Geopolitics & Resilience
2026-04-26
11 minute read
16 sources
South Korea After the Reset: Lee Jae-myung, Chip Sovereignty, and BoK Normalization
Six hours of martial law on December 3, 2024, ended a presidency, reshuffled the chip race, and forced the Bank of Korea into a faster pivot than its dot plot anticipated. The Lee Jae-myung administration inherits an economy with semiconductor exports up 43.9 percent year on year, a won at 1,470 versus the dollar, the world's lowest fertility rate at 0.75, and a chaebol governance docket that the Democratic Party caucus has been drafting for two years. The reset is real, the runway is short.
On December 3, 2024, President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law at 22:23 KST. The National Assembly convened, voted 190 to 0 to lift the decree by 04:30 KST, and impeached Yoon on December 14 by 204 to 85. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo served as acting president until his own impeachment on December 27, after which Finance Minister Choi S...