December 13, 2024 • 6 mins
President Yoon vowed to “fight until the last moment” on Thursday, in his second public appearance since his unsuccessful martial law gambit.
Yoon lashed out at critics of his failed attempt last week to impose military rule on the country.
Han Dong-hoon, leader of the ruling People Power party, signalled he was preparing to support Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday.
On Wednesday, South Korea’s corruption investigation office for high-ranking officials reportedly said it would seek the detention and arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol if conditions are met.
Asia Business Correspondent Peter Lewis talks to Ryan Bridge.
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bryan Bridge, can we go into our Asia business correspondent
Peter Lewis. Peter, the China trade surplus the largest and five.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Months Yeah, hi Ryan, this is indeed it's growing. In fact,
it's on track to reach one trillion dollars with all
the countries in the world, and in fact, China runs
the trade surplus with nearly every single country in the world,
and there's up forty percent in November alone. I mean,
(00:28):
this is really unsustainable. It's been unsustainable for a while,
but obviously it's attracted the attention of Donald Trump, who
no doubt is ready his terriff pen for when he
gets into a power in January. He's already threatened additional
tariffs on China causes big problems for Europe. I mean,
they're being flooded with ev electric vehicle imports and their
(00:53):
own auto industry just can't compete with this flood of
Chinese goods. The way the trade surplace has come about
is because although exports grew, imports declined, So it means
that actually other countries around the world are struggling to
export their goods to China. And the reason why imports
(01:17):
have fallen in China is because a weak domestic demand.
The economy is not doing that well at the moment,
and consumers in China just don't want to go out
and spend, so as a result, there really is a
lot of sort of pent up demand, but it's not
being released now. We've just had the Chinese Economic Work Conference,
(01:39):
which is held every year, led by President hu Jinping,
and they've said they are going to make boosting domestic
demand their top priority for next year. But they did
say that a year ago as well, and we haven't
seen that happen, and they didn't provide any details of
what they were going to do to try and boost
domestic demand.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Interesting one of those countries that's affected by exactly what
you've just described. You know, obviously, we have a lot
of milk and dairy products that we've seen up to
China and that weaker demand has been affecting us massively.
It's going to South Korea. The president there still clinging
to office and refusing to resign, even though there's going
to be a vice to and picture.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, I think he's going to be out by Saturday.
They're going to hold a second impeachment vote. The first
time around, he survived by the skin of his teeth
because the opposition parties need eight members of the People
Power Party that's the ruling conservative party to cross the
aisle and join them in voting for impeachment. Now, last time,
(02:41):
the leaders of his party sort of did a deal
with him whereby, in consequence of saving him from impeachment,
he would in effect hand over his powers to admit
to his cabinets and ministers and also to the party,
and they would take over a lot of his state duties.
Now there's no constitutional arrangement that allows for that, but
(03:04):
nevertheless it seems to be agreed whereby he would be
president in name only, but wouldn't really have any powers anyway.
On Thursday, he gave a speech where he made it
clear he wasn't prepared to do any such thing. He
said he was going to fight until the last moment.
He was blaming the decision to impose military rule on
what he called anti state forces, and he suggested that
(03:27):
North Korea had helped the opposition parties secure their victory
in the parliamentary elections earlier in the year. Now, the
more this is looked into, the police are investigating to
see whether there's grounds for charging him with treason. It
looks like one of the things they discovered is that
Defense Minister, when they announced this plan for martial law,
(03:52):
sent drones into North Korea in the hope of provoking
some sort of response from the North that would then
justify the position of martial law. So really it's quite
an extraordinary situation. But it seems almost almost impossible now
for you to survive the second impeachment vote on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
What's up with this guy behind this ego on him?
What is this?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well he has actually yes, and you know, it's hard
to imagine what he was thinking of because he must
have known that the impeachment, the imposition of martial law
could be overturned by a vote in parliament, and that's
exactly what happened. Maybe he thought that that the military
(04:41):
would stop MP's getting to parliament in order to be
able to hold that vote, but in fact, the military
didn't do an awful lot to stop them, so that
that vote went ahead and it really styled his plan.
But yes, it is very difficult to imagine what an
earth was he thinking of here, because certainly the people
of South Korea are never going to accept either this
(05:04):
new arrangement that has come up with or the imposition
of martial law. They've got a very long, sad history
of martial law in South Korea and they certainly don't
want to go back to those days.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Certainly not right. Let's move on from South Korea. Talk
about the Taiwan military on highlard at the moment because
of Chinese warship sailing near them.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yes, another set of exercises going on, quite a big
set of exercises this time, which involves ships of sailing
through the Taiwan Strait, surrounding the island, stimulating blockades and
so on. This time it's come because the Taiwanese President,
William Lai visited Guama and Hawaii on a stop off
(05:46):
to the South Pacific, and that enraged China. They really
don't like any part of America or any American state
hosting the Taiwanese president. So that's what's prompted the latest
round of maneuvers. But these are the things with these
is that they are constantly keeping Taiwan on high alert
(06:10):
because they have to respond. Their military has to check
out what's going on. You know, the planes that are
crossing the demarcation line, they have to spend a lot
of money and time on doing this, so it really
stretches Taiwan's military, and I think that is part of
the aim of China here to just try and see
how far it can go and and how much the
(06:32):
Taiwanese military is able to respond. And clearly the worry
is that one day one of these maneuvers will turn
out to be not a drill, but will actually turn
out to be the real thing, and China will go
and launch an invasion of Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Bryan Bridge, can we go into our Asia business correspondent
Peter Lewis. Peter, the China trade surplus the largest and five.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Months Yeah, hi Ryan, this is indeed it's growing. In fact,
it's on track to reach one trillion dollars with all
the countries in the world, and in fact, China runs
the trade surplus with nearly every single country in the world,
and there's up forty percent in November alone. I mean,
(00:28):
this is really unsustainable. It's been unsustainable for a while,
but obviously it's attracted the attention of Donald Trump, who
no doubt is ready his terriff pen for when he
gets into a power in January. He's already threatened additional
tariffs on China causes big problems for Europe. I mean,
they're being flooded with ev electric vehicle imports and their
(00:53):
own auto industry just can't compete with this flood of
Chinese goods. The way the trade surplace has come about
is because although exports grew, imports declined, So it means
that actually other countries around the world are struggling to
export their goods to China. And the reason why imports
(01:17):
have fallen in China is because a weak domestic demand.
The economy is not doing that well at the moment,
and consumers in China just don't want to go out
and spend, so as a result, there really is a
lot of sort of pent up demand, but it's not
being released now. We've just had the Chinese Economic Work Conference,
(01:39):
which is held every year, led by President hu Jinping,
and they've said they are going to make boosting domestic
demand their top priority for next year. But they did
say that a year ago as well, and we haven't
seen that happen, and they didn't provide any details of
what they were going to do to try and boost
domestic demand.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Interesting one of those countries that's affected by exactly what
you've just described. You know, obviously, we have a lot
of milk and dairy products that we've seen up to
China and that weaker demand has been affecting us massively.
It's going to South Korea. The president there still clinging
to office and refusing to resign, even though there's going
to be a vice to and picture.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, I think he's going to be out by Saturday.
They're going to hold a second impeachment vote. The first
time around, he survived by the skin of his teeth
because the opposition parties need eight members of the People
Power Party that's the ruling conservative party to cross the
aisle and join them in voting for impeachment. Now, last time,
(02:41):
the leaders of his party sort of did a deal
with him whereby, in consequence of saving him from impeachment,
he would in effect hand over his powers to admit
to his cabinets and ministers and also to the party,
and they would take over a lot of his state duties.
Now there's no constitutional arrangement that allows for that, but
(03:04):
nevertheless it seems to be agreed whereby he would be
president in name only, but wouldn't really have any powers anyway.
On Thursday, he gave a speech where he made it
clear he wasn't prepared to do any such thing. He
said he was going to fight until the last moment.
He was blaming the decision to impose military rule on
what he called anti state forces, and he suggested that
(03:27):
North Korea had helped the opposition parties secure their victory
in the parliamentary elections earlier in the year. Now, the
more this is looked into, the police are investigating to
see whether there's grounds for charging him with treason. It
looks like one of the things they discovered is that
Defense Minister, when they announced this plan for martial law,
(03:52):
sent drones into North Korea in the hope of provoking
some sort of response from the North that would then
justify the position of martial law. So really it's quite
an extraordinary situation. But it seems almost almost impossible now
for you to survive the second impeachment vote on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
What's up with this guy behind this ego on him?
What is this?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well he has actually yes, and you know, it's hard
to imagine what he was thinking of because he must
have known that the impeachment, the imposition of martial law
could be overturned by a vote in parliament, and that's
exactly what happened. Maybe he thought that that the military
(04:41):
would stop MP's getting to parliament in order to be
able to hold that vote, but in fact, the military
didn't do an awful lot to stop them, so that
that vote went ahead and it really styled his plan.
But yes, it is very difficult to imagine what an
earth was he thinking of here, because certainly the people
of South Korea are never going to accept either this
(05:04):
new arrangement that has come up with or the imposition
of martial law. They've got a very long, sad history
of martial law in South Korea and they certainly don't
want to go back to those days.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Certainly not right. Let's move on from South Korea. Talk
about the Taiwan military on highlard at the moment because
of Chinese warship sailing near them.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yes, another set of exercises going on, quite a big
set of exercises this time, which involves ships of sailing
through the Taiwan Strait, surrounding the island, stimulating blockades and
so on. This time it's come because the Taiwanese President,
William Lai visited Guama and Hawaii on a stop off
(05:46):
to the South Pacific, and that enraged China. They really
don't like any part of America or any American state
hosting the Taiwanese president. So that's what's prompted the latest
round of maneuvers. But these are the things with these
is that they are constantly keeping Taiwan on high alert
(06:10):
because they have to respond. Their military has to check
out what's going on. You know, the planes that are
crossing the demarcation line, they have to spend a lot
of money and time on doing this, so it really
stretches Taiwan's military, and I think that is part of
the aim of China here to just try and see
how far it can go and and how much the
(06:32):
Taiwanese military is able to respond. And clearly the worry
is that one day one of these maneuvers will turn
out to be not a drill, but will actually turn
out to be the real thing, and China will go
and launch an invasion of Taiwan.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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