South Korea’s Foreign Policy in Changing Times: Reversing Course?
Sang-Yoon Ma
Abstract:
The tragedy currently unfolding in Ukraine may be a symptom of new dynamics in global geopolitics. The changing balance of power epitomized by the rise of China and the shrinking American interest and resolve in asserting its traditional global role has emboldened Putin’s ambition to restore the past glory of the Russian empire. The same dynamics have also made geopolitics acuter in East Asia, from which South Korea can never be free. The COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 has only accelerated the competitive nature of international power dynamics. Faced with the broader shift in world order, how will South Korea’s foreign policy under the new government unfold? This policy brief attempts to explain the main objectives of the incoming government’s foreign policy and how these might be implemented. In so doing, it evaluates the new government’s view of the past five years of South Korean foreign policy under outgoing President Moon Jae-in – a policy which it seeks in part to reverse.
Related Publications
-
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and the IPEF: Convergence and Commonality
For some time now, the existing multilateral networks such as those of the United Nations (UN) system have been largely ineffective in providing good global governance and helping create resilience, […]
-
Risk Reduction and Crisis Management on the Korean Peninsula
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inherently intertwined with the growing instability of the East Asian security environment, where high tensions significantly increase the risk of unintended incidents and armed […]
-
Washington Declaration: Beyond Korea, What it Means for India?
In April 2023, South Korea and the United States released the Washington Declaration to reiterate and upgrade their treaty alliance. In outlining a joint nuclear deterrence strategy, the Declaration reaffirmed […]
-
Taiwan in Tokyo’s 2022 Defense White Paper: Reconfiguring Security Imperatives?
This article was originally posted on the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies (JFSS) website, you can find the article here. A few days prior to the highly controversial visit […]
-
Seoul’s Changing Indo-Pacific Manifesto and India: Policy Prescriptions for India-ROK Ties
Abstract: China’s stupendous rise and the subsequent rivalry with the US for global hegemony have forced countries to choose sides; caught between a rock and a hard place, middle powers […]
-
The Global South Scaled in Japan’s New Outreach
The “Global South” is no longer just a growing buzzword confined to academic publications but has found increasing resonance in strategic circles. Even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine consolidated the […]