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Peter Lewis: Asia Business Correspondent on the move to impeach President Yoon · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
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  Speaker 2: Peter Lewis our Asia Business correspondents with us now at
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  Speaker 2: Peter Hello, Hello, So where are we with the impeachment proceedings.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the votes was due to be tomorrow, but right
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  Speaker 3: now there is a meeting going on between the leaders
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  Speaker 3: of President Eunon's People's Power Party and the presidents himself.
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  Speaker 3: It looks like the leader of the president's own party
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  Speaker 3: is going to vote for him to be impeached or
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  Speaker 3: he can't himself, but is calling for his own MPs
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  Speaker 3: to actually vote for the impeachment because he says there
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  Speaker 3: is a risk that President Yun could try and impose
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  Speaker 3: martial law again. Now, the deputy Defence Minister, who's taken
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  Speaker 3: over since the Defense Minister himself resigned, denies that's true.
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  Speaker 3: But the leader of the ruling president's party is saying
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  Speaker 3: he had evidence that President Yun planned to arrest and
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  Speaker 3: detain MPs on the floor of the Assembly on Tuesday night,
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  Speaker 3: and he says there's a real risk that this could
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  Speaker 3: happen again. And this is a president who absolutely needs
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  Speaker 3: to be removed from power soon to protect democracy in
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  Speaker 3: South Korea. To win the impeachment vote, the opposition parties
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  Speaker 3: don't have enough votes on their own. They need eight
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  Speaker 3: members of the governing party to cross the floor and
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  Speaker 3: vote with them, and it was thought originally that they
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  Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to get them to do that. But
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  Speaker 3: now after this intervention from the head of the ruling party,
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  Speaker 3: it seems much more likely that the impeachment vote will succeed,
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  Speaker 3: and I think if it doesn't, we could well see
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  Speaker 3: protests and demonstrators out on the streets over the weekend.
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  Speaker 2: How on earth would he have justified this move to
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  Speaker 2: himself because it looks I mean, it's such an outlandish
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  Speaker 2: thing to do.
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  Speaker 3: It is, and it's hard to imagine what he was
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  Speaker 3: thinking at the time. I mean, this is a president
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  Speaker 3: who is deeply unpopular. He only just scraped into power
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  Speaker 3: in the general election. He won by about three quarters
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  Speaker 3: of one percent of the votes. He's a lamed at president.
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  Speaker 3: He can't rule because the opposition parties control Parliament, so
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  Speaker 3: many of his measures failed to get through, and he
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  Speaker 3: in turn vetoes any measures proposed by the opposition party.
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  Speaker 3: So if there were to be a general election. Again,
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  Speaker 3: it's quite possible that he would be voted voted out.
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  Speaker 3: The only thing I can think maybe was going through
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  Speaker 3: his mind was he must have known that MPs could
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  Speaker 3: overturn the impeachments, so maybe he thought he could gain
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  Speaker 3: control of Parliament and stop MP's voting. And we've heard
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  Speaker 3: that the head of the Defense Forces that was sent
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  Speaker 3: to Parliament along with his troops only learned about the
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  Speaker 3: marshal Law declaration on television and when he got to
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  Speaker 3: the floor of Parliament he refused to arrest MPs on
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  Speaker 3: the floor. So it could be the President Yun thought
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  Speaker 3: that the Defense Minister and troops will be able to
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  Speaker 3: stop any sort of vote to overturn this. But that failed,
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  Speaker 3: but clearly a totally botched attempt, and the rest of
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  Speaker 3: the world in turn looks on a ghast. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we had martial law in effects for six hours, maybe
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  Speaker 3: the shortest period of martial law in history. But nevertheless
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  Speaker 3: it looks totally chaotic, not the sort of thing you
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  Speaker 3: expect to see in a developed economy here too.
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  Speaker 2: Right, hey, explain to me quickly, how is the EU
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  Speaker 2: going to crack down on TMU and shine.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're going to start cracking down first of all,
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  Speaker 3: on the exemptions that they get for these small packages
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  Speaker 3: that they're a to send over to the EU. And
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  Speaker 3: this is how Tima and Shine in effect make their
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  Speaker 3: money because they get around customs checks and various taxes
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  Speaker 3: as they do in the US, by making sure that
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  Speaker 3: the parcels are below a certain limits and therefore they
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  Speaker 3: don't get inspected. But the EU says this means that
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  Speaker 3: a lot of things that are really banned in the
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  Speaker 3: EU get through, things like dangerous toys, for example, are
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  Speaker 3: shipped over because they're below this one hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 3: euro threshold for customs duties. So I think what they're
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  Speaker 3: going to do is lower that threshold and try and
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  Speaker 3: make sure that they get caught in this tax net
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  Speaker 3: to try and stop some of these some of these
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  Speaker 3: shipments being made to the EU. Very similar process to
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  Speaker 3: what the US is talking about doing as well with
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  Speaker 3: Timu and Shine.
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  Speaker 2: Very interesting stuff, I really really interesting. Crackdown on it, Peter, listen,
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  Speaker 2: thank you very much, and go well, I have a
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  Speaker 2: good risk of the year and we'll check you.
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  Speaker 3: In the new year.
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  Speaker 2: Well at some stage, look after yourself. That's Peter Lewis,
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  Speaker 2: our Asia Business correspondent out of Hong Kong.
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