Yoon’s martial law was ‘miscalculated’, says Koreas expert

Sojin Lim is a reader in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Central Lancashire and an expert in both Koreas.

Matt Frei: It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, that the US, with almost 29,000 troops based in South Korea providing these security guarantees, the close friendship, apparently, as we just heard from Siobhan, between both Presidents Biden and Yoon, that they had no idea that he was going to do this?

Sojin Lim: I think no one would have had the idea that he’s going to do this – even in South Korea – and also the presidential office was very quiet and President Yoon didn’t even inform the head of the National Assembly. So here, as the previous interview mentioned, he, himself, came from a background in law – but totally ignored the process and the procedure against the law. So this really came out of the blue and that tells us that he was really in the position that he needed to find the radical route. And this was really miscalculated in a way.

Matt Frei: What was this then, an extreme example of political impulsivity and frustration?

Sojin Lim: Yes he was frustrated in a way because of the recent scandal with his own wife, the First Lady, and the top level of politicians in South Korea. It has been a while that the population in South Korea gathered and then protested and then demanded impeachment already. And if we see the statements last night in South Korea, the six…articles, it clearly shows that he was frustrated with the recent demand by the population and public. And also he was frustrated with the recent conflict between the government and the medical members in society. So all this tells us that, no, he really wanted to solve all the problems with this martial law, but obviously it doesn’t look like it worked out well.

Matt Frei: South Korea has a bit of a tradition of locking up its ex-presidents. Do you think that that’s where he’s going to end up now – in jail?

Sojin Lim: Yeah, that’s very sad. It’s a sad story – actually I was talking with my colleagues about that, now another President will end up in prison. So the only President who didn’t end up in prison, that would be the previous president, who negotiated with the previous government. So this is very unfortunate, but it looks like, you know, he has no choice but he will be impeached and there will be prison because obviously he violated the law.

Matt Frei: So North Korea, of course, just on the other side of the demilitarised zone, is watching this very closely. We know that recently the North Koreans want to sever any sort of physical links with South Korea, which alarmed a lot of people that they were thinking of an invasion at some stage and not a unification. What are the repercussions of this, for this very explosive peninsula?

Sojin Lim: So even though there was this conflict escalation that was in narratives – the Korean Peninsula has been there as a buffer zone between this mega power game between US and China. And North Korea, we actually didn’t think that it would invade South Korea, but it will more try to negotiate with the US. And now having President Trump as the new president in the United States, North Korea wants to provocate more so that it can have the attention. And South Korea had to deal with it. But now President Yoon expects that President Trump will be very different from the Biden administration. And that also looked like it worked as a factor that frustrated Yoon Suk Yeol because he may need to change his direction completely differently from what he has imposed at the moment.

Matt Frei: In one word, is South Korean democracy safe tonight, yes or no?

Sojin Lim: South Korean democracy – we are still developing, I think. As a person who has lived outside of Korea, I think it is seeing a catalyst moment so that there will be further development and the population will realise that, you know, we can achieve that in a way that in this moment.