South Korea’s Political Drama Will Produce Waves Overseas 

South Korea’s political crisis continues. After President Yoon Suk-yeol was impeached and arrested following his aborted imposition of martial law last December, the country’s Constitutional Court will now decide his future. Legal experts say Yoon will soon be removed from office and sent to prison.

To complicate things further, the same court will also make a ruling that could disqualify opposition leader Lee Jae-myung from an election he’s currently favored to win—and which would have to take place within 60 days of Yoon’s formal removal from office. Lee is appealing his conviction for election-law violations in 2022, and if two appellate courts affirm it, he will be barred from public office for 10 years. A final ruling is expected next month. Yes, it’s a mess.

And the soap-opera aspects of the crisis obscure an important reality: South Korea’s foreign policy is about to change dramatically, with major implications for the U.S., China, North Korea, and Japan. Lee, the runner-up in the last election in 2022, is a talented politician who has consolidated support within the center-left Democratic Party of Korea (DP). The ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and doesn’t appear able to field a heavyweight candidate quickly enough to win.

Yoon’s government greatly improved the country’s long-troubled relationship with Japan, its former colonial master, and has worked closely with Washington on East Asia security strategy. For now, Lee, running as a centrist, is insisting that the U.S.–South Korea alliance must remain the “rock foundation” of South Korea’s diplomacy, national security, and economic development. But Lee’s persistent criticism of Yoon’s pro-U.S. emphasis suggests friction with the Trump Administration over trade, security cooperation, and engagement with North Korea. Lee has already proposed the creation of a bipartisan committee that would focus on preparation for the “highly likely trade war” with the U.S., signaling a much more confrontational approach to Washington.

Lee has also called for new diplomatic talks with North Korea to ensure that South Korea isn’t pushed to the side if President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stage new talks. At the first Trump-Kim meetings in 2018 and 2019, former center-left South Korean President Moon Jae-in was excluded.

In a recent foreign policy speech, Lee said little about relations with Japan and China, but here too his intense criticism of Yoon’s engagement with Tokyo signals a different approach. Lee accused Yoon of ignoring the crimes Japan committed against South Korea in the 1930s and ’40s and of bowing and scraping before Japan’s current government. We should also expect Lee will support deeper economic and diplomatic engagement with China. National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik, an ally and confidant of Lee’s, visited China in February and met with China’s President Xi Jinping. Woo used the trip to reassure Xi that a DP government in South Korea would privilege better relations with his country, and Xi’s decision to meet with Woo personally signaled just how happy China is to hear this. In the unlikely event that a court blocks Lee’s candidacy, Woo would be a formidable replacement.

Meanwhile, Yoon faces a separate criminal trial on charges of insurrection. If convicted, he could face the death penalty, but even a prison sentence will be enough to further enrage pro-Yoon protesters, who rioted in January when he was first arrested. Watching from the sidelines, policy-makers in Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, and Pyongyang are focused on both the dangers and the opportunities that South Korea’s political turmoil will create.