South Korea's Yoon to face major hurdles in expanding agenda within emerging US-led blocs after election defeat

Following his conservative party's disastrous defeat at this week's parliamentary elections, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol faces significant setbacks in expanding the country's roles within emerging US-led regional blocs aimed at countering an assertive China, analysts say.

Yoon's ruling People Power Party garnered 108 seats, trailing far behind the liberal Democratic Party of Korea which secured a comfortable majority with 175 seats in the 300-strong parliament. Voter turnout was 67 per cent, the highest in 32 years.

The splinter liberal Rebuild Korea Party bagged 12 seats, emerging as the third-largest entity in the National Assembly since its creation last month with a call for swift corruption and power abuse probes into the Yoon administration.

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Yoon's diplomatic agenda revolves around strengthening alliances with the United States and fostering closer ties with Japan, criticising the previous liberal government for perceived leniency towards North Korea and excessive deference to Chinese economic coercion.

With a hostile parliament now armed with a new mandate, analysts expect formidable hurdles for Yoon in implementing his presumed pro-market reforms in labour, national pension fund and education.

While Yoon retains presidential executive orders and veto powers to navigate an opposition-controlled parliament, his electoral defeat undermines his authority within the administration and diminishes his influence over lawmakers from his party, according to observers.

Despite these challenges, Yoon was likely to persist with his diplomatic approach, aligning Seoul closer to the US and Japan amid the North's nuclear posturing and China's growing influence while the war continued in Ukraine, they said.

Critics have argued for a more balanced approach between the South's traditional allies and China, accusing Yoon of unnecessarily antagonising the country's largest trade partner and inadvertently pushing Pyongyang deeper into Beijing's sphere of influence.

South Korea's constitution grants exclusive authority to the president in foreign affairs, limiting the National Assembly's influence in this realm.

Yoon promised on Thursday to reform state affairs following the poll drubbing that also triggered the resignation of PPP leader Han Dong-hoon.

"I will humbly honour the will of the people expressed in the general election, reform the state affairs, and do my best to stabilise the economy and people's livelihood," Yoon said, according to his chief of staff Lee Kwan-sup.

In addition to Han, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and a string of senior aides also offered to step down, local media said.

Democratic Party's leader Lee Jae-myung's hailed the result as "a great victory for the people".

"Politicians on both sides of the aisle must pool our strength to deal with the current economic crisis. The Democratic Party will lead the way in solving the livelihood crisis," Lee told reporters on Thursday.

Some critics said Yoon's leadership style, shaped by his background as a prosecutor, fostered a simplistic "friend-or-foe" world view that hampered nuanced diplomacy.

"He can't afford to risk losing his last support base by attempting to soften his stance towards the North and China," political science expert professor Lee Jun-han at Incheon National University said.

But professor Park Won-gon of Ewha University said the president's efforts in advancing his diplomatic agenda could suffer a setback due to a hostile parliament.

"In light of Yoon's stubborn style, there won't be significant changes in his diplomatic approach, but we can't rule out the possibility that his policies will lose much of their steam following the election defeat," Park told This Week in Asia.

While Park agreed that widespread sentiment against an assertive Beijing could limit the opposition-controlled parliament to tamper Yoon's stance, he said the president might face heightened scrutiny over his handling of sensitive historical issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, such as the "comfort women" controversies.

On the eve of Wednesday's elections, Yoon visited the Yellow Sea and called for the coastguard to crack down hard on Chinese vessels poaching blue crabs, underscoring his firm stance against Beijing.

Aboard a coastguard vessel, he accused the previous liberal government of turning a blind eye to the poaching by Chinese vessels for fear of harming relations with China.

"North Korea, which has a military alliance with China, also strongly cracks down on illegal fishing by Chinese vessels, but the previous government failed to crack down properly because it was concerned about its relations with China, causing great damage to our fishermen," he said.

Professor Park said South Korea was in a dilemma. While it has been roped into growing US-led regional security blocs, it needs to avoid further alienating China.

The US, the UK and Australia are reportedly considering South Korea, Canada and New Zealand as well as Japan as potential partners for advanced capability projects of their Aukus security agreement.

"The US is set to start in earnest the fundamental realignment of its regional alliances" under which "hub-and-spoke" style bilateral alliances centred on Washington would be replaced by a "latticework" of various mini alliances with participants playing more equal roles in the Indo-Pacific region, Park said.

The summit between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio on Wednesday marked the start of such efforts, he noted.

Kim Joon-hyung, former head of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, last month called on the Yoon government to stop sacrificing national interest to pursue an ideology-oriented policy at a time of mounting US-China strategic confrontation.

"We cannot engage in ideological battles when our survival and national interests are more urgent than ever," said Kim who was also elected as a member of the Rebuild Korea Party at the elections.

"South Korea has lost much of its ability to play a key role on the international stage due to its biased diplomacy looking only to the US and Japan," he said.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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