the, the, the political showdown in south korea president used to appeal is under pressure to resign off to his failed attempt to impose marshall opposition. m. p. 's of served a notice to impeach him. i will look, come, see whether this test of its democracy. this is inside store the

hello and welcome to the drug that monday of bako during the past 4 decades. south korea has come far from use of dictatorships to become a 5 in mountain democracy that reputation faces serious press on tuesday night. when present use of your shop the nation and much of the world by declaring martial lo, it was full so withdrawal his decree hours later, after it was overwhelming, the rejected by members of parliament present you now faces an impeachment motion and is under pressure to step down both from his own policy and trade unions. what prompted the south could be a leader to take this step that's being cold. i'm of the constitutional and an active rebellion of how it will be asian economic powerhouse deal with this extraordinary challenge to it's democracy will deal with all of these questions in a bit. but 1st, the support by mohammed hodges, the country and the good. the political crisis says 3 is decades old

democracy put to the test as president hughes took your place to the country on the muscle. on tuesday nights, the 1st time one has been imposed in more than 45 years. he accused the main opposition party of sympathizing with north korea. i'm taking part in what he described as anti states activities. but the president was forced to reverse this decision only was later off the politicians defied soldiers and force that way into parliament to vote against the me. okay, we can have j. u after the national assemblies demand to leave marshall marshall, a troops have been withdrawn. i will accept the national assemblies demand and lift muscle through a cabinet meeting the decision coast, both anxiety and confusion almost south korean is how do you know who i thought this was a joke. then it turned out to be true that you had declared marshall. i got so worried in the morning south korea's largest labor union called a general strike,

calling you and stuck your offer a terrier. i'm demanding to step down the window to speak on behalf of all the farm is young. so gills regime is even more dangerous than climate change. we cannot turn a blind eye to present in you any longer. the of the plunging his country and the tom we'll use future is now hanging in the balance. he won the presidency of 2022 by the closest margin in south korea's democratic history. despite his background as a public prosecutor, he wanted to correct out on corruption. he has suffered very low approval ratings following a series of scandals and with his wife accused of corruption. in january, he scrapped the bill that would afford it, had to be investigated of accusations of manipulating stocks in july. she was questioned after accepting of the your hand to back as a gift in violation of south korea's corruption laws. and in october media linked

a phone call of the founder of opposing agency, who boasted of his influence over the president's choice of candidates and by elections held in 2022 year and as also struggled to push his attendance through an opposition controlled parliament. noon is that a tough presidency at present here is that a difficult presidency? and so far as the opposition party controls has the majority in the legislature and they have been fighting himself to to now the main opposition party says it will now push for you to be impeached and will fall trees and charges against them that would further jeopardize the president's were ready, questionable future. haven't haji, how does era for inside story? the. okay, let's bring in a guess in washington dc, natalia slab day is the assistant editor at the career program of the steps. incentive think tank, insult beach? a kid was impressive. international studies that hung cook university and

a former south korean diplomat and also in dc the c drive. the car is a photo of korean studies of the economy. the entitlement for international peace hello to all 3 of you. if i will welcome to inside story b j, i'm going to put a question to you the perhaps any one mind and career really knows the answer to at the moment to the it is the president himself. what do you think president you was thinking when he declared marshall without even the backing of his own political party? the question still remains as a biggest puzzle in the minds of koreans coronary credit citizens as well as the analysts. so we do not have a clear answer to that. there are different kind of speculations, but we do not have a clear picture on that. what i can say is, you know, judging from what we're hearing in his announcement of the martial law, she was talking about all of this political, a pass that was continuously being waged by the opposition party that controls the legislature and national assembly on all fronts,

continuously is showing impeachment of the prosecutors as well as judges that are trying the legend crimes of the opposition leader and also uh, you know, impeaching some of the important members of the highly uh, the top level leaders of the governments as well as rejecting most of his policy, a major policy initiatives that he suggested to be, you know, putting into law and then killing the most of the major items in the budget for next year. so he was going over all this list of the political attacks being waged by the opposition leader. so that's one factor for sure. and in addition, as you would program, mentioned the, the test on the 1st lady herself about the allegations about the start menu, menu collation, accepting of the luxury back or, and other kinds over the contacts with the political spin doctors that must have

a play. the role in terms of, on the, on the side of his personal, you know, the emotional right of it as well. so there were a list of things that might have caused a here's what we now think is, is miscalculation where we don't have actually see clear kind of in the game, the image of his and the game or a clear scenario that he was trying to accomplish. you know, we're not sure what we talked about it was, it was all the way the comes the most, the and games. this is the conversation, the continues but duffy, let us talk about some of the specific wording of this declaration of martial. because president june said that he was quote, rooting out, and the state for us is guilty of politics addition, seemingly bump him off of north korea. who was he trying to convince t c. and was there any audience in career that was willing to listen to a message like that to? yeah, i think it's a, it's a really huddling message given it does seem

a bit out of step. what is what the contemporary political culture looks like in south korea. the language that we view is the anti north korea or anti state forces to create inside state forces. and he's talking about really harks back to an earlier day. and the 20th century, when korea was under martial law during the military dictatorship, in the 1960 seventy's and an 80. this one of the language was really what was used by the military dictators. first, pop punk cnn tongue do want to justify their take control of society and implement some very heavy surveillance across the country. but this is really out of step with in 2024 where the country has really looked beyond the pundents a lot. and it's daily political life, it's really a much more global cold country. and so using this language really is the target audience is probably a very small segment of the right or older koreans. but that would, this would resonate with and large what we're hearing from south korea right now,

is this, this feels like cover for what was really a political action as so language from a, a pos to ero, almost to natalia says that darcy can you give us a sense though, of the latent tensions that exist between the ruling policy um, the opposition of the moment natalia. yeah. so we've seen us to moultrie was few years in the office from you and sonya all. now he's been accused and associated with multiple different reports of nepotism, bribery, corruption, and abuse of power overall. so as b j said earlier in the opposition party is really finding him kind of tooth and nail at every turn. and the legislative election back in april kind of solidified his status as a lane dock when the opposition party won. and an overwhelming majority kind of hampering moving forward with any of his domestic or foreign policy agendas where

he was coming closer to china and trying to really solidify korea status as a geo political player, especially and try lateral relations with the u. s. and japan. and to tell it to you b, j again, because you, you mentioned some of the personal issues that may have cost a shadow. well, may have influenced this decision to introduce marshal know, let me refer to some of them. i mean his wife, as we heard in the earlier reports of the 1st lady, kim kim and he was an essential the scandal over to a lot of apparently, of expensive humbugs here, allegedly plagiarized ph. d thesis as well. somebody say that some of the tabloids have even nickname to can key on hey, risk to these postal problems really pay or role in doing something such so dramatic as modeling the armed forces of the country feature as well as a person as a natural person, present and you might have failed the other way because it was

a very personal impact on his only family member. they don't have children. so it's just his wife and himself and his wife has been alongside with him throughout his career. and what did they got married at the later age, but since their marriage has been cut and you know, together with him very tightly and on his way to the presidency, she was his most trusted advisor, if you will. so the, all these political attacks against her, whether they are true or not, must have been played a big role in choice of impacting him in terms of causing anger and personal ingredients against this. you know opposition, there was raising these issues and then i think that's kind of understandable in the way dusting. you've used a lot. i think the unit is feeling a lot of pressure as was mentioned in a piece of top,

there was the recent stalemate, deadlock over the, the budget issue happening in national assembly. i think he took, that really, really was really frustrated by that. this year we've seen medical for our best buy doctors over his decision to res. uh, enter the entry for, for doctors there's a really severe health care shortage. certainly things like housing, labor. these are things that have been really stressful issues for both the country of him. i'm certainly as um, as the just mentioned think your, your only direct family member is, is a pretty uh personal attack. so i think that this is just a, a mount mounting pressure against the president and he reacted in a way that just feels out of touch with what were the tools at his disposal as president of this robust democracy. and the way he is actually just sort of a chain of repercussions since then, the tiny, because several cabinet members,

including the defense minister of all, for the resignations. i stress of the time of recording the president, though it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. the teller, do you think this political bloodletting has diffused any tension to tool around the president's future? unfortunately, i don't think it has. i think the cran public has made it clear how they feel about this move by imposing martial law. because as he said at the top and his reasons for going forward with it are kind of exaggerated. north korea already has a national security law in place that benz pro north korean activities, which is already pretty controversial. some of the specific articles have gone back to the national assembly for review, for and fairly targeting civil society organizations. especially those that focus on the north korean human rights fear and being used as a tool even to intimidate people and prevent them from speaking more candidly or criticizing this inter korean policy on north korea. so while we've had mass

resignations, i'm not sure that it will assuage the public at all. but what if you can help us understand who takes over if the president is also doing the resigns before that as well, we have this case before 6 years ago with prison fucking it was impeached at that time. the prime minister mister home took over as the acting president and he presided over the government for the next 5, a months time until present. when jane was elected as the new president. so did that the pathway is quite clear. we have a clear, a precedent. right, and what is also clear is that whatever the president intended to darcy appears to catastrophically catastrophically backfired. i mean, why have you attempted to demonize the political left is actually united, some members of his own conservative policy of the people power policy with about

190 lawmakers from 6 opposition parties who now want to see him a peach. what do you see as being the likely next step? darcy yeah, i think it's, it's, this is why it's so baffling is, but keep, there wasn't really a clear pathway for him to carry this out. given the law, the procedure of declaring martial law and it requiring national assembly approval doesn't have the votes and the national assembly, the opposition party has the majority votes. and they also have was facing a lot of conflict within his own party, particularly with the party to the party leader. so the number of votes that you mentioned included not only the opposition party as a 190, but it also included, i think, about 18 members of his own party voting to overturn his declaration of martial law looking forward. what this means is that it's basically backfire, like you mentioned. so now the opposition party had called for his resignation

yesterday at full time sheet. they have put forward a movement, a motion to impeach him. he has 48 hours to resign, but it seems like there will be a vote by friday to impeach him. and i think right now he's basically garnered the support that this opposition needed to seek the impeachment that they had been trying over the past year. so that's what makes us really a particularly baffling move and maybe suggest his isolation from the general political. okay. uh the political community of south korea. so bustling but no doubt, particularly b. j in soul, where you are very alarming just so you look up to flying above the presidential palace. i mean bring it back. no doubt it goes of the pos, i mean democracy is being hauled, one inquiry has been off the decades of military dictatorship. the last time marshall was introduced was back in 1917. i'd give it a sense of what the mood, the anticipation the fears were. while you are of the day as,

while he was announcing the martial law. i was watching the tv and i had the chip messages coming into my mobile phones and all our reactions from my students and my friends overall. it was kind of like a laughing stands like, what is it trying to do in this country where people have power has ruled above and beyond the law actually itself. we have this tradition for several decades where people rose up and checked out the dictators one after another. and it was as recent as 6 years ago when people actually pushed out the sitting president out of her office. and this law proud tradition of people exercising their own power and having a strongly exceptional sense of ownership of the country. it was just unimaginable . and think about what the president was trying to do by imposing martial law

single handedly at that time last night. so that was the overall reaction and then you're just remember is marshall law. we made in actually fact only for about 4 and half hours while he was making this announcement of $12000.00. i'm not sure executive number of people, but they read it to the national assembly to protest and then they were letting the lawmakers into the national assembly used to have the lawmakers quote, against the martial law. right. so really address talks about health the with the real stress test of the health of democracy in the country. yeah, clearly i what if we can talk about the international ramifications? clearly, people power piece of one the day on the streets of sol, but we've had comments from the likes of russia, of china, japan, the united states, the head of bates. so all of them saying pretty much exactly the same thing that they're watching developments with quote, great concern and the toner. what does this test of democracy in korea mean fritz

international standing? of course a career is very much part of the fabric of everyday life. and millions of people around the world from korean calls to kate pump. what does this mean though? for chloe is international reputation. most certainly in south korea has definitely, as you said, entrenched itself in the fabric of the global community. and i think people in dc especially were kind of shocked at the response from the united states. i think most thought that it would be a stronger condemnation of imposing martial law, especially because in all of these build ups of tri lateral relations with the u. s . and japan, south korea has promoted itself as a global responsible power with a strong sense of democracy, a strong history of democracy. so i think the global community is a bit shocked and just trying to figure out what the next steps are for south korea . and what that means for international relations, red large south korea has

a lot of hands and a lot of different pods. so it will be interesting to see if any countries come forward with stronger statements or if they will focus on kind of rebuilding the party and moving forward with more democratic procedures. does say, i mean, what about international security? i'm in the us, have quite a sizable ministry presence. they can create that and they understand around 24000 troops, 9 major bases. do you think this is likely to from, to security via reevaluation from the us. i don't think that the alliance isn't any jeopardy from this. i do. i would actually go a little step further from natalia and say, i think in washington, we were a bit just made by the by ministrations reaction to this. and this is something that's been a bit confusing for us in washington looking who do watch career closely june has domestically implemented some uh, policies that were i anti labor or suppressing for media

different. and so for the city of washington dc for this to be our partner, there is a bit of a mismatch here. that being said, i do think that us in washington and those who do work on the alliance are very hardened by the fact that this was resolved in as professor content just a few hours. and i think that showing the strength of korea's robust in institutions to keep this sort of overreach and check, just goes to show that we're, you know, we, we are in good hands. when we think about our security architecture in the region. it's not in jeopardy from a strong man and so, so i'm trying to overstep it so i don't think that this is necessarily going to. ready affecting the broad strokes of our alliance. so results in a few hours. but nevertheless, it seems so close to a significant amount of jitters in career itself. be jeremy, the trade unions clearly worried about all of this. they've lost his indefinite strike. and to present you and goes and stopped futures, the tumbled, obviously,

markets there like anything like this. i mean, how do you evaluate the economic damage in career with the moment a government damage? i cannot think of any scenario where this will have a real significant impact on the, on the economy. other than perhaps, as you mentioned, the financial marketing reactions last night, especially the foreign exchange side. or we saw a say see they've been the weakening of korean currency for some time, but overall industry and business overall, we cannot think of any scenario other than that, the possibility of the opposition party. well, not possibility. almost certainly the opposition democratic party would probably lead the overall direction with economic policy going forward. the thing is opposition parties of pro is party, but that's a party was a that was the party that belonged to that had previous month, present moon and moon governments party. and at that time, you know what to and a half years ago when government was not known as the unfriendly party towards the

business, they were doing a lot of business friendly stuff. so even though the opposition party democratic party was even for the increase their hands over economic policy going forward, that's not a bad news now. that's not necessarily a bad news for the business as a whole. so economic business, i don't see like significant impact as i said, sort of as potentially depth towards. so for the opposition but to natalia risk, there's also some kind of way a gift tools for north career. i guess we could do an entire program on that. but your thoughts and to tell you well, we've seen that north korea has been pretty silent on the issue. and i think this just shows that they were willing to sit back and look at play out as it was. i think that they felt it was embarrassing for you. and so now we also know that people that come out in north korea and speak with such as conjunctions. sister can young, they never have anything kind to say about what's going on in south korea or the us

or japan, or anybody who's working against what north korea is doing, the traditional community. so we're not really surprised to see that there's silence. but in terms of venture korean relations, i think we're going to stay in the course. i don't see any major policy shifts and then uh weeks coming, no matter who comes into power after you, though, seems to be around of this conversation. let me put this to you. is this a little likely to meet a period of full political uncertainty to come into you? well, i certainly think that we can expect continuation of the lives scale protests that are gone going on in south korea. i mean, it's a legacy of it's democratization movement in the eighty's. it still has a vibrant, a protest culture, a non violent protest culture. so i think that we can look for that. certainly now with the, the large umbrella career trade union and the kit to see you, we can look for, we should look for, for them. especially if they're calling for a up a us, a lot, a large scale strike. that's going to be affecting

a lot of the industries and so that's another thing that we can look out. and then finally, as the impeachment, whether president human decides the resign or appeasement proceeding so forward, there's going to be a lot of digging for political dirt. all right, let's circle back and give a b, j. the last words very briefly, b j. when the dust settles on all of this, will there be some soul searching about how to save god even further? the health and stability of could be a democracy? if i briefly, if you would, yeah, the that's a great question. but once again, i think what we have learned so far is once again the people power of this country, which is very unique around the world in comparison with other countries and people sense of ownership of the country itself was showing them once again. so start searching yes. to make it stronger. definitely, but i think we have gain confidence once again in the aftermath of this, a big political turmoil and big surprise as well. so no flaws in the existing democratic god rails page i uh, you know, as we have people popular,

it sits on the palpable law and abuse of, of, and being a law. i think that's something we could trust in democracy rule by the people trust a democracy role by the people. we have reached the end of our conversation, a pleasure to have all 3 of you on the show on the inside story b. j. kim darcy drive, the holidays, and the time, the slab de. um, thank you to you for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website, and i would just say with dot com and for further discussion, go to a facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. you can also join the conversation on x. all handle is as a j inside story for me and the bulk of the whole team here. i filled out the elated by those things. how are you? i'm not selling this selection is unique. i don't think we've seen anything like it

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a piece of the bottom 5 years. right. the minute tre.