How South Korea’s Aspiring Autocrat Became a D.C. Darling

When South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law on the evening of Dec. 3, shock reverberated through the halls of governments and think tanks in both Seoul and Washington. Since his inauguration in May 2022, Yoon has been a darling of the Washington foreign-policy establishment. Not only was he willing to take harder lines than his predecessor on North Korea and China, but he moved to rapidly repair relations with Japan—a long-sought grail in Washington.

When Yoon came to Washington for a state dinner in April 2023, he was feted as a visionary leader, and after he took the microphone to sing karaoke in English, the pundits were practically drooling. But all of the high praise and positive analysis of his foreign policy willfully ignored the fact that he was failing at home. Successful foreign policy is intertwined with successful domestic policy—especially in South Korea, a volatile democracy where the public responds sharply to failure. Now, the accomplishments of Yoon’s foreign policy, so lauded in Washington, will be swept away.

To be fair, Yoon was not handed the easiest of environments in which to achieve domestic policy success. He came into office facing a National Assembly where the opposition held 180 of 300 seats. This meant advancing a reform agenda through legislation on labor, education, and the pension systems was going to be difficult. Add to that needed reforms in the medical system—which Yoon attempted to accomplish, resulting in an ongoing strike among doctors—and it becomes clear why his first two years in office have been challenging.

While the reality of the numbers in the legislation required negotiation and compromise to advance a legislative agenda, Yoon instead chose combativeness. As far back as October 2022—just months after taking office—he was already red-baiting the opposition. The use of that language continued right up to the declaration of martial law, when he implied the opposition parties were “pro-North anti-state forces.” The use of such language may have been a justification for him to subsequently target his political enemies under the 1948 National Security Act.

This language is worth dwelling on for a moment. It fits right in with a worrying amount of thinking in D.C., given the antipathy with which South Korea’s progressive parties are viewed in much of Washington. Moon Jae-in, who as South Korea’s president helped to broker the Trum-Kim summits, was thought of as Kim Jong Un’s spokesperson. This is part of the reason why think tanks in Washington have so many connections with Korea’s right, largely lack personal ties with South Korea’s left.

But this language is also important because it places Yoon in the proper domestic context, where his language is largely anachronistic. Only a thin slice of the electorate views progressive parties as “pro-North,” and those views are concentrated among Yoon’s ever-shrinking base of the oldest, most conservative voters. At home, he is not a foreign policy visionary advancing South Korea’s and the US’ security interests. He is an out-of-touch leader renowned for his ham-handedness and repeated gaffes.

In a blistering column for the Chosun Ilbo—the country’s most conservative news outlet—Yoon was lambasted for “living in the 1970s.” His ham-handedness continues to dog his approval ratings, which have been in the low 20s for the past four months and underwater with every age and region in the country. Even among his own party, just 50 percent approved of his job performance before the martial law declaration. In the first polling following the martial law declaration, his approval rating is 13 percent, and at only 45 percent among his own party. Moreover, 74 percent favor his impeachment.

Given his limited popularity and inability to move legislation through the National Assembly, Yoon was left with little option but to pursue his foreign-policy agenda. The centerpiece of that push was repairing relations with Japan and further integrating this cooperation within the alliance with the United States.

The most perceptive move Yoon made during his presidency was to push for this reconciliation early in his presidency. This would theoretically give this new normal time to be institutionalized around periodic summits at Camp David. That institutionalization and the allure of such a historic spot would make it less likely that a future South Korean president—the progressive Lee Jae-myung, perhaps—would withdraw from the process. Yoon’s approach was rightly cheered across Washington.

But looking at this through a domestic lens made it clear that Yoon was eroding the foundation for Korea-Japan relations faster than he could put its new support structure in place. Even so, the United States continued to push these agreements as groundbreaking, as establishing a “new era” in Korea-Japan relations.

Japan is not popular in South Korea, where, despite some public reconciliation in recent decades, the memories of decades of occupation and the Japanese government’s recalcitrance on issues like forced labor and comfort women are still sharp. And yet the necessity and importance of improved security relations with Japan have never been lost on the South Korean public, especially after incidents like the THAAD dispute with China and ongoing threats from North Korea.

For example, in a poll conducted in October 2023, the South Korean public was nearly evenly split—49 percent in favor and 44 percent opposed—on the necessity of military cooperation with Japan in order to respond to the threat posed by North Korea. That suggests that there was a case to be made for further cooperation by an administration capable of careful messaging and discipline. Unfortunately, that was not the Yoon administration’s strong suit. Yoon opted to maintain his aggressive style and accusations against his political foes, making it easy for the opposition to paint him as a collaborator with the Japanese.

By the time the Camp David summit took place, the well had already been poisoned at home. The agreement that the South Korean government—not Japanese firms—would pay to resolve the forced labor conflict was an especially bitter pill to swallow. This adhered to Japan’s interpretation of the 1965 treaty signed by both countries and gave ever-increasing ammunition to Yoon’s political rivals. It would continue to get worse from there. One of Yoon’s chief security aides was labeled a “traitor” for their comments on Japan and the need for apologies over Japan’s past war crimes. Yoon’s 2024 Liberation Day speech largely avoided Japan altogether.

Even before the emergency martial law declaration, whoever succeeded Yoon as the next South Korean president—conservative or progressive—was going to take a major step back on Korea-Japan rapprochement. And as they did, the old thinking that South Korea refuses to move on from history would reignite.

But Yoon’s own policymaking, even before the martial law disaster, was the cause of the reaction against his foreign policy moves. His inability and outright refusal to coalition build or consider criticism—the very things he was lauded for in Washington—made a considerable reorientation of Korea-Japan relations inevitable. Following the emergency martial law declaration, all of Yoon’s agenda will be radioactive for years to come.