More than 500,000 people petitioned to impeach the president, is South Korea's politics about to change? Yoon Suk-yeol lost the National Assembly election and may have to lose the "second game", what problems are facing in South Korea now, and is the Yoon Suk-yeol government capable of solving them in the short term?
According to South Korea's "Daily News" and other media reports, the petition on the national petition website of the South Korean National Assembly on the impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol has been signed by 500,000 people in just nine days.
So will such a petition succeed in impeaching Yoon Suk-yeol and ending his presidency early? In fact, South Korea's domestic political ecology has always been rather bizarre, and such petitions appear from time to time, and its influence on Yoon Suk-yeol as South Korea's president is relatively small.
National Assembly of the Republic of Korea
Because according to the South Korean political system, if the democratically elected president wants to impeach him, he must be approved by more than two-thirds of the members of the South Korean parliament before the South Korean parliament can initiate the impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol.
Now, Yoon Suk-yeol's National Power Party in the South Korean parliament has just lost to the opposition coalition led by the Democratic Party of Korea in the South Korean parliamentary election, although it is not as powerful as before. However, the KMT and its satellites together still account for more than one-third of the members of the South Korean National Assembly.
In other words, as long as there is no internal strife within Yoon Suk-yeol's National Power Party, no matter how much the South Korean people petition, since the number of seats in the South Korean National Assembly controlled by the opposition parties does not exceed two-thirds of the total number of seats in the South Korean National Assembly, there is no way to initiate this impeachment case.
There is no way to impeach, and naturally it will not affect the ruling position of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. However, now that more than 500,000 people are petitioning for immediate impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol, the pressure on the People's Power Party and Yoon Suk-yeol is still relatively high.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol
It prominently reflects that the various policies adopted by Yoon Suk-yeol since he came to power are unpopular. So, is there any way for Yoon Suk-yeol to improve this situation next? The answer is hard.
The economic foundation determines the superstructure, first of all, from the economic aspect, on the one hand, in the past few years, as the game between China and the United States has become increasingly fierce, Yoon Suk-yeol has chosen to stand on the side of the United States and help the United States contain and contain China, which has led to a cold relationship between China and South Korea.
South Korea is very dependent on the Chinese market, and the decline in exports to China has directly affected the growth rate of the Korean economy, which is very bad for the experience of the Korean people.
In other words, the more he is impeached by the opposition party and the more he is opposed by the people, the more Yoon Suk-yeol needs the support of his party and the United States behind the party.
South Korea's Samsung
In this context, even if he knows that continuing to help the United States contain and contain China will only make South Korea's economic development worse, Yoon Suk-yeol can only go all the way to the dark. Otherwise, he has already lost the support of the people, and if he is abandoned by the United States again, there will really be no way to live.
The political struggle in South Korea is fierce, and it is not just a matter of removing the throne, and there is a high probability of sentencing.
On the other hand, the United States, which is regarded as the "thigh" by Yoon Suk-yeol, is harvesting South Korea. In particular, the fact that the Federal Reserve maintains a high interest rate range, which has led to the depreciation of the South Korean won exchange rate, is simply roasting the Yoon Suk-yeol government on the fire.
South Korea is a country that imports a lot of money, especially fruits and vegetables needed for basic life, which are very dependent on imports, which is determined by the geographical conditions of South Korea itself, and it is difficult to change it manpower.
South Korea exports to foreign countries
The depreciation of the won brought about by the strong dollar will inevitably lead to a surge in the prices of these vegetables, fruits and other imported vegetables from South Korea, which will further lead to the South Korean people's more direct perception of the difficulties encountered by the South Korean economy and the more fierce opposition to Yoon Suk-yeol.
Similarly, as a vassal of the United States, Yoon Suk-yeol and his South Korea will hardly have an impact on the current Fed's rate hike strategy. All in all, now the Yoon Suk-yeol government has offended China economically and cannot afford to provoke the United States, so it can only "suffer" the South Korean people.
Second, from a geopolitical point of view, although South Korea has established diplomatic relations with many countries, its most important geopolitical crisis is none other than its relationship with North Korea.
At present, in order to contain and contain China and Russia, the United States has deliberately aggravated the situation on the Korean Peninsula and made the situation on the Korean Peninsula tense. That's all, the recent proximity between Russia and North Korea has pushed the Yoon Suk-yeol government into a dilemma.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits North Korea
First of all, after Yoon Suk-yeol came to power, he changed the previous Moon Jae-in era's choice to ease relations with North Korea and promote the process of the Korean Peninsula from an armistice to the end of the war, and chose to use a tough approach to North Korea to stir up domestic populist sentiment.
Over the past few decades, with the gradual growth of South Korea's economy and the prolongation of its confrontation with North Korea, the perception of North Korea has gradually changed, especially today's young South Koreans, who no longer regard North Korea as their own compatriots.
Against this backdrop, Yoon Suk-yeol has been vocal about populist sentiment, emphasizing that South Korea, as a developed country, should not show weakness to North Korea, but respond to North Korea's military provocations with a tougher stance, which can indeed increase its own approval rating to a certain extent, but it does not come without a price.
On the one hand, inter-Korean relations have become more tense as a result, and Yoon Suk-yeol has directly put South Korea on the brink of war. On the other hand, with the progress of relations between North Korea and Russia, South Korea is actually in a rather awkward state.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden
To put it in layman's terms, Yoon Suk-yeol feels that South Korea is a developed country and can be unkind to North Korea, but does South Korea still have the ability to be unkind to Russia?
Earlier, Russia signed a new treaty with North Korea to strengthen military cooperation, and Putin even said that according to the new treaty signed by Russia and North Korea, the other side needs to provide assistance when either side is attacked militarily, which basically implies that Russia and North Korea belong to a "military alliance".
In this context, Yoon Suk-yeol's tough foreign policy has become a policy of provoking major powers, and the key is that there is no way out for this kind of provocation, does Yoon Suk-yeol really dare to provide Ukraine with unlimited assistance with various weapons? When the time comes, what will happen if it provokes Russia or forces North Korea?
In short, now the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's policy of "showing toughness" in diplomacy has reached a dead end, and if it bows to Russia and North Korea, South Korean public opinion will backlash, and if it does not bow to Russia and North Korea, it will lead South Korea into the abyss of war, which is also unacceptable to the South Korean people.
Inter-Korean relations
To sum up, whether it is economically or geopolitically, Yoon Suk-yeol has actually blocked his own way, and now he has been impeached by 500,000 people, which can only be said to be the first step for public opinion to begin to backlash.