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      South Korea’s Defense Minister Steps Down Over Martial Law Decree

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      South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced on Thursday that he had accepted the resignation of his defense minister, the first member of Mr. Yoon’s cabinet to lose his job since the president’s short-lived declaration of martial law on Tuesday night stunned the country.The defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, had tendered his resignation on Wednesday, saying that he considered himself responsible for the crisis that the martial law decree had created for Mr. Yoon’s government. He did not directly address allegations among opposition lawmakers and local media that he had suggested the idea to Mr. Yoon.A statement from the presidential office said that Mr. Kim would be replaced by Choi Byung Hyuk, a retired army general who has been serving as South Korea’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.Mr. Yoon withdrew the martial law declaration early Wednesday morning, after the National Assembly voted unanimously against it and protesters gathered to denounce the move. Opposition lawmakers later introduced a motion to impeach Mr. Yoon, which could be voted on as soon as Friday.If two-thirds of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly vote for the motion, Mr. Yoon will be impeached and suspended from office until the country’s Constitutional Court makes a final ruling on whether to reinstate or remove him. All 192 opposition lawmakers support impeachment, but they need at least eight votes from members of Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party to impeach him.The head of that party, Han Dong-hoon, said on Thursday that he would try to persuade its lawmakers to vote against impeachment, to prevent what he called national “confusion.”But at the same time, Mr. Han tried to distance the party from Mr. Yoon, calling his martial law decree “unconstitutional” and demanding that he give up his party membership. Mr. Han also said that military leaders who were involved in imposing martial law must be removed from their posts. He did not identify any commanders by name.“We must show to the military that if they get involved in an unconstitutional and illegal martial law, they will be punished immediately,” Mr. Han said.Gen. Park An-su, the army chief of staff, led the martial law command during the several hours before the decree was rescinded. Hundreds of troops were sent into the National Assembly in what opposition lawmakers called an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” attempt to stop them from voting against the decree. Staff members barricaded hallways with furniture and used fire extinguishers against troops to keep them from entering the voting chamber.Mr. Kim, the outgoing defense minister, said the troops had been following his orders when they entered the National Assembly. Mr. Yoon has insisted that martial law was needed to protect the country from disruptive political opposition that had paralyzed his administration.This is a developing story. More

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      How South Korea’s Impeachment of President Yoon Could Happen

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      President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea is facing proceedings that could remove him from office after his imposition of martial law plunged the country into a political crisis. Members of South Korea’s opposition submitted a motion on Wednesday to impeach Mr. Yoon. Here’s how the process could unfold. Only two previous presidents have faced […] More

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      South Korea Stock Markets Wobble After Martial Law Turmoil

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      South Korean stocks and the country’s currency fell on Wednesday morning after a tense night during which President Yoon Suk Yeol declared and then lifted a martial-law declaration.The benchmark Kospi index fell about 2 percent in early trading in Seoul. Shares of some of South Korea’s biggest companies were down, with Samsung Electronics losing more than 1 percent and LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor shedding more than 2 percent.After a steep drop overnight, the South Korean won found its footing somewhat. On Wednesday morning it was trading down by about 1 percent against the dollar since the initial declaration of martial law late Tuesday night.Just before midnight on Tuesday and early in the morning on Wednesday, South Korea’s finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, convened meetings in Seoul with officials from the central bank and key financial regulators. They pledged to meet daily to “establish a constant risk management system” and provide “unlimited liquidity support” until the stock, bond and currency markets stabilized.Mr. Choi said on Wednesday that the government would focus on shielding the economy, and that officials would “closely communicate” with the authorities of other countries with major economies. “In any given situation, the government will do its best to address economic concerns and to minimize disruptions in entrepreneurial and daily activities,” he said.The Bank of Korea’s monetary policy board said it would hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday. The central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates last week, citing “heightened uncertainties surrounding growth and inflation, driven by the new U.S. administration’s policies.”As opposition lawmakers demanded that President Yoon step down, analysts and investors were trying to gauge how long South Korea’s outbreak of political turmoil would persist.Market, consumer and business sentiment will likely “take a significant hit” for some time, as it did in the period around South Korea’s last presidential impeachment in 2017, said Min Joo Kang, a senior economist at ING.South Korea’s credit rating could also be affected, though that is uncertain at this stage, Ms. Kang said in a note.“South Korea’s democratic institutions and culture have withstood the stress test,” Krishna Guha, vice chairman of Evercore ISI, wrote in a note. He expected “minimal” disruption to business and supply chains, “but it is extraordinary and troubling that it happened at all,” he added.Elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region, markets fell slightly but remained relatively calm. Benchmark indexes in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong all fell by less than 1 percent on Wednesday morning.Minho Kim More

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      South Korean History Is Scarred by Martial Law

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      For many younger South Koreans, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law late Tuesday night was their first exposure to a kind of turbulence that older generations remember all too well.Since South Korea was founded in 1948, a number of presidents have declared states of military emergency. The most recent — and the most notorious, perhaps — came after the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung-hee, a former general who had occasionally used martial law himself to crack down on political protests and opposition since seizing power in 1961.Soon after Mr. Park was killed, a general, Chun Doo-hwan, staged his own coup. In May 1980, he declared martial law, banning all political activities, closing schools and arresting dissidents.Protests erupted in the southwestern city of Gwangju, and Mr. Chun sent in armored vehicles and paratroopers, who crushed the uprising. Officials said at least 191 people were killed, including 26 soldiers and police officers, but families of slain demonstrators said the death toll was much higher.Mr. Chun, who remained in power until 1988, characterized the Gwangju protests as a revolt driven by North Korean operatives. But the uprising became a pivotal moment in South Korea’s transition to democracy, and many South Koreans support revising the Constitution to honor its importance to the country.In 1996, Mr. Chun and another former general, Roh Tae-woo — a childhood friend of Mr. Chun who backed his rule and was directly elected president in 1988 — were prosecuted for the 1979 coup and the deadly crackdown that followed.Roh Tae-woo, left, and Chun Doo-hwan on trial in 1996.Yonhap/EPA, via ShutterstockPresident Kim Young-sam, who served from 1993 to 1998, said at the time of the prosecutions that they marked a new era of constitutionalism for Korea. But Mr. Kim pardoned both men the next year, a move aimed at uniting the country. Shin Woo-jae, a spokesman for President Kim, said the pardons were granted “to promote national reconciliation and rally the nation’s energies to overcome the economic difficulties at this juncture when the nation conducted the cleanest and fairest presidential election in its history.” More

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      President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea Declares Martial Law, Then Backs Down

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      Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration on Tuesday, lawmakers voted to defy him, prompting the president to say he was lifting his order.President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday night, then reversed himself hours later as thousands of protesters flooded the streets, capping an extraordinary night of tumult in the deeply divided country.The threat of military rule had brought political chaos to one of America’s closest allies in Asia and carried echoes of South Korea’s postwar years of military rule and political violence.But Mr. Yoon’s gambit appeared to quickly backfire, leaving his political future uncertain and the opposition baying for his impeachment.His announcement imposing martial law, at 10:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, had immediately raised questions over whether the president could commandeer such a highly developed industrialized democracy.Before dawn on Wednesday, those questions appeared to be answered.The National Assembly quickly passed a resolution demanding an end to martial law, and Mr. Yoon backed down, saying he would lift his emergency declaration just five and a half hours after he had issued it.Martial law was formally lifted at a Cabinet meeting early Wednesday.President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday evening.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can Rahm Emanuel Flip the Script Again?

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      There’s a buzz around Rahm Emanuel — the former Bill Clinton adviser, former Illinois congressman, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, former mayor of Chicago — possibly becoming the next head of the Democratic National Committee. The progressive left despises his pragmatism and liberal centrism. He has a reputation for abrasiveness. And his current job, as ambassador to Japan, has traditionally served as a posting for high-level political has-beens like Walter Mondale and Howard Baker.But he also has a gift for constructing winning coalitions with difficult, unexpected partners.More on that in a moment. When I meet him for breakfast this week at a New York City hotel, what he wants to talk about is a looming crisis in Asia. “What started as two wars in two theaters is now one war in two separate theaters,” he says of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. “We need to ensure that it does not expand into a third theater.”How soon might that happen? I mention 2027, a year that’s often seen as China’s target date for reunification with Taiwan, if necessary by force.“I think it’s actually 2025,” he answers.What Emanuel has in mind are Asia’s other flashpoints, including along the 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea, where Russia is “poking” Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, “to do something” and where South Korea’s president briefly declared martial law, and also in the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines are coming to blows over Beijing’s illegal maritime claims. Unlike with Taipei, to which America’s obligations are deliberately ambiguous, with Manila and Seoul our defense commitments are ironclad.That could mean war for the United States on multiple unexpected fronts. Emanuel’s tenure as ambassador was distinguished by his role in engineering two historic rapprochements — last year between Japan and South Korea and this year between Japan and the Philippines — that, along with the AUKUS defense pact with Britain and Australia, form part of a broad diplomatic effort by the Biden administration to contain China.The Chinese, Emanuel says, “have a theory of the case in the Indo-Pacific. We have a theory of the case. Their attempt is to isolate Australia, isolate the Philippines and put all the pressure on that country,” often through abusive trade practices. “Our job is to flip the script and isolate China through their actions.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Read President Yoon’s Speech Declaring Martial Law in South Korea

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      Honorable citizens, as President, I appeal to you with a feeling of spitting blood.Since the inauguration of our government, the National Assembly has initiated 22 impeachment motions against government officials, and since the inauguration of the 22nd National Assembly in June, it is pushing for the impeachment of 10 more. This is a situation that is not only unprecedented in any country in the world, but has never been seen since the founding of our country.It is paralyzing the judiciary by intimidating judges and impeaching a number of prosecutors, and it is paralyzing the executive branch by trying to impeach the Minister of the Interior, the Chairman of the Communications Commission, the Chair of the Board of Audit, and the Defense Minister.The handling of the national budget also undermined the essential functions of the state and turned Korea into a drug paradise and a public order panic by completely cutting all major budgets for cracking down on drug crimes and maintaining public security. The Democratic Party cut 4.1 trillion won from next year’s budget, including 1 trillion won for disaster preparedness reserves, 38.4 billion won for child care support allowances, and a project to develop a gas field in the city for youth jobs.They even put the brakes on funding to improve the treatment of military officers, including raising salaries and allowances for entry-level officers and increasing on-call duty fees.This budget outrage is nothing short of manipulating the national finances of the Republic of Korea. The legislative dictatorship of the Democratic Party, which uses even the budget as a means of political struggle, did not hesitate to impeach the budget. The government is paralyzed, and the people’s sighs are growing.This trampling of the constitutional order of the free Republic of Korea and the disruption of legitimate state institutions established by the constitution and laws is an obvious anti-state act that plots insurrection. The lives of the people are of no concern, and the government is in a state of paralysis due to impeachment, special investigation, and the defense of the opposition leader.Our National Assembly has become a den of criminals and is attempting to paralyze the nation’s judicial administration system through legislative dictatorship and overthrow the liberal democracy system. The National Assembly, which should be the foundation of liberal democracy, has become a monster that collapses the liberal democracy system. Now, Korea is in a precarious situation where it would not be surprising if it collapsed immediately.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Supplies Antiaircraft Missiles to North Korea, the South Says

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      Pyongyang has long coveted an advanced air-defense system to guard against missiles and war planes from the United States and South Korea.Russia has supplied North Korea with antiaircraft missiles in return for the deployment of its troops ​to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, South Korea’s national security adviser said on Friday.​In recent weeks, North Korea has sent an estimated 1​1,000 troops, some of whom have joined Russian forces in their fight to retake territories occupied by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region, according to South Korean and United States officials. It has also sent close to 20,000 shipping containers of weapons to Russia since the summer of 2023, including artillery guns and shells, short-range ballistic missiles and multiple-rocket launchers, South Korean officials have said.In return, North Korea has been widely expected to seek Russian help in modernizing its conventional armed forces and advancing its nuclear​ weapons program and missiles. One of the ​biggest weaknesses of the North Korean military ​has been its poor​, outdated air defense system, while the United States and its allies in South Korea and Japan run fleets of high-tech war planes, ​including F-35 stealth fighter jets.“We understand that Russia has provided related equipment and anti-air missiles to shore up the poor air defense for Pyongyang,” the North Korean capital, ​South Korea’s national security adviser​, Shin Won-shik, ​said in an interview with SBS-TV on Friday.The cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow came as Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, continued to stoke confrontational rhetoric against the United States and South Korea. In a speech at a military exhibition on Thursday that was reported by state media, Mr. Kim warned that the Korean Peninsula has never faced such risks of nuclear war as now, blaming the tensions on Washington’s “aggressive and hostile” policy.Mr. Shin said Russia was also supplying other military technology to North Korea, including help to improve North Korea’s satellite-launch programs.​ After two failed attempts, North Korea placed its first spy satellite into or​bit last November​, triggering speculation that Russia was behind the success. But in May, a North Korean rocket carrying another military reconnaissance satellite into orbit exploded midair shortly after takeoff.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More