Political turmoil and division have rocked South Korea over the past four months since now-former President Yoon Suk Yool made a doomed bid to declare martial law that lasted mere hours. As the military stood on the steps of the National Assembly, legislators struck down the declaration then impeached Yoon weeks later. Now that the Constitutional Court has ruled on the impeachment, ousting Yoon for what it called a “betrayal of trust” and violation of the law, the divided nation is set for a new presidential election in just 60 days. What precedents have been set and how does Korea’s past inform its future? In this episode, professor of Korean history Kyung Moon Hwang joins TaiwanPlus to discuss democracy, history and the state of governance in South Korea and beyond.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Zoom In, Zoom Out, your global look at news from Taiwan. I'm your host, Alec Macdonald.
00:17Korea has been rocked by four months of political turmoil and division. It all began when now former
00:23President Eun Suk-yeol declared martial law in a surprise move. The National Assembly quickly
00:29overturned it, even in the face of military soldiers deployed to its steps. Now, with the
00:35Constitutional Court upholding Eun's impeachment, the nation is set to head to the polls on June 3rd.
00:41But what kind of precedent has been set? And what lessons or warning from Korea's past
00:46might shape its future? Today, to discuss Korea and democracy more generally,
00:52we are joined by Kyung Moon Hwang, a professor of Korean history at the Australian National
00:56University. Professor Kyung Moon Hwang, welcome to the show. Thank you. Now that the Constitutional
01:03Court has upheld the impeachment of Eun Suk-yeol, what has the immediate fallout and reaction been
01:09in Korea? Well, from what I can gather in following news shows and commentaries, as well as news
01:17coverage online through the newspapers, etc. There appear to be two main topics of discussion
01:25that have dominated over the weekend. The first is to figure out why it took so long for the
01:31Constitutional Court to come to this verdict. I think the general sentiment was that, at least
01:39for those who supported the verdict, the ruling not only was correct, but that the expression of the
01:45of the justification for the ruling was done very well. It was done in plain language. It was done very
01:52clearly in condemning the coup attempt, in condemning what was expressed as a betrayal of the people's
02:02trust. I want to focus first on the Constitutional Court and the length of time that it took to get to
02:09this ruling. Because as you said, the language was very determined. The language was very clear. So
02:15do you think that it was a matter of the court ensuring that they got the correct language? Was
02:22there security concerns? Or is it a bit of both that they want to make sure that their ruling was
02:28legally beyond a shadow of a doubt, so that this case would be clear cut over? I think that last point
02:36is probably one of the major considerations that went into this. I noticed in the coverage of the
02:42verdict immediately afterwards that as much as there was a sense of incredible relief and celebration
02:50among those who supported the verdict, they also celebrated the 8-0 unanimous ruling. And that
02:57suggested that whatever disagreements there might have been over the final points, that fundamentally
03:04this was a clear-cut case. And so it was almost like a sporting event, like as if Korea was in the
03:11World Cup and people are celebrating the outcome in victory, but also counting the score. I think that
03:19testifies to the extent to which perhaps the Constitutional Court justices wanted to present this united
03:27front. And there might have been some dealing going on among them in order to come to the expression of this
03:35unanimous ruling by addressing some of the finer points and maybe even objections from some of the
03:42conservative justices. So that I think will take more time to flesh out what exactly happened in the
03:52negotiations or the negotiations or the discussions among the justices to achieve this final result.
03:58With all this going on, there are still democratic processes. Notably, it has been announced that the
04:05election for the new president will be held on the 3rd of June. What has the implications been,
04:12though, over the past four months on Korea's democracy?
04:17Of course, on the surface, it's a mark of great shame that South Korea has had to impeach
04:25the second president over the last three. And for very serious crimes, of course,
04:32impeachment only can happen for very serious crimes. And we thought that the panoply of
04:40wrongdoing that the previous conservative president, Park Geunet, was impeached was extraordinary in the
04:49severity of the corruption that was revealed. But this matter blew that out of the water in terms of
05:00the scale and significance of the transgression committed by the sitting president. And that's why
05:06he was actually arrested while he was still president. I think we do have to focus on the conservative
05:12party on the right wing of South Korean politics. Since democratization in 1987, there have been five
05:19conservative presidents and actually just four because one of them, Kim Young-sam, was a former dissident and
05:26progressive who changed sides in a sense in order to achieve electoral victory. So if you count the others as the
05:34only core conservatives, all four of them were charged and convicted of serious crimes. And I'm counting
05:44here Yun as well. So there's a disturbing shadow still from the dictatorship era. And it's something that
05:56has to be openly discussed and acknowledged. Before moving or looking into the future, I want to quickly go to the
06:05past as you're an expert on Korean history. What has led to this rise or reformist where there is now a very
06:15sudden authoritarian sentiment once again rising or boiling to the top layer of Korean politics, where it's visible from
06:25from outsiders looking onto the inside of the domestic processes of Korean political systems?
06:31What has led Korea to this point where there's a rise in populism, where there's a rise in authoritarian sentiment,
06:39specifically on the right?
06:41Yeah, the right wing populism is the most visible and, frankly, the most concerning from now and on.
06:50And there are several components of this. I think it will take a long time to dissect this and to try to properly analyze it.
06:58But from a historical perspective, of course, you have the long-term anti-communism born of the national division.
07:07And that's a core component of all of this. There's another strong strain of the right wing populism and authoritarian sentiment,
07:16and that is Christian nationalism. The party, the PPP party, the convened conservative party has,
07:23in a great sense, been not necessarily taken over by, but heavily influenced by Christian nationalists,
07:31whether they are hardcore mainstream Protestants or whether they are even further to the periphery in
07:41in terms of, well, Koreans call them cults and other Protestants might call them heretical groups.
07:47But these are very large, popular religious groups that are on the right fringe, and they're led by charismatic ministers.
07:58And then there's simply a large group of Koreans, just as you would find in many other democracies,
08:04who are very authoritarian in their orientation, whether it's their character or just to add their outlook on things,
08:12who want very clear-cut, simple solutions, and they look at things in a very simple right or wrong manner.
08:22And so this is where you often get the specter and often the reality of a cult of leadership.
08:31Moving to the lessons that can be learned from this, Taiwan shares a similar authoritarian past under the Kuomintang,
08:40and there are certain shadows of the past which both play into Korea's current politics and Taiwan's current politics.
08:47What lessons can other democracies, namely Taiwan, learn from what Korea has experienced over the past four months?
08:55The parallels are really striking because both South Korea and Taiwan emerged in the midst of the reckoning of the Pacific War of the 1940s.
09:10And so immediately thereafter, in both China and Korea, there was a civil war that aligned the communists with the capitalists or anti-communists, if you want to call them.
09:20And those groups, respectively, were heavily aligned with and controlled by the geopolitical powers, namely the Soviet Union and or China on the communist side and the U.S. on the non-communist side.
09:38And just as South Korea had to endure a long period of post-war right-wing authoritarian militarist dictatorship,
09:47of course, Taiwan had to do the same.
09:49And I think the timing of democratization in both places, which was in the 1980s, was not coincidental.
09:58It was very much in the air back in the 80s, along with the Philippines and some other places, too.
10:03And of course, in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, all kinds of democratic movements arose around the world.
10:10I think the South Korean case and the UN coup attempt demonstrates that not only is a constant vigilance demanded in order to uphold a democracy,
10:24but a recurring consideration of the legacy of the past in the respective countries has to be strong and persistent,
10:36whether it's in the educational system or in the open discussions of the political arenas,
10:43in order to acknowledge that there is always this possibility that the militarist authoritarian past can make a comeback,
10:52depending on the circumstances.
10:54And the circumstances might simply amount to just a very bad leader who is inclined toward authoritarian rule,
11:02as in South Korea, has just emerged.
11:05And so that's something that we have to figure out, whether this is structural in South Korea
11:09or whether it was just this one crazy man supported by some crazy people who thought that this was okay.
11:15I think that's an important point to wrap up this interview on.
11:21I want to ask you, as a professor of history, as an expert in history, and looking forward,
11:27Korea has elections coming up soon.
11:30Taiwan faces a multitude of challenges right now.
11:34What can be done to make democracy more resilient?
11:38What can be done to help aid the vigilance that we heed towards democracy?
11:42I'm not an expert on Taiwan, but my perspective on Taiwan would suggest that
11:47I think Taiwan is probably in better shape than in South Korea.
11:53But, of course, that means simply that the people of Taiwan have to still work at strengthening the democracy.
12:01And that's the case for all democracies around the world.
12:04Well, globally, it seems there is a lot to gain from a kind of regional connection
12:12or a sense of regional alliance here in East Asia among the democracies.
12:18I should say not only in East Asia, but the Asia-Pacific.
12:21You have this corridor going from north to south, from South Korea, Japan,
12:27and then going south to Taiwan, and then ending with Australia and New Zealand in the south.
12:33You have this corridor of liberal democracies, and some of them are very strong.
12:38And some of them, as we see in South Korea, are a little bit more vulnerable.
12:43But to maintain that sense of alliance and common interests among those Asia-Pacific democracies,
12:51I think, would be very helpful.
12:54And that's on a kind of larger political or geopolitical front.
12:58Like I said earlier, there is a lot to do in terms of maintaining the vigilance in the education system,
13:04in the civics education, for example, as well as in the political discourse.
13:09An open discourse, I think, is really important to acknowledge the dangers and shadows of the past
13:15in specific countries, and to see how in a democracy you can prevent this phenomenon
13:22that's universal around the world, and that is a person who is dictatorial in orientation
13:27from gaining power.
13:30I think this has been a very important and instructive discussion.
13:34Thank you very much for your time, Professor, and I hope we get to talk again soon.
13:38All right. Thank you.
13:39This has been Zoom In, Zoom Out.
13:40For more from Taiwan Plus news, you can follow us on social media or visit our website.
13:45Thank you very much for watching, and we'll see you next time.
14:15We bring you stories from Taiwan.
14:32Every day of the week.
14:36Our reporters travel the nation.
14:38Exploring the issues that matter to you.
14:47News from here in Taiwan and around the world.
14:53What's up, Taiwan?
14:54On Taiwan Plus.