[EAI Working Paper] 2022 EAI New Administration Foreign Policy Recommendations Series ①_Introduction: Rebuilding a Cooperative Diplomacy for the New Administration

[Editor's Note]

In this working paper, Ha Young-sun, Chairman of the East Asia Institute (Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University), emphasizes that the new administration, launching in 2022, must rebuild a 'cooperative diplomacy' that transcends the old diplomacy of past governments. The author argues that the next administration must successfully address four major tasks: the complexification of diplomacy towards the US and China, the denuclearization of North Korea and a 21st-century resolution to the North Korean issue, a new vision for Korea-Japan diplomacy, and a leading diplomacy that will guide new civilizational standards for the post-COVID order.

The five-year term of the new administration, launching in 2022, will face unprecedented challenges and upheavals on a global, Asia-Pacific, and Korean Peninsula scale. Globally, the post-COVID order will be reorganized, and in the Asia-Pacific region, intense strategic competition between the US and China will unfold. Korea-Japan relations will continue to face difficulties without an easy breakthrough, and North and South Korea will struggle to find solutions to the complex problem of simultaneously achieving North Korea's complete denuclearization and guaranteeing its complete survival and prosperity.

The next administration cannot overcome the external challenges of the next five years and achieve a leap forward without rebuilding a new diplomacy, termed 'cooperative diplomacy,' which transcends the old diplomacy of past conservative and progressive governments, with a sense of urgency. Cooperative diplomacy must simultaneously address four major tasks: the complexification of diplomacy towards the US and China, the denuclearization of North Korea and a 21st-century resolution to the North Korean issue, a new vision for Korea-Japan diplomacy, and a leading diplomacy that will emphasize cooperative tasks as new civilizational standards for the post-COVID order.

1. Diplomacy Towards the US and China

Diplomacy towards the US and China is the most significant task in rebuilding the new administration's new diplomacy. The strategic competition between the US and China is the greatest variable that will determine the future of the Korean Peninsula in the 21st century. Nevertheless, current domestic discussions and policies have not significantly moved beyond 19th-century balance-of-power diplomacy, remaining at the level of 'strategic ambiguity.' To conceive and implement diplomacy towards the US and China that can efficiently achieve national interests on the Korean Peninsula in the 21st century, special attention must be paid to certain aspects.

First, the policy framework for the next five years must be rebuilt with a long-term perspective, looking at least towards the Asia-Pacific order of 2050. The United States, which has led the world order since World War II, is entering a relative decline in its global leadership cycle. By the 2030s, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be similar to that of China, around $24 trillion, and by the 2050s, their military expenditures will be balanced. (Table 1) However, the US is expected to continue playing a central role in rebuilding the world order in the mid-21st century by presenting and actively pursuing new standards for a complex 21st-century civilization. Meanwhile, China, while aspiring to build a strong socialist power surpassing the US by the mid-21st century, lacks the capacity in both hard and soft power to lead the world order in place of the US. Therefore, the new administration must first jointly participate in building the US Biden administration's new Indo-Pacific order. Simultaneously, efforts must be made to maximize the linkage between deepening the Korea-US-Japan network and expanding Korea-China cooperation.

[Table 1] Comparison of Long-term Trends in US-China GDP and Military Spending

Source: East Asia Institute 'US-China Competition 2050' (2021) & Japan Center for Economic Research 'Long-term Forecast' 2019

Second, a complex strategy must be devised to respond to the complexity of US-China relations in the 21st century. Over the next 30 years, the US and China will engage in intense competition, cooperation, and conflict across military, economic, technological, normative, and ecological diplomatic arenas. On the military front, a direct confrontation between the US and China is unlikely by the mid-21st century, as the US will maintain its military superiority over China. However, the possibility of limited military conflict exists when core national interests of the US and China clash in conflict zones in the Asia-Pacific region, necessitating a cautious approach from South Korea. The US is pursuing a US-led security network to contain China in the Indo-Pacific region. Within this network, South Korea is focusing its efforts on the ROK-US alliance for peace on the Korean Peninsula, a key conflict zone in Northeast Asia. Therefore, while participating at an appropriate level in other Indo-Pacific regions, efforts should also be made to mitigate US-China military confrontation.

On the economic front, while the US and China continue trade disputes bilaterally, they are escalating competition over the rebuilding of the global and Asia-Pacific trade order. Beyond tariff wars, both countries are increasing the linkage between economy and security, engaging in international coalition competition over supply chain restructuring in key technology and industrial sectors, thus increasing uncertainty about the rebuilding of an open global economic order. However, due to the high interdependence between the US and Chinese economies, this competition is realistically likely to unfold in a direction that seeks cooperation within limits, rather than escalating into full-blown conflict. Therefore, South Korea should leverage the Biden administration's efforts to strengthen international cooperation for supply chain restructuring to enhance its strategic value and play a central role in establishing 21st-century trade rules and norms as a middle power. It is crucial to secure a linchpin role in ensuring that the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) contribute to forming a free and open regional economic order, thus the CPTPP accession should be actively pursued. These efforts are more effectively approached within the framework of Korea-US-Japan cooperation, and expanding economic cooperation with China, such as upgrading the Korea-China FTA, is also essential.

A particularly noteworthy aspect of the new administration's policy towards the US and China is the importance of the emerging technological, normative, and ecological arenas. First, both the US and China view the advanced technology arena as key to shaping US-China relations in the 21st century. The US is pursuing international cooperation efforts to contain China, which is rapidly catching up in areas representing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as AI, 5G, big data, robotics, aerospace, and quantum computing, while China is exploring various long-term countermeasures. South Korea needs to jointly strive with the Biden administration to promote international cooperation aimed at a complete ecosystem of 'technology-production-consumption,' building upon an organic cooperation system of 'technology-production.' Simultaneously, as the global technology arena, despite fierce competition, inevitably shows interdependence, measures to integrate advanced technology cooperation between Korea and China with US-centered technological cooperation should be explored.

The democratic ideals emphasized by the US Biden administration and the 'socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era' ideology of the Chinese Xi Jinping administration are clashing fiercely in the normative arena. South Korea's normative diplomacy should consistently pursue the principles of universal values in diplomacy, based on South Korea's domestic values and norms in the 21st century, to complement the limitations of normative competition between great powers like the US and China, and to create opportunities to represent other actors on the stage. In this regard, the new administration should actively participate in the Democracy Summit or the D10 initiative actively promoted by the US Biden administration, making efforts to reflect South Korea's future-oriented values for the 21st century. Regarding normative diplomacy towards China and North Korea, it is necessary to consistently seek multilateral activities to mitigate practical difficulties.

Health issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, which are central to the ecological arena, are areas where even the US and China, engaged in fierce strategic competition, have in principle pledged cooperation. Therefore, South Korea, as a leading middle power, must actively pursue a leading diplomacy of coexistence. To this end, institutional conditions must be established to link and comprehensively respond to various issue areas such as health, climate, and food security within a macro framework. A new diplomatic system that complexifies multi-level interactions, including bilateral, regional, and global cooperation with major powers, must be organized to expand and strengthen a 'cooperative complex network.'

2. Diplomacy Towards North Korea

The new administration must pursue a 'new vision for North Korean denuclearization' and a 'new vision for the survival and prosperity of a denuclearized North Korea' to newly resolve the unfinished tasks of North Korea's denuclearization and inter-Korean relations improvement from a 21st-century perspective. The parallel efforts of North Korea to strengthen its nuclear capabilities and develop its economy will face increasing difficulties over the next five years due to international sanctions and deterrence. North Korea is currently pursuing phased trust-building and partial denuclearization through simultaneous measures but has not made a strategic decision for complete denuclearization. Instead, it is demanding concrete expressions of the US's policy of hostility towards North Korea, such as the withdrawal of US Forces Korea, nuclear disarmament talks, and the lifting of international economic sanctions, to guarantee its complete right to survival and development.

To resolve the issue of North Korean denuclearization from a 21st-century perspective, first, sanctions and deterrence must be continued effectively to maximize the costs of North Korea's nuclear armament buildup. Second, negotiations for a freeze on nuclear activities, a stage of partial denuclearization, should be pursued as an intermediate step, with declarations and verifications necessary to ensure sincerity for complete denuclearization. Third, the right to survival and development of a denuclearized North Korea must be guaranteed through the cooperation of relevant parties and international organizations. Specifically, support for technology, advanced human resource development, and accession to international financial institutions should be provided, contributing to the leap forward of the North Korean economy through the provision of tangible and intangible infrastructure, and future-oriented North Korea policies should be pursued with a view to the division of labor and integration of the economies of North and South Korea, including the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Fourth, the most crucial factor for North Korean denuclearization in the end is North Korea's own autonomous decision. To this end, informatization is essential to enable North Korea to accurately calculate the gains and losses of nuclearization or denuclearization in terms of its core national interests in the 21st century. Therefore, South Korea and relevant parties must jointly endeavor to achieve this global effort for North Korea's informatization.

3. Diplomacy Towards Japan

For the new administration's diplomacy towards Japan, a new vision for Korea-Japan relations is necessary. Historical issues between Korea and Japan, such as comfort women and forced mobilization, are best resolved with a long-term perspective of a hundred years, within the context of continuous national strength enhancement and the active utilization of new 21st-century civilizational standards. Therefore, avoiding the pitfalls of past governments, the next administration should initially conclude the issues of comfort women by respecting past agreements and implementing follow-up measures, and for the issue of forced mobilization, it should be settled by a presidential decision and declaration that no further monetary demands will be made on Japan.

The pending issues between Korea and Japan are not merely matters of bilateral cooperation and conflict but will significantly influence the construction of the Korea-US-Japan network, which will form the cornerstone of the rebuilding Asia-Pacific order. Therefore, the next administration must make efforts to maximize joint construction with Japan on the stages of competition, cooperation, and conflict in the Asia-Pacific region. Utilizing frameworks such as the CPTPP, Quad Plus, and the Indo-Pacific Strategy, mutual trust and interests should be restored and enhanced through joint responses with Japan in areas such as trade, advanced technology, climate change, health, and cybersecurity. In terms of security, the trilateral cooperation among Korea, the US, and Japan should be restored and strengthened, while careful coordination with Japan is necessary to ensure it does not escalate into military containment of China and remains compatible with the Korea-China cooperation network.

It is difficult to find a breakthrough in Korea-Japan relations as long as both countries attempt to find solutions from the perspective of exclusive modern nationalism. Therefore, a longer-term perspective is needed. South Korea must make long-term efforts to structurally overcome modern competition and conflict between Korea and Japan by rapidly improving the asymmetry of power through efforts to advance civilization in the 21st century. Simultaneously, both South Korea and Japan must move beyond exclusive national identities centered on their own countries and strive to form individual, regional, and global complex identities. To this end, in addition to domestic efforts in both countries, joint efforts are needed to lead the regional competition between the US and China towards coexistence rather than conflict, and to embrace other actors as middle powers in the Asia-Pacific order.

4. Leading Diplomacy in the Post-COVID Era

To ascend to the ranks of joint protagonists in the reconstruction of a new 21st-century civilization, which will rapidly and fully unfold in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, the new administration must proactively conceive and implement a cooperative diplomacy befitting the new era of complexification. To this end, three major complexification tasks must be undertaken. First, the complexification of actors must be actively pursued. The global spread of COVID-19 and the issue of vaccine supply have confirmed the contradictions and flaws of neoliberal globalization while also clearly demonstrating the dangers of anti-globalization. Therefore, South Korea must play a leading role amidst the emphasis on the necessity of reglobalization in the post-COVID era, and also re-emerge as a protagonist in cyberspace as a leader in information technology. On the other hand, COVID-19 has spurred active discussions reflecting on the excessive anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene, where humanity significantly impacts the global ecosystem. South Korea must also pay attention to the importance of these discussions and make efforts to proactively consider the coexistence of complex actors emerging in the new 21st-century civilization.

Second, it is about jointly participating in the reconstruction for the complexification of stages. The nation-centered stage of building national power and wealth in the modern international order has ultimately led to world wars and economic crises, while simultaneously experiencing self-negating situations such as ecological destruction and cultural conflicts. Therefore, the new 21st-century civilization will emerge through the reconstruction of four central stages that simultaneously encompass security and prosperity, as well as ecological and cultural stages. The revolution in information and communication technology is taking root as the underlying stage that is reshaping these four central stages. Finally, the need for an upper stage of co-governance, where all actors on the stage participate and complexly orchestrate the four central stages and the underlying stage, is rapidly increasing. South Korea, as an advanced middle power situated at the crossroads of East and West, must participate jointly in the reconstruction process of this new 21st-century civilization stage, from design to completion.

Third, the complexification of acting must be pursued. The protagonists of the modern international order have fundamentally followed the principle of competition on the stage of building national power and wealth, while engaging in minimal cooperation to prevent the maximization of conflicts such as war and poverty. However, the protagonists of the new 21st-century civilization stage must simultaneously engage in complex acting that goes beyond the simple modern acting of competition, conflict, and cooperation. For the reconstruction of the new 21st-century civilization, protagonists must engage in cooperative acting for mutual evolution alongside other actors on the stage, while making continuous autonomous efforts for self-reorganization to survive and prosper individually.

In conclusion, the new administration's new cooperative diplomacy must successfully address the four major tasks: the complexification of diplomacy towards the US and China, a new vision for Korea-Japan diplomacy, a 21st-century resolution to North Korea's denuclearization and the North Korean issue, and a leading diplomacy that will guide new civilizational standards for the post-COVID order. If so, just as BTS captivates the world as vanguards of the new 21st-century civilization, South Korea can emerge as a new attractive nation of the 21st-century civilization. ■

■ Author: Ha Young-sun _Chairman of EAI, Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University. He earned a Ph.D. in International Politics from the University of Washington, USA, and has served as a professor in the Department of Diplomacy at Seoul National University, a visiting fellow at the Princeton University Center for International Studies, a visiting fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Director of the Seoul National University Institute of International Affairs, Director of the Institute for American Studies, President of the Korean Peace Studies Association, Co-Chair of the Korean side for the Joint Research Committee for a New Era of Korea-Japan Relations, a member of the Presidential National Security Advisory Council, and a senior advisor to the preparatory committee for inter-Korean summit meetings. He is currently serving as Chairman of EAI and Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University. His recent books and edited volumes include <World Politics of Love: War and Peace>, <A Correct View of Korean Diplomatic History: Tradition and Modernity>, <US-China Competition in Building the Asia-Pacific Order>, and <International Politics of Four Travels: Analysis of Joseon Tongsinsa and Yeonhaengrok Records from the 16th-19th Centuries>. He also wrote a column titled 'Ha Young-sun's Column' for the Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo for seven years.

■ Contact and Editing: Baek Jin-kyung Director of Research, EAI

Contact: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 209) | j.baek@eai.or.kr