defeated the forces that he had originally claimed

02:59he wanted to tackle. So, it's really a real question mark why he went and took this route

03:06in the first place. It seems to have signalled his own downfall, if anything. And people also

03:13question whether or not he was even within his rights to impose martial law, because under the

03:18constitution he can only do so during war, war-like situations or during a national emergency. Did any

03:25of this fall under those conditions? No, absolutely not. There was no national emergency. He basically

03:34created the rhetoric of some kind of a national security crisis, but it's not based in any fact.

03:43And so, the Korean public, constitutional scholars in South Korea have already been voicing their

03:51opinion that this was unconstitutional, illegal, that it never should have happened. And he also

03:57followed no procedure in taking this step. Just simply, he announced it on television in the

04:04middle of the night. So, I think there will be legal repercussions for him. And I think the Korean

04:12public will be very vigilantly watching to see what kind of accountability takes place in the

04:20next few days and weeks. And as for the political fallout, what do you expect there domestically and

04:26internationally? Well, domestically, I think there's going to be a lot of public attention to this

04:34and calls for resignation, impeachment, etc. I think that the public also will give credit to

04:44the two parties, the ruling conservative party and the opposition democratic party for having

04:52worked together for the first time in a very long time, worked together to restore democracy,

04:59to restore the rule of law, civilian rule. I think internationally, it really throws a wrench

05:06into Korea's political economic life. As soon as he declared this martial law at night, last night,

05:20the Korean currency, the won, fell in value to a two-year low. And this is also a very

05:30precarious time, as we all know, with wars in the Middle East, in Russia, Eastern Europe,

05:37and South Korea is a strong partner of the United States and Ukraine, supporting the U.S.

05:46intentions to support Ukraine. And there shouldn't have been this kind of a disruption,

05:54and definitely not something that could signal to North Korea that South Korean domestic politics

06:01is unstable. But Yoon actually, I think, has shot himself in the foot, and that's putting it mildly.

06:07Catherine, we'll have to leave it there for now. But thank you so much for joining us on

06:11the programme. That is Catherine Moon, Professor of Political Science. Well, the declaration came...

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