What just happened in South Korea?

What role, if any, did the US play in the South Korean mini-coup?

By now you’re probably heard that the briefest coup in history took place in South Korea yesterday. Here’s a brief summary of events.

At around 10:30 PM local time (early afternoon in Europe), South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP), in power since 2022, declared martial law during an address broadcast live on TV.

In a rather unhinged statement that seemed plucked right out of a bad 1980s Hollywood film, he said the decision was necessary “to safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements”. He was clearly referring to the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the liberal-centrist (i.e., not communist) party that has held a parliamentary majority since 2020. This move included banning all political activities, controlling the media and deploying military forces to enforce the decree.

Following the president’s announcement, the Parliament was shut down and generals from various branches of the armed forces were summoned for an emergency meeting. Seoul was flooded with military vehicles and helicopters were also deployed. At around 11:30 PM local time, security guards from the National Assembly and police officers were stationed along the Assembly building’s fence, with orders to admit only the Assembly Secretariat staff and assistants. Initially, the police prevented lawmakers from accessing the building, but they eventually managed to enter. Shortly thereafter, soldiers and special forces entered the premises and sealed off entrances to prevent demonstrators gathered outside from gaining entry. Tensions escalated outside the building, a brawl broke out and several protesters were arrested.

The South Korean Constitution allows the president to declare martial law in cases of military necessity or to maintain public order during war or a national emergency. However, since it is constitutionally regulated, martial law must be approved by Parliament. Unsurprisingly, lawmakers late last night voted unanimously to block the martial law decree. President Yoon eventually rescinded the martial law order early this morning (local time), withdrawing the troops and acknowledging the defeat of his decree by the legislative body.

Following the reversal, there have been growing calls for president Yoon's resignation or impeachment. Opposition parties have moved forward with plans to initiate impeachment proceedings, highlighting the political instability and the potential for further unrest.

What led the president to make such a move? According to news reports, this was little more than a desperate reaction by a politician grappling with low approval ratings, mounting scandals, institutional obstruction and prior calls for impeachment. But could there be more to it? And what role, if any, did the US play?

This is a legitimate question, given that South Korea is, to all intents and purposes, a US protectorate. The US has a very large military presence in the country, with approximately 28,500 active-duty personnel stationed across various branches, including the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Officially, the US troops are there to deter potential threats from North Korea, but this presence actually plays a crucial role in projecting US power in the Asia-Pacific — first and foremost against China.

It also gives the US significant sway over South Korean politics. Indeed, it is well known that the US played a key role in both the 1961 and 1980 coups, and in supporting the repressive and authoritarian “anti-communist” regimes that these gave rise to. The US policy vis-à-vis South Korea has always had one overarching aim: preventing peace with North Korea (the DPRK), since the tensions and militarised relations with the latter provide the rationale for the US military presence in the south.

In recent years, the US’s increasingly aggressive anti-China posture and NATO-isation of the Asia-Pacific has added an extra dimension to this, given South Korea’s crucial role as one of the US’s main military outpost in the region, alongside Japan — and its proximity to China. As I noted in an article from a few months ago:

For much of the past half-century, the US and its Asia-Pacific allies shunned a collective NATO-like approach to security in the region, opting instead for a so-called hub-and-spokes system: with the United States as the hub and various bilateral and multilateral alliances as the spokes of an ideal “wheel of security”. In recent years, amid growing tensions with Beijing, these initiatives have multiplied, with overlapping political, military and economic deals creating, in the words of The Economist, “an ever-thickening lattice on China’s periphery”. The US, however, now appears determined to take this approach one step further, by transforming its patchwork of arrangements into a full-blown military alliance: an Asian NATO.

In this context, president Yoon has played a key role since coming to power, by spearheading an even more pronounced pro-US foreign policy. Seong-hyon Lee, Senior Fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University Asia Center, wrote a very interesting article about this last year:

Yoon — devoid of a foreign policy background — took the reins of the presidency in 2022. Conventional wisdom suggested he would hone in on domestic matters. Surprisingly, he charted a foreign policy course markedly different from South Korea’s immediate past, in a clear tilt towards the United States.

Yoon’s foreign policy direction contrasts starkly with that of his predecessor, former president Moon Jae-in — whom Yoon labelled as “pro-China” in his public statements. Yoon once remarked that “most South Koreans, especially younger ones, don’t like China even though President Moon’s administration pursued pro-China policies”. He spelled out his stance to the New York Times in September 2022, saying that “South Korea will take a clearer position with respect to US–China relations”.

Yoon was instrumental in orchestrating the recent US-Japan–South Korea trilateral summit at Camp David. That summit would have been improbable without Yoon’s push for reconciliation with Japan — South Korea’s former coloniser.

Though the summit stopped shy of solidifying a formal military alliance, it resonated with the spirit embodied in NATO’s Article 5 — “an attack against one is an attack against all” — replacing “attack” with “threat”. Some suggested that the new security partnership might hold even more historical significance than the AUKUS pact. Meanwhile, the Global Times in China described the Camp David summit as possibly “a starting shot for a new Cold War”.

Yoon’s foreign policy is predicated on democratic values, advocating alliances rooted in shared ideals. He has identified Japan as “a partner sharing universal values”. Yoon’s administration has been forthright in condemning North Korea’s human rights infringements and China’s coerced repatriation of North Korean escapees.

Under Yoon’s stewardship, South Korea has also participated in its first NATO summit and green-lighted intermittent dockings by US nuclear submarines in South Korean ports as a deterrent to North Korea. South Korea endorsed the Camp David joint declaration which even explicitly calls out China by name, reproaching China’s “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” in the South China Sea and reaffirming South Korea’s stance on Taiwan.

Besides security, Yoon has intensified economic links with the United States. During a visit by US President Joe Biden to Seoul last year, the Yoon administration officially embraced the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Corporate majors from South Korea, like Samsung and Hyundai Motor, have pledged billions to build semiconductor and electric vehicle battery manufacturing facilities in the United States.

Lee notes that Yoon’s staunchly pro-US policy — and especially his support for closer relations with Japan — contributed significantly to alienating public support for him. But his support for the US’s aggressive anti-China posture in the Asia-Pacific certainly earned him a lot of friends in Washington. In this context, is it realistic to assume that Washington played no role in yesterday’s events? Especially considering widespread concerns in the US foreign policy establishment that Yoon’s likely successor — Lee Jae-myung, the 60-year-old leader of the Democratic Party — is expected to take a much more conciliatory approach to China. As Arnaud Bertrand noted on X:

[It is] quite telling that at no point whatsoever the US embassy in Seoul condemned or even criticized Yoon’s coup attempt. During the coup they wrote they were “closely tracking” the situation and when it failed they praised Yoon’s announcement to end martial law as “a crucial step”. That’s it.

We’ll probably never know for sure what went on behind the scenes. But one thing is clear: the United States’ increasingly aggressive military posture is becoming a deeply destabilising force — not only for its official adversaries but also, and perhaps most importantly, for its allied client states, in Europe as in Asia. The US appears willing to go to any lengths to maintain its dominance over these nations, even if it involves suppressing democratic processes and disregarding the popular will of their citizens. The cost of vassalage has never been higher.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

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