South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law blunder could derail President Joe Biden‘s move to bolster relations between Japan and its former subject, ruining a major touted administration accomplishment.
In a shocking move, on Tuesday night, Yoon declared martial law for the first time in South Korea since 1980, and the first time while the country has been a democracy. His rationale was alleged pro-North Korean interests taking control of parliament and other “anti-state” forces. Immediately, opposition lawmakers rushed to the National Assembly, jumping over barricades and locking out special forces soldiers. Before the soldiers could enter the chamber, parliament unanimously voted to overturn martial law, leading to its end six hours later.
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Yoon’s days in office now look numbered. In a statement, the opposition Democrats condemned Yoon’s move as “a grave act of insurrection, and clear grounds for impeachment,” and vowed to impeach him if he didn’t step down.
One of the many political casualties of the fiasco was Biden, who appeared to have finally achieved the long-standing United States goal of cementing relations between two of its most important East Asian allies — South Korea and its former ruler, Japan.
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In March 2023, Biden issued a glowing statement hailing a “groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership” between South Korea and Japan after the two signed an agreement to ease tensions over the use of Korean forced labor by the Japanese during the occupation.
“The United States will continue to support the leaders of Japan and the Republic of Korea as they take steps to translate this new understanding into enduring progress. When fully realized, their steps will help us to uphold and advance our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Japan and South Korea have a long and fraught history, centered on Japan’s conquest and colonization of the Korean peninsula after the Meiji Restoration. During the occupation, from 1910 to 1945, Koreans were subject to massacres, forced labor, and forced prostitution for Japanese soldiers, especially during World War II. The issue of Korean “comfort women” has emerged as a particularly sensitive issue.
Despite the end of the occupation and the U.S.-enforced reformation of Japan, Koreans remain bitter. The two countries officially normalized relations in 1965, with South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee, a former soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army, eyeing the country as a role model in modernization. The Japanese government has consistently sought to downplay its mistreatment of Koreans during its occupation, a central period of tension between the two.
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Attempts by the U.S. to normalize relations between the two reached a breakthrough after Yoon took power in 2022, pushed by increased threats from North Korea and China.
In an April 2023 interview with the Washington Post, Yoon controversially declared, “I can’t accept the notion that because of what happened 100 years ago, something is absolutely impossible [to do] and that they [Japanese] must kneel [for forgiveness] because of our history 100 years ago.”
The normalization drive with Japan played a central role in tanking Yoon’s approval rating. A March 2023 poll found that 41% of South Koreans who disapproved of Yoon were due to the closely linked reasons of “diplomacy” and “Japanese relations/forced labor compensation issues.”
Given the drive was almost solely Yoon’s doing, relations between Japan and South Korea are likely to revert back to how they were previously once he’s gone, especially if he’s removed unwillingly.
“In D.C., there just wasn’t enough thought of how failure of domestic policy will have knock-on effects for foreign policy,” Karl Friedhoff, an Asia policy fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told Foreign Policy.
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Despite continuing unpopularity, public perception of the other in each country has markedly improved since the normalization drive. The Japanese view of South Koreans became positive for the first time ever in 2024, according to polls. While the perception of Japan is still largely negative, a recent poll found South Koreans gave their highest-ever approval rating of Japan at 41.7%, with about the same number giving a negative answer. Previously, South Korea was second to only China in having the most negative perception of Japan in the world.
Despite this, the same South Korean poll found that only 34.5% supported the government’s efforts to bolster ties with Japan, compared to 49.6% who opposed it.