In the following article, originally published by the US online journal People’s World, its Managing Editor, CJ Atkins outlines the abortive coup staged December 2-3 by Yoon Suk Yeol, the hard right President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), an incident that carries major ramifications for the entire region and not least for China.
Atkins notes that, “A combination of instant mass street protests, a united parliamentary opposition, and the threat of a nationwide general strike by Korea’s working class snuffed out the attempted return to military rule.”
He analyses in some detail how Yoon’s desperate move came against the backdrop of a steadily mounting class struggle in the face of his anti-working class, anti-women and anti-communist agenda, along with the pervasive stench of corruption surrounding himself, his wife and his political allies.
According to Atkins: “By the time he made the decision to declare martial law on December 3, Yoon essentially had only the arm – and the United States – at his side.
“Alongside 30,000 troops, the US has long stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea, ostensibly as a deterrent against North Korea but in practice also aimed at China. Under Yoon, the arrangement has been beefed up, with US nuclear-armed submarines now docking regularly in South Korean ports and nuclear-capable bombers poised to strike from South Korean airfields. He and his defense officials have even mused about South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons.
“Tying South Korea even tighter into the anti-China coalition has been one of the key foreign policy achievements of the outgoing Biden administration. Winning the American-Japanese-Korean (JAROKUS) trilateral pact, the US-led military alliance aimed at China, was largely credited to Yoon. He dropped South Korea’s longstanding reparations request against Japan for war crimes committed during World War II.
“Helping advance US imperial interests in East Asia earned Yoon praise and strong support from Biden. In February, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell claimed Yoon deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, and a short time later, the White House social media team blasted out a gushing video of Yoon singing ‘American Pie’ at a state dinner.
“Yoon’s contempt for democracy and his anti-people policies were already well known in Washington when he was being lauded as such a wonderful ally; no one can claim they didn’t know of his dictatorial proclivities or corruption.”
In conclusion, he writes that:
“While the fallout from Yoon’s coup attempt certainly won’t dislodge South Korea from its firm place in the US imperial orbit, his likely departure from the political scene will rob US imperialism of its key man in Seoul. It’s not clear who might eventually succeed him or whether they will be as keen to continue his belligerent anti-North Korea stance, willingness to buddy up to Japan, or eagerness to pack the Korean peninsula with more nuclear weapons.”
The chaos in Korea—like the genocide in Gaza and the stalemated war in Ukraine—stands as one more item on the list of crises that the Biden administration will leave behind as its foreign policy legacy.
Declaring “emergency martial law” on Tuesday, South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol—known domestically as “K-Trump”—said he was shutting down democracy to combat what he called “shameless pro-North Korean” forces who were “plotting rebellion” and threatening the state.
Less than 48 hours later, however, the president’s coup collapsed, nearly his entire cabinet resigned, and he looked set to only barely survive an impeachment vote (but even that is not guaranteed). A combination of instant mass street protests, a united parliamentary opposition, and the threat of a nationwide general strike by Korea’s working class snuffed out the attempted return to military rule.
Though Yoon’s ditching of democracy and the overwhelming show of people power both caught the world by surprise, the martial law declaration actually capped a crisis that has been building in South Korea for the past few years.
Concentrating mostly on the president’s anti-North Korea foreign policy stances, much of the mainstream corporate media is missing the fuller story here, which is that Yoon’s coup is a sign of the sharpening class struggle in South Korea and poses new uncertainties for U.S. imperial strategy in East Asia.
Bringing back the tanks
Acting together with the army in a move that reminded many of the brutal military dictatorships that ruled South Korea until the 1980s, Yoon dispatched troops and tanks to seize the parliament late on Tuesday evening. The last time martial law was declared was 45 years ago, in 1979, when the U.S. supported a military crackdown on a workers’ uprising in the city of Gwangju.
Like then, the political elite’s decision to resort to anti-democratic means this time was also sparked by an upsurge of mass labor and people’s fightback.
At around midnight Tuesday, political party activities were declared illegal by Army Chief of Staff Park An-su, and it was announced that all media were now under direct government control. An ongoing nationwide doctors’ strike was ordered to halt immediately. Tanks and heavily armed soldiers and police were dispatched around Seoul, concentrated particularly at the National Assembly.
Knowing that the legislature possessed the power to override a martial law declaration and that the opposition had the votes to do it, Yoon and his generals worked to prevent lawmakers from entering the building. Soldiers smashed their way into the parliament and began arresting members who had already managed to get inside.
Yoon justified his actions by claiming it was necessary to “eradicate” supposed North Korean communist agents and sympathizers in the parliament—i.e., everyone who opposes him—in order to “protect the constitutional order of freedom,” the very same freedom he was himself suspending.
The president’s baseless anti-communist smear was directed at the opposition Democratic Party and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, both of which have worked to block his right-wing policies since he was elected in 2022.
Not just a budget battle
On the surface, Yoon’s gambit was a response to the National Assembly blocking his budget, but the truth is his administration has been unpopular since day one. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in recent weeks demanding his resignation.
Yoon came to office two years ago, having built a name for himself as a determined advocate of clean governance. In 2017, as prosecutor general, he led the legal actions against impeached President Park Geun-hye on corruption charges. Daughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee, the disgraced president eventually ended up being sent to prison for her financial crimes.
Yoon capitalized on the Park affair to launch a bid for the presidency in 2022. Running a campaign premised on male chauvinism and militarism, he squeaked into office, besting the Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-Myung by only 0.73 percentage points.
Calling himself an “anti-feminist” and appealing to the discontent of young men in a distressed economy, Yoon pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying that there was no such thing as systemic discrimination against women in South Korea. Openly embracing patriarchy, he encouraged men to blame society’s problems on women struggling to achieve equality.
Once in power, Yoon pursued economic policies that catered to the demands of the super-rich. He built his budgets around tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to health care and other public services, infrastructure spending reductions, privatization of public projects, and higher spending on arms and the military.
Corruption and abuses of power—the issues he rode to office promising to eliminate—also became hallmarks of Yoon’s own administration. He has repeatedly used his presidential veto power to shield his wife and political allies from bribery and stock manipulation investigations.
By the end of November this year, only 19% of Koreans approved of Yoon’s performance in office. Even some in his own People Power Party had begun to see Yoon as a liability, especially after revelations emerged that he may have illegally meddled in internal candidate selections to advance the interests of his own faction.
Working-class resistance
Taken together, Yoon’s agenda and corrupt governance have earned him the nickname “K-Trump,” or Korean Trump, at home. The branding given to him by critics mimics the K-pop, K-beauty, and K-drama trends known globally in music and popular culture.
In response to his far-right policies, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has initiated several major strikes and actions over the past two years, taking on both the bosses who’ve been emboldened by the right-wing government as well as severe state-led repression engineered from the top.
This summer’s strike at Samsung, for instance, was one of the biggest labor fightbacks in recent Korean history, and doctors are currently off the job in protest of Yoon’s disastrous health care policies.
KCTU took the lead also in opposing the coup this week, denouncing the president’s actions as an attempt to impose an “anti-democratic dictatorship.” As soon as the tanks rolled into downtown Seoul, the labor alliance voted to call an immediate and indefinite general strike of workers across the country.
Converging on the National Assembly Wednesday morning, union leaders said they were rallying “all civil society groups from all walks of life to take part in emergency nationwide action.”
Much of the Korean domestic media credits the union’s threat of a nationwide work stoppage—along with spontaneous protests, the Democratic Party’s refusal to go along with martial law, and the mutiny of some of Yoon’s own parliamentarians—with crushing the coup attempt.
Implications for U.S. imperialism
By the time he made the decision to declare martial law on Dec. 3, Yoon essentially had only the army—and the United States—at his side.
Alongside 30,000 troops, the U.S. has long stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea, ostensibly as a deterrent against North Korea but in practice also aimed at China. Under Yoon, the arrangement has been beefed up, with U.S. nuclear-armed submarines now docking regularly in South Korean ports and nuclear-capable bombers poised to strike from South Korean airfields. He and his defense officials have even mused about South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons.
Tying South Korea even tighter into the anti-China coalition has been one of the key foreign policy achievements of the outgoing Biden administration. Winning the American-Japanese-Korean (JAROKUS) trilateral pact, the U.S.-led military alliance aimed at China, was largely credited to Yoon. He dropped South Korea’s longstanding reparations request against Japan for war crimes committed during World War II.
Helping advance U.S. imperial interests in East Asia earned Yoon praise and strong support from Biden. In February, U.S. Dep. Sec. of State Kurt Campbell claimed Yoon deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, and a short time later, the White House social media team blasted out a gushing video of Yoon singing “American Pie” at a state dinner.
Yoon’s contempt for democracy and his anti-people policies were already well known in Washington when he was being lauded as such a wonderful ally; no one can claim they didn’t know of his dictatorial proclivities or corruption.
None of those disqualified Yoon from being able to count on U.S. backing, no matter how much Biden talked about the need to fight autocracy around the globe. The sudden declaration of martial law, however, was too much for even the U.S. to abide. Supposedly caught unaware, the White House said it was “seriously concerned” on Tuesday, and Sec. of State Antony Blinken later welcomed Yoon’s rescinding of the coup order.
While the fallout from Yoon’s coup attempt certainly won’t dislodge South Korea from its firm place in the U.S. imperial orbit, his likely departure from the political scene will rob U.S. imperialism of its key man in Seoul. It’s not clear who might eventually succeed him or whether they will be as keen to continue his belligerent anti-North Korea stance, willingness to buddy up to Japan, or eagerness to pack the Korean peninsula with more nuclear weapons.
The chaos in Korea—like the genocide in Gaza and the stalemated war in Ukraine—stands as one more item on the list of crises that the Biden administration will leave behind as its foreign policy legacy.
Where things will go once Yoon is gone and Trump is back in charge in D.C. remains to be seen, but the working class and people of Korea have shown they plan to have a say in their own future.
