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2022 New Government Foreign Policy Proposals: Rebuilding the New Government's Symbiotic Diplomacy
| The East Asia Institute (EAI) has prepared foreign policy proposals for the new government for the third time, following 2012 and 2017. The new government in 2022 will face external challenges such as the high waves of US-China strategic competition, North Korea's nuclear and missile development pressure, conflicting Korea-Japan relations, and competition to rebuild the international order after COVID-19. The nine authors urge the next government to overcome these external difficulties through 'symbiotic diplomacy' that actively utilizes the standards of the 21st-century new civilization. This book does not remain in unrealistic discourse but focuses on the realistic policies that the Republic of Korea should pursue over the next four years. "The Next Five Years of the New Government: How Should We View Them?" The five years of the new government, launching in 2022, will face unprecedented turbulent challenges on a global, Asia-Pacific, and Korean Peninsula scale. Globally, the post-COVID order will be reorganized, and in the Asia-Pacific region, fierce strategic competition between the United States and China will unfold. Korea-Japan relations will continue to face difficulties without finding an easy breakthrough, and the two Koreas will wander in search of an answer to the difficult task of simultaneously resolving North Korea's complete denuclearization and guaranteeing its complete survival and prosperity. "Leading Symbiotic Diplomacy" As a developed middle power, South Korea must pursue leading symbiotic diplomacy. To this end, it must establish institutional conditions for integrated responses within a macro framework across various issue areas such as health, climate, and food development, and reorganize its diplomatic system to incorporate multi-level interactions, including bilateral, regional, and global cooperation with major powers, to expand and strengthen a 'symbiotic complex network'. |
This book presents eight major strategies and a total of 24 policy tasks, including diplomacy towards the US, China, North Korea, Japan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights and values, trade and technology, and global cooperation. The main contents of each chapter are as follows.
Chapter 1 (Ha Young-sun)emphasizes that the new government, launched in 2022, must rebuild 'symbiotic diplomacy' that goes beyond the old diplomacy of past governments. Symbiotic diplomacy must simultaneously address four major tasks: complexifying diplomacy towards the US and China, finding a 21st-century solution to North Korea's denuclearization and North Korean issues, a new conception of Korea-Japan diplomacy, and leading diplomacy that will drive the tasks of symbiosis to be emphasized as new civilizational standards for the post-COVID order.
Chapter 2 (Jeon Jae-seong)examines the long-term historical significance and sustainability of the diplomatic grand strategy pursued by the Biden administration in designing future Korea-US relations, and the strategic factors that South Korea can leverage. The next government faces the tasks of clarifying its position on regional and global governance aligned with South Korea's values, expressing a sophisticated and future-oriented stance based on national interest calculations separate from values in the US-China strategic competition, and pursuing concrete measures for Korea-US technology cooperation from a pragmatic perspective, as well as cooperation between Korea and the US for North Korea's denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula. To this end, it is expected to form an alliance with the US Biden administration in a broader range of fields.
Chapter 3 (Lee Dong-ryul)examines the 'three major divergences' that are changing the nature of Korea-China relations: the widening power gap between the two countries, the divergence in systems and values, and the divergence in government and policy cycles. It also presents four major tasks for resolving these issues and redesigning Korea-China relations. On a bilateral level, there is the task of creating new momentum for economic cooperation and managing the deterioration of negative sentiment between the two peoples. On a multilateral level, there is the issue of managing the impact of US-China competition on the Korean Peninsula and the resulting expansion of conflict between the two countries.
Chapter 4 (Kim Byung-yeon, Ha Young-sun)propose a new conception of North Korea policy for North Korean denuclearization and 21st-century survival and prosperity. The success of North Korean denuclearization within the term of the next government is highly likely, and the volatility of North Korea and the Korean Peninsula will increase daily. This chapter proposes a new conception of North Korean denuclearization and North Korea's survival and prosperity, as well as institutional improvements for a new North Korea policy, through the comprehensive pursuit of four major complex strategies (sanctions, deterrence, engagement, self-help) for North Korea's denuclearization and North Korea policy that the new government should pursue in this environment.
Chapter 5 (Sohn Yeol)examines the Japan policy that the new government should pursue amidst the worsening Korea-Japan relations that show no signs of improvement. The new government must look towards 2030-2050 for the rebuilding of Korea-Japan relations and must coolly assess Japan's strategic value to rebuild these relations. Furthermore, the two countries must adopt an approach of resolving common challenges at regional and global levels and must maintain a sense of balance amidst the intensifying US-China competition.
Chapter 6 (Park Jae-jeok)projects the strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific region and, to propose policies accordingly, explains the US Indo-Pacific policy inherited and developed through the Obama and Trump administrations to the Biden administration, while also examining the policy responses of the Moon Jae-in administration. Furthermore, amidst the escalating geopolitical competition between the US and China, the new government should consider South Korea's appropriate position not in terms of choosing sides between the US and China, but within the security networks led by China and the US.
Chapter 7 (Kim Heon-jun)examines South Korea's role in the establishment of values and norms. The new government must establish universal and international norms and principles that South Korean diplomacy will pursue within a broad framework based on our domestic values and norms such as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and market economy, and pursue them consistently. South Korea needs to take a leading role in setting its own agenda and enhancing its influence by promptly and actively participating in the "Summit for Democracy" or the "Democracy 10 (D10)", and must actively participate in the process of establishing international norms and international law led by the United States.
Chapter 8 (Lee Seung-ju)proposes a multidimensional response to the reorganization of supply chains due to US-China strategic competition and the uncertainty of trade order caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. South Korea's next government should establish systematic response strategies for strengthening international cooperation at bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels, and for linking economy and security at the domestic institutional level.
Chapter 9 (Kim Tae-gyun)develops a new cooperative diplomacy strategy for South Korea amidst intensifying US-China strategic competition and the emergence of new security issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As the COVID-19 issue expands beyond a simple health crisis to broader crises in food, climate, and environment, becoming a new security issue, global governance is likely to become a product of strategic competition between the US and China, and the subsequent global order and response will be 'democracy versus totalitarianism.' The new government must redefine South Korea's position in cooperative diplomacy and present an integrated diplomatic strategy that links various issue areas.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1: Rebuilding the New Government's Symbiotic Diplomacy ■ Ha Young-sun
Chapter 2: Policy Towards the US: Tasks for the New Government for a Comprehensive ROK-US Alliance ■ Jeon Jae-seong
Chapter 3: Policy Towards China: Rebuilding Korea-China Relations Through Future-Oriented Pragmatic Diplomacy ■ Lee Dong-ryul
Chapter 4: Policy Towards North Korea: A New Conception for North Korean Denuclearization and 21st-Century Survival and Prosperity ■ Kim Byung-yeon, Ha Young-sun
Chapter 5: Policy Towards Japan: Rebuilding Korea-Japan Relations with a Long-Term Perspective for the Next Century ■ Sohn Yeol
Chapter 6: Indo-Pacific Regional Policy ■ Park Jae-jeok
Chapter 7: Values and Norms Diplomacy: South Korean Diplomacy Amidst US-China Confrontation Over Human Rights and Democracy ■ Kim Heon-jun
Chapter 8: Multidimensional Response to Changes in the 21st-Century Global Trade Order ■ Lee Seung-ju
Chapter 9: New Cooperative Diplomacy in the Era of Global Pandemic ■ Kim Tae-gyun
*This text is an AI translation of an original written in Korean. Some translations or nuances may be inaccurate.