South Korea’s Yoon rattles economy after pledging stock market revival
Al Jazeera
South Korean leader’s bid to erase ‘Korea discount’ sputters after martial law declaration rattles markets.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – In one of his first appearances of the year, South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol pledged to boost confidence in the country’s stock market, which is famed for being undervalued compared with its peers.
As the curtain closes on 2024, Yoon has achieved the opposite, rattling markets with a short-lived declaration of martial law that has thrown Asia’s fourth-largest economy into its biggest political crisis in decades.
“South Korea is supposed to be the bulwark,” Geoffrey Cain, the author of Samsung Rising and a managing partner at Alembic Partners, told Al Jazeera, describing the country as an exception to rising authoritarianism in a region where China’s influence looms large over economies from Hong Kong to Taiwan.
“But even its economy is not safe from political interference. Martial law spooked the markets and this shows that South Korea is not as stable as market analysts often assume.”
With the National Assembly poised to vote on Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday, the president’s future hangs in the balance.
