During the Stratcom Summit ’24 in Istanbul (mid-December), South Korean Professor Giwoong Jung, based at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, discussed his perspectives with NE Global’s Federico Grandesso regarding the ongoing, much-talked-about internal turbulence (with the South Korean President declaring sudden and politically motivated martial law). They also covered U.S. and EU-related issues.
NE GLOBAL: How do you evaluate the relationship between Korea and United States, post Donald Trump’s election?
Professor G. Jung: We expected the relationship to go smooth as it always used to be, the problem is that the president was impeached today. That means that when Donald Trump will be officially sworn-in as president, South Korea won’t have one so the political situation will be a little chaotic. In times of crisis the tendency of being close to the U.S. grows rapidly in Korea, I think our relationship would be maintained regardless of the situation. But we’ll have to wait and see how Mr Trump will act after his integration. We believe the alliance between our country and the U.S. is quite fundamental and strong, I don’t think it will change in the near future, but temporarily there is a possibility of some ups and downs during this impeachment period, until the constitutional court will close the case (within 6 months, but I think in February, maybe March at the latest), in the meantime the Prime Minister will take on the role of the President. The US Ambassador to Korea emphasized that the current situation is not ordinary, a lot of variables are there: new president, Donald Trump, and the response from the opposition party (which is pro-China), everything mixed together.
NEG: How do you see the possibilities for the United States to continue to provide weapons, cooperation?
Professor G. Jung: This past year, 2024, Korea has exported a lot to European countries, but when it comes to the licence program I don’t know exactly. We have developed our own designs and military system; in some cases, we needed approval on the patents from the U.S. but as of now the systems are developed by Korean companies, so they share it freely. The cooperation has always been there, and it will continue, I think.
NEG: How do you see the cooperation with the EU?
Professor G. Jung: We are a country that had nothing to start with – we input the natural resources, make them into something and sell it to other countries. That’s why we are eager to sign up to free trade agreements with other countries, without it we cannot survive. The EU is a nice partner, and we want to improve our relationship with it, and not just them, we hope to improve it with all the other countries because we live on exports. The EU is ranked among the 10 most important exporters to Korean companies.
NEG: About the impeachment of your President, are you surprised by the result of the vote?
Professor G. Jung: We were prepared. I told my colleagues yesterday: I’m sure some of the ruling party members will go with the opposition party. We have 300 seats in parliament and 200 are needed to make the impeachment pass, 192 are already counted by the opposition party and the vote just needed eight from the ruling party to succeed. By yesterday at least seven ruling party members declared openly that they will side with the opposition, so they needed just one more, today it passed with 204 votes, at least 12 votes came from the ruling party.
NEG: Are other members of the government going to resign, which ones?
Professor G. Jung: A lot of ministers were arrested and had to resign. We have to wait and see.
NEG: This crisis and president’s acts, were they caused by misinformation?
Professor G. Jung: I don’t think that he was not well informed. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, Mr President suddenly decided to do this, and nobody knows the truth yet. A lot of things are now being revealed, through parliamentary hearings.
NEG: Will the opposition party get the new President?
Professor G. Jung: Korean politics is quite tolerant, so we will have to wait and see. But the opposition party clearly wants this. There’s a saying in Korea when it comes to politics: after three days you’ll know what will happen.
NEG: What do you think about the mass protests? Are you surprised?
Professor G. Jung: We have done that for at least a century. The first civil evolution took place in 1960, the second democratic movement took place in 1987, and I was a college boy in the midst of the democratic movement. The guys who were the most active in that period have now taken up the most important roles in the opposition party, those generations are the backbone of the Korean society. The civil society will never tolerate the declaration of martial law, fortunately no blood was shed and that’s because soldiers and civilians knew well the effects of martial law, and there is a silent agreement that nobody wants to kill each other anymore. The spirit of democracy is still living in the minds of the Korean people.
