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00:00First, this Wednesday, Yoon Suk-yeol has become South Korea's first sitting president to
00:17be arrested. He's being investigated on charges of insurrection in the wake of the
00:23failed martial law order on December 3rd that plunged the country into crisis. His arrest
00:31in the early hours of this morning was dramatic. Investigators scaled barricades and cut through
00:37barbed wire in order to bring him into custody. Our regional correspondent, Yenna Lee, has
00:43the details.
00:44He ignored three summonses, he resisted arrest, but now President Yoon Suk-yeol has been taken
00:51into custody. He faces charges of inciting insurrection which is punishable by life in
00:57prison or even the death penalty. This accusation comes after his botched attempt at imposing
01:03martial law back in December. Korean investigators say they have around 200 pages of questions
01:09for him and 48 hours to ask them before their current warrant expires. Yoon has the right
01:15to remain silent. In fact, the president and his legal team have so far refused to cooperate
01:20so it's unlikely to see them change track now. Yoon even recorded a video message of
01:26himself before his arrest saying that this investigation is illegal and that the country
01:31had descended into lawlessness. His supporters on the ground too have been spotted spreading
01:36baseless claims of election fraud regarding a vote that the conservatives lost. And lawmakers
01:41within Yoon's party have also floated suspicions of Chinese interference without providing
01:46evidence. In any case, Wednesday's arrest was historic as it's never happened to a sitting
01:52South Korean president before. Indeed, he hasn't been fully impeached yet. He's not
01:57allowed to do any of the work, but he still has the title. And now, President Yoon Suk-yeol
02:02is to spend the night at a detention center.
02:05Well, to get a bit more then on the drama in South Korean politics, I'm pleased to welcome
02:12to the program, John Nilsson-Wright. He is the head of the Japan and Korea's program
02:18at Cambridge University's Centre for Geopolitics. Hello to you. Thanks for speaking to us. Look,
02:25let's get your view first of all on those extraordinary scenes that we saw a bit of
02:30in the report there. 3,000 officers being used to arrest the president. Give us a sense
02:37of why such a large show of force was needed today.
02:41Well, two reasons. First of all, the diehard conservative supporters of President Yoon
02:46have been camped out outside the president's personal residence. They weren't prepared
02:52to move. They were there to obstruct the attempt to arrest the president. The president's own
02:59presidential security division had also been deployed. And you'll see from some of the
03:05footage, the three kind of lines of defense, if you like, barricades to prevent the corruption
03:13investigation office, as well as police officers from coming through to find a way of exercising
03:20that important arrest warrant that had been reissued. And so, it was really, I think,
03:28a measure of some of their tactical ingenuity in getting in. But also, I think, a reflection
03:35of the fact that we had already seen changes within the presidential security staff. The
03:42existing head had been called himself and summoned and questioned and then resigned.
03:47And his replacement had also been targeted in this morning raid. And eventually, I think
03:52the president bowed to the inevitable, knowing that there was really no way in which he could
03:57resist this deliberate effort by the state, after all, to exercise its legal mandate.
04:04Look, he can be held now, President Yoon, for 48 hours. Give us a sense of what you
04:10think will happen in the next two days and crucially after that.
04:15It's hard to say, but I think it's quite likely that the warrant to hold him will be extended.
04:22It would be very surprising, given all the amount of effort that's been taken to actually
04:25bring him into custody and the unprecedented nature of that, if a court did not uphold
04:32a request that will come from the CIO to continue their investigation. They have some
04:37200 pages of questions that they want to present to the president, who at the moment is, if
04:42you like, pleading the fifth, refusing to answer questions for fear of incriminating
04:47himself. The key issue, from the point of view of the investigation, is what actually
04:52happened in terms of the execution of martial law. Was the cabinet adequately consulted
04:56as is required? What sort of orders were issued by the president to arrest not only leaders
05:03of the Democratic Party, but also the then leader of the Conservative Party himself,
05:09as well as the Speaker of the National Assembly? All of those issues, I think, are really central
05:15to the investigation, but there is also a second effort that is likely to develop in
05:21the next few days by the Democratic Party, the opposition party that has the majority
05:25support within the National Assembly, to launch their own special probe, if you like,
05:31their own investigation. They want to consider the possibility that President Yoon might
05:36have sought, and this is perhaps the most dramatic allegation, to provoke a crisis with
05:40North Korea in order to justify his issuing of that critical and controversial martial
05:45law order. Well, I was going to ask you about North Korea, actually. Has Pyongyang responded
05:53to what has been happening in Seoul directly? Is the government there trying to make some
05:58kind of political capital out of this chaos in South Korea? Yeah, I mean, in the very
06:04beginning, North Korea was actually quite restrained. And I think it was precisely because
06:09they didn't want to give that in the early stages of the declaration of martial law.
06:14And in that first week when there was the standoff between the National Assembly and
06:18the President's office, to give any excuse to President Yoon to justify his declaration.
06:25Since then, they've been much more critical, accusing President Yoon of being a fascist
06:30regime. And in a way, this has been a huge political opportunity for them. And of course,
06:37we've also seen in the last few days, the launch of short range missiles. On January
06:436th, the launch of a hypersonic missile with a range of potentially as much as 1,000 miles
06:49placing American bases on Guam, for example, in range of North Korea's missile capabilities.
06:56All of this is demonstrable evidence that North Korea is trying to do two things. One
07:02is to keep South Korea on the defensive. But also, I think, looking ahead to the advent
07:06of the Trump administration to place itself in the best possible negotiating position
07:12in the hope that President Trump will be minded to try and strike a deal with Pyongyang.
07:17And just a final question for you, then, on how this is playing out in Korean society,
07:24South Korean society, that is. Does President Yoon have a popular support base now, despite
07:32these extraordinary claims that are being made against him?
07:36He has. I mean, I think the vast majority of the Korean public were opposed to the declaration
07:42of martial law, and therefore in support of the decision to impeach the president.
07:47However, in recent days, we've seen an uptick in support for the conservative party. And this
07:53really boils down to the question of tactics. Conservatives would argue that the Democratic
07:58Party has overreached, that they've used the CIO, the Corruption Investigation Office,
08:05in ways that are not legally sound. And that's the argument that President Yoon has been trying
08:10to deploy himself to justify his position. This reflects a broader and historically deep-seated
08:16polarization between the right and the left in Korean politics. But I think ultimately,
08:21once the constitutional court makes its ruling, and I suspect it will be a ruling to uphold
08:27the decision to impeach the president, once that ruling is implemented, then of course,
08:34he has no power whatsoever. And at that stage, the criminal process, the legal process,
08:38will inevitably take its course. And I suspect we will see President Yoon serving time in prison.
08:44It's almost, I think, inevitable. Such a fascinating story. Thank you very much
08:48indeed for your analysis. It's been great to speak to you,
08:51John Nilsen-Wright for us there, live on the program from Cambridge.