What South Koreans care about most as Yoon Suk-yeol enters office
Incoming president faces sizable hurdles to domestic agenda but will have a freer hand to improve ties with Japan
Karl FriedhoffMay 3, 2022
When he takes office on May 10, South Korea’s next president Yoon Suk-yeol will face unprecedentedly low expectations.
In a polarized political environment, Yoon won a historically narrow election victory in a campaign long on vitriol and short on substance. After the election, Gallup Korea polling found that just 55 percent of Koreans expect Yoon to perform well in his job over the next five years. That number was 87 percent for Moon Jae-in, 84 percent for Lee Myung-bak and 78 percent for Park Geun-hye.
Low expectations and high polarization will free Yoon to take actions unpopular with his detractors. His approval rating among Democratic Party supporters will likely remain below 10% regardless of what he does, meaning reversing Moon’s policies will cost little political capital.
But low expectations will also force Yoon to walk a fine line with his supporters within the People Power Party. Yoon was an outsider candidate from the start of his campaign, and his candidacy was not based on charisma or strong support within the party, leaving him especially weak if scandals put him in political trouble.
Moreover, Yoon’s first two years in office will feature a National Assembly controlled by the Democratic Party, assuring that his domestic legislative priorities will be stymied. All this suggests that major domestic policy shifts may not be forthcoming, likely driving Yoon to spend more time on issues he can control like trade and foreign policy.
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Ahead of the election, real estate policy and economic growth emerged as two key areas of concern for South Koreans, and public perception of Yoon’s first years in office will likely hinge on the success of his policy changes in these areas.
On the economy, Yoon looks to reverse Moon’s income-led growth policies, which have sought to increase workers’ wages as a way to drive consumption.
Focusing on investment, rather than consumption, to drive economic growth will entail broad deregulation attempts to spur the necessary investment. It will also give companies greater freedom in determining operating hours and staffing and may force more workers back into precarious contract positions.
Such changes will be unpopular with Democratic Party diehards, but the general public will likely be more willing to go along with the new policy direction — if it brings the desired economic growth.
For real estate, pursuing reform to make the market more liquid and increase supply will be vital. Real estate policy, more than any other issue, was a key factor in Yoon’s victory. If he fails to deliver on reigning in housing prices, he will become more vulnerable to real or perceived scandals.
Of course, Yoon could limit some of this risk through efforts to heal the nation’s deeply polarized politics: The president-elect promised to seek national unity in his election night victory speech.
But national healing is not a priority for the public. One month ahead of the March 9 election, Research & Research polling found that the ability to heal the country was one of the least important qualities in a future president.
And with the Democratic Party in control of the National Assembly, legislative gridlock and an ongoing partisan blame game will only further entrench the deep divisions in Korean politics and society.
FREER ON FREE TRADE
The lack of a mandate for president-elect Yoon will push his administration to focus more on trade and foreign policy — areas where Korean presidents have a far freer hand to operate.
Ironically, the outgoing administration handed Yoon a potential win when it announced South Korea would seek to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) before the end of Moon’s term. Assuming Seoul files its application before Moon leaves office, negotiations to join the free trade agreement with 11 signatories would fall to the Yoon administration and take roughly a year to complete.
The process will draw stiff pushback from the agriculture and fishery sectors given that those two fields will see steep cuts to duties on rival imports. But it will also provide the Yoon administration with two important opportunities.
First, it will open the door for Yoon to successfully engage the National Assembly in ratifying the trade agreement once negotiations finish. This will still be a contentious process, but Yoon should be able to leverage the fact that Moon began the process to bring the National Assembly on his side.
Still, it will behoove the Yoon administration to move quickly. Delays will push the process closer to the 2024 parliamentary elections and further complications.
Second, expect Yoon to use the trade agreement to show South Korea can cooperate with Japan.
One reason Seoul opted out of negotiations for the original TPP was that it already had trade agreements in existence or under negotiation with nearly every country in the TPP — except for Japan. There was thus concern that the public would view joining the TPP as the way for the government to establish a backdoor free trade agreement with Japan while avoiding scrutiny.
But again the Moon administration’s endorsement of CPTPP should provide political cover. And entering into the agreement will place a significant building block for Yoon’s proposal of a forward-looking relationship with Japan.
JAPAN VIA SOUTHEAST ASIA
Significant challenges remain when it comes to fostering the domestic consensus necessary for Yoon to advance ties with Japan. Several of these irritants are simply baked into the calendar — Shimane prefecture’s Takeshima Day in February commemorating Japan’s claim to South Korea-controlled islands, the release of Japanese history textbooks in March, South Korea’s national holiday in August celebrating liberation from Imperial Japanese rule.
The way in which Yoon’s transition team has handled the situation so far has not given cause for optimism. His team has insisted that the 2015 agreement on comfort women remained in force, but it subsequently turned away a comfort women survivor who sought to meet with the team, even though accusations that the Park Geun-hye administration failed to properly consult victims when negotiating the agreement undermined it in the first place.
Korean attitudes on Japan remain highly negative. A 2021 Genron-EAI joint survey found that just 21 percent of the South Korean public held a favorable opinion of Japan. However, the same survey found that 71 percent of South Koreans thought efforts should be made to improve relations.
Political resolutions will remain difficult, but one potential area for low-key cooperation is in Southeast Asia. A 2021 Chicago Council poll found that majorities in both Korea and Japan support cooperation on development projects in the region. Doing so would provide three key benefits to the Yoon administration.
First, it would provide another building block to establishing the future-oriented relations Yoon seeks to establish with Japan and in an area that both publics view as relatively benign.
Second, it would provide a measure of foreign policy continuity between the Moon and Yoon administrations. Moon rightly identified Southeast Asia as a growing region of importance for South Korean cultural products and an especially important region for businesses as they seek to reduce their reliance on China.
Finally, such an effort aligns well with Yoon’s call for greater participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad. Southeast Asia will be a key area of competition between the U.S. and China, and increasing South Korea’s activities in the region — especially via cooperation with Japan — will show that the Yoon administration is serious about its stated foreign policy goals.
Edited by Bryan Betts
When he takes office on May 10, South Korea’s next president Yoon Suk-yeol will face unprecedentedly low expectations.
In a polarized political environment, Yoon won a historically narrow election victory in a campaign long on vitriol and short on substance. After the election, Gallup Korea polling found that just 55 percent of Koreans expect Yoon to perform well in his job over the next five years. That number was 87 percent for Moon Jae-in, 84 percent for Lee Myung-bak and 78 percent for Park Geun-hye.
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