Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—
South Korea’s new president is taking energy at a turbulent time for the nation and the trail he carves might shake up the area.
Conservative Yoon Suk Yeol of the Folks Energy Occasion secured the election by a razor-thin margin Wednesday, pulling forward of rival Lee Jae-myung by lower than one share level.
Yoon is a newcomer to politics, having spent the final 27 years of his profession as a prosecutor – however he’ll face an array of challenges when he replaces liberal incumbent President Moon Jae-in within the Blue Home on Might 10.
Threats from North Korea are excessive on the agenda – in addition to rising tensions between South Korea’s companions, the US and China. Yoon may have his fingers full with home points as effectively, with a rising “gender war” and surging Covid-19 instances.
Right here’s what a Yoon presidency might imply for South Korea.
A lot of Yoon’s marketing campaign centered on his robust stance on North Korea – a departure from Moon’s present strategy, which has constantly promoted dialogue and peaceable reconciliation.
Inter-Korean relations have been a key electoral situation, with tensions operating excessive amid a latest surge in North Korean missile testing. The nation has launched nine missile tests in 2022 alone, together with a brand new kind of “hypersonic missile” capable of maneuver at excessive velocity – prompting condemnation from the South.
Talks between the 2 Koreas have stalled since a deliberate US-North Korea summit fell aside in 2019, mentioned Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Heart for North Korean Research on the Sejong Institute, forward of the election. “It’s unlikely to count on any progress in denuclearization negotiations except the following authorities comes up with a complicated denuclearization resolution that’s acceptable to each the US and North Korea,” he added.
Yoon’s major rival within the election, Lee, from the Democratic Occasion, had supported the sort of reciprocal, trust-based engagement sought by Moon. Yoon, in contrast, has promised to construct up South Korea’s army, even hinting that he would launch a pre-emptive strike if he noticed indicators of an offensive launch in opposition to Seoul.
All through his marketing campaign, Yoon has slammed the Democratic Occasion’s “subservient North Korea coverage,” vowing to not ease sanctions or put together a peace treaty till the North “makes lively efforts in full and verifiable denuclearization.”
Talking in Seoul on January 24, Yoon added that the door to diplomacy and dialogue will “all the time be left open” – however that he would pursue a peace that’s “based mostly on sturdy nationwide protection posture, not of submission.”
“We are going to construct a strong army power that may assuredly deter any provocation to guard the protection and property of our residents and safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our nation,” Yoon mentioned.
However specialists warn this tougher line might see relations worsen between the 2 international locations. Some concern army tensions might return to the disaster ranges seen in 2017, when North Korea’s aggressive weapons testing and development prompted US-South Korea exhibits of army power, in addition to a risk from then-US President Donald Trump to unleash “fireplace and fury just like the world has by no means seen.”
Cheong, from the Sejong Institute, mentioned it appeared clear that Yoon’s election would trigger inter-Korean relations to “return to the hostile relationship of the Chilly Struggle period.”
Yoon’s win may also doubtless shift South Korea’s relationship with two feuding world superpowers: the US and China.
For years, the nation has walked a tightrope of an in depth safety alliance with the US, and a rising financial relationship with China – however “the time and interval for that sort of custom is ending,” mentioned Kim Jiyoon, analysis fellow at Sogang College’s Institute of Social Sciences.
Whereas Lee instructed he would attempt to stability each partnerships, Yoon has made clear which he’ll prioritize.
“South Korea and the US share an alliance solid in blood as now we have fought collectively to guard freedom in opposition to the tyranny of communism,” Yoon mentioned in January, including that the nation should “rebuild this alliance.”
As a part of this push, Yoon has instructed he would search the installment of a second anti-ballistic missile system – which might undoubtedly provoke fury from China.
South Korea first introduced in 2016 it will deploy the US-built Terminal Excessive Altitude Space Protection (THAAD) protection system to defend in opposition to North Korean missile threats. That sparked a year-long diplomatic feud with China, which argued the missile system would jeopardize its personal nationwide safety.
It additionally noticed public sentiment bitter between the 2, with some Chinese language residents calling for boycotts of South Korean items, and even destroying well-liked merchandise corresponding to make-up in performative protests.
Below the brand new administration,”it’s inevitable that South Korea-China relations will deteriorate once more, additional narrowing South Korea’s diplomatic place and taking a sure blow to the Korean financial system,” Cheong mentioned.
Yoon has additionally pointed to the technological benefits of a more in-depth alliance with the US, arguing it might assist South Korea keep its edge in opposition to “aggressive nations together with China.”
At a summit final yr between Moon and US President Joe Biden, each leaders reaffirmed their army alliance and agreed to develop cooperation within the areas of know-how, the financial system, the surroundings and public well being. A joint statement afterward praised the US-South Korea relationship as “the linchpin for stability and prosperity.”
Yoon’s place displays public sentiment within the South, which is at the moment “hawkish and really hardline,” mentioned Kim from Sogang College. That is in all probability “the very best antagonism for China shared by the Korean public – which suggests a really sturdy and pleasant feeling towards the US,” she added.
That feeling seems to be reciprocated. Biden and Yoon had a name on Thursday, with the US President inviting Yoon to go to the White Home. Biden added that he hoped for deeper bilateral relations with South Korea and that “shut coordination … concerning North Korean coverage shall be vital.”
Yoon faces loads of challenges at home, too, together with the Covid-19 pandemic, corruption, polarized politics – and gender equality, one other key situation that has outlined this election.
South Korea’s gender conflict intensified within the run-up to the election, with younger voters more and more break up alongside gender traces.
Dealing with a hypercompetitive job market and skyrocketing housing costs, so-called “anti-feminists” claimed the nation’s bid to handle gender inequality had tipped too far in ladies’s favor. Feminists, in the meantime, pointed to the nation’s widespread sexual violence, entrenched gender expectations, and low feminine illustration in boardrooms and in politics as examples of how discrimination in opposition to ladies remains to be rife.
Each main presidential candidates leaned into the difficulty, with Lee voicing help for girls’s rights whereas Yoon actively courted votes amongst anti-feminists. One in every of Yoon’s main marketing campaign guarantees was to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Household – claiming it’s unfair to males. He additionally promised to boost the penalty for falsely reporting intercourse crimes.
CNN approached Yoon’s workplace for touch upon his gender insurance policies however didn’t obtain a response.
Anti-feminists have made themselves a strong voting bloc in South Korea. Final April, Moon’s Democratic Occasion misplaced mayoral elections in each Seoul and its second largest metropolis Busan, with exit polls displaying younger males of their 20s had overwhelmingly shifted their vote to Yoon’s Folks Energy Occasion.
Because the election approached, some nervous that if Yoon received, gender divisions might widen even additional, and the ladies’s rights motion might be set again.
“The gender hole is the widest among the many younger era,” Kim mentioned. “For those who go as much as the older era, it’s truly converging, but it surely’s the widest and probably the most divergent between younger females and younger males.”