Why Democracy Is Still Winning in Korea | Eye on Korea Ep. 39

South Korea’s democracy has weathered stress tests few others have—moving from a night of martial law to a presidential impeachment and a snap election—causing the V-Dem’s 2025 report to downgrade the country from “liberal democracy” to “electoral democracy” amid a broader democratic retreat.

Derek Mitchell, former U.S. Ambassador to Burma and former President of the National Democratic Institute, argues that South Korea is demonstrating precisely what a strong democracy is capable of through accountability, reforms, and transparency. Mitchell also widens the lens to the global picture, weighing the forces that could threaten a worldwide tide of democratic decline and the resilience of democracies like South Korea and Taiwan as geostrategic competition in Northeast Asia intensifies.

The conversation also examines how South Korea is managing U.S.-China competition, from the weaponization of trade to the prospect of a Taiwan contingency, U.S. expectations of South Korea in a regional conflict, and the priorities underlying the Trump administration’s call for alliance modernization.

The episode also includes discussion on the warm South Korea-Japan relationship, the more fraught state of South Korea-China ties, defense exports, North Korea, and more.

[This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

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