South Korea’s Yoon accused of using China as a ‘scapegoat’ in martial law defence

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST | Published January 20, 2025

The impeached president is using unsubstantiated claims of election interference by China and North Korea to justify his failed self-coup bid

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s legal team has cited unsubstantiated claims of Chinese and North Korean election meddling to justify his short-lived martial law decree, a move analysts described as irresponsible, warning it “could spark international disputes”.

In a 62-page document submitted to the Constitutional Court, which is currently deliberating on whether to have the impeached president removed from office, Yoon’s lawyers accused the liberal opposition of being “anti-democratic gangs” capable of election fraud.

The document echoed unsubstantiated claims proliferating on far-right YouTube channels in South Korea, which Yoon is reportedly a follower of.

“They want to turn this nation into a colony of China and North Korea, backed by China’s financial power,” the defence argued.

 

Choi Jin, head of the Institute for Presidential Leadership, criticised Yoon for irresponsibly fuelling allegations of Chinese meddling without evidence.

“The president should avoid making statements that could spark international disputes, even if intended only for domestic audiences,” Choi told This Week in Asia.

Political science professor Ahn Byong-jin of Kyunghee University said Yoon’s claims undermine South Korea’s international credibility.

“This is more like a political farce than a serious argument,” Ahn said. “But it complicates South Korea’s position amid the intensifying rivalry between the US and China.”

At a Constitutional Court hearing on Thursday, Yoon’s legal team alleged that China and North Korea collaborated to hack the National Election Commission (NEC) and engage in ballot stuffing.

Yoon had previously justified his decision to deploy martial law troops to the election watchdog by citing weak cybersecurity.

“The NEC’s servers lacked basic protections – one server’s password was literally ‘12345’,” he said in a December 12 statement.

Yoon claimed the server was easily hacked as part of a test conducted by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

Supporters of detained and impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at a rally at the entrance of the Seoul Detention Center in Seoul on January 16. Photo: AFPSupporters of detained and impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at a rally at the entrance of the Seoul Detention Center in Seoul on January 16. Photo: AFP

Defence lawyers further alleged that the password “12345” corresponds to China’s government service hotline number, suggesting it served as “an open invitation for hackers from China and beyond.”

Defence lawyers further alleged that the password “12345” corresponds to China’s government service hotline number, suggesting it served as “an open invitation for hackers from China and beyond.”

However, the NEC has repeatedly denied these claims, stating that no irregularities were found in election audits and that the NIS hacking test was performed under simulated conditions with security layers temporarily disabled.

The commission acknowledged one instance of a weak password but said it was quickly corrected and that firewalls have since been strengthened.

Yoon declared martial law on December 3 at 10.28pm, claiming it was necessary to protect South Korea from North Korean threats and pro-North forces.

However, the decree was nullified hours later when lawmakers convened at the National Assembly and overturned the move.

In a televised address on December 12, Yoon again accused North Korea of hacking the NEC and cast doubt on his party’s defeat in the 2024 National Assembly elections.

He also blamed the opposition-controlled legislature for obstructing efforts to expand the anti-espionage law to target foreign agents, citing alleged espionage cases involving four Chinese nationals who were caught filming military facilities.

 

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SOURCE: www.scmp.com

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Is China exploiting South Korea’s political crisis?

In spite of a bilateral agreement banning development, China has placed a large structure in an area of the West Sea that South Korea says is its territory.

Pro-Yoon demonstrators take part in a rally in support of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol near his official residence in Seoul
South Korea is reeling from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law in early DecemberImage: Tyrone Siu
DW | Published January 20, 2025

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PoliticsChina
Is China exploiting South Korea’s political crisis?
Julian Ryall
01/14/2025January 14, 2025
In spite of a bilateral agreement banning development, China has placed a large structure in an area of the West Sea that South Korea says is its territory.

Pro-Yoon demonstrators take part in a rally in support of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol near his official residence in Seoul
South Korea is reeling from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law in early DecemberImage: Tyrone Siu/REUTERS
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China has installed a large floating structure in waters that it disputes with South Korea, with analysts suggesting that the Chinese government is employing similar tactics to take control of territory as it used successfully to seize atolls and islets in the South China Sea over a decade ago.

China has placed similar steel structures in the same area in the past, insisting that they are merely “fishing support facilities” and each time leading to diplomatic protests from South Korea’s government.

However, The Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, cited diplomatic sources suggesting that China aims to advance its claims to the ocean territory amid South Korea’s political chaos following President Yoon Suk-yeon’s brief declaration of martial law in early December.

“It is being reported that the Chinese are building this structure, and they say it is for fishing, but at this point, the Korean side does not understand its purpose, whether it is for fishing, for military purposes or some other reason,” said Kim Suk-kyoon, a professor at the Korea Institute of Maritime Strategy.

Disputed sovereignty
The Chinese construction, estimated from satellite images to be about 50 meters across and 50 meters high, is in the Provisional Measures Zone in the West Sea — which China refers to as the Yellow Sea.

The two nations dispute sovereignty over the waters, but fishing boats can operate in the area under a 2001 agreement signed between China and South Korea.

Kim told DW that the agreement expressly forbids the construction of facilities or searching for or developing other resources in the area.

“The maritime borders have not been settled in this area, so the provisional zone was set up,” he said. “Under the agreement, neither country is permitted to take any actions that might impair the integrity of the other’s claims, which means that China’s construction of facilities is in breach of the fisheries agreement and international law.”

The situation is complicated by talks on the median line and confirming the two sides’ areas being on hold, while China in 2010 declared the area to be its “internal waters.”

“China is using these structures to claim jurisdiction beyond the median line between the two countries and take a larger area,” Kim said. “This is just one way to boost their claim.”

Natural resources and overlapping claims

Rah Jong-yil, a former South Korean diplomat, believes China is motivated by reports that large oil deposits lie beneath the disputed area’s seabed.

“When this sort of thing happened in the past, Seoul was always quick to lodge a diplomatic protest with China,” he told DW.

Rah points out that a strongly worded complaint was sent to Beijing in April 2022, shortly before Yoon was sworn in as president and was a move seen as an early indication of China’s intentions.

“China has again built a structure, despite knowing that it is in breach of the agreements, and I am confident Seoul will have made a complaint, but I see no signs of them backing down on this occasion,” he said.

Dan Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, suggests that South Korea is not entirely without blame in the same area as it has constructed a maritime research station directly above a submerged sea mount in the West Sea known in Korea as Ieodo.

China has protested that as the feature is below the surface, international maritime law states that it cannot support human life and, therefore, cannot be used by a nation to extend its territorial waters.

The sea mount is 149 kilometers (93 miles) from the nearest South Korean land and 287 kilometers from Chinese territory, although both nations lay claim to the waters.

“China took the islands in the South China Sea in defiance of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and then ignored an arbitration ruling by the court in The Hague,” said Pinkston.

“South Korea’s concern is that Beijing is simply going to replicate that playbook in this area, that it will start building more structures and use that to stake its own territorial claim, no matter what Korea says.”

 

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SOURCE: www.dw.com

 

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