South Korea introduced its new Indo-Pacific strategy on Wednesday, embracing the economic and security concept that Washington has championed and prioritizing cooperation with the U.S. and Japan to counter North Korean threats.
The Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s new “Strategy for a Free, Peaceful, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region” labels Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development as a “serious threat” to peace and stability and notably calls for the denuclearization of the DPRK, rather than the Korean Peninsula.
“The complete denuclearization of North Korea is critical for maintaining sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula, in East Asia and in the world at large,” it states, a departure from language used by the previous Moon Jae-in administration and in joint statements following Yoon’s summits this year.
The document also emphasizes Seoul’s leadership in bolstering nonproliferation efforts across the Indo-Pacific, language that one expert says seeks to head off any domestic efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
“The greatest impact of this overt focus [on nonproliferation] is not North Korea, but rather South Korea,” Jeffrey Robertson, an associate professor of diplomatic studies at Seoul’s Yonsei University, told NK News. “The focus places a clear constraint on the growing domestic push to secure an independent nuclear weapons capacity.”
Robertson said the strategy’s goal of exploring a “regional crisis management system” could prove particularly useful in deterring North Korea’s nuclear threat by bringing in more stakeholders, stressing that Seoul should have pursued wider collaboration long ago.
“This has great potential as a middle power initiative and would take steps toward ‘internationalizing’ the challenge of North Korea — beyond the self-interested six parties,” he said.
Despite the emphasis on wider regional cooperation, the strategy specifically prioritizes South Korea’s long-standing alliance with Washington and Tokyo as central to dealing with North Korea.
“Based on the ROK-U.S. Alliance, we will maintain and strengthen our robust combined defense posture against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, while expanding ROK-U.S.-Japan trilateral security cooperation to reinforce our capability to safeguard peace,” it says.
The White House welcomed the new strategy and said it demonstrates the Yoon administration’s commitment to upholding universal values and working with other countries.
“The ROK’s goal to expand its cooperation with other allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific will strengthen our shared ability to advance international peace, security and promote nuclear nonproliferation,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a press release. “The strategy will also enhance the region’s economic security networks, cooperation in science and technology and engagement on climate change and energy security.”
But while Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy is largely focused on containing China, South Korea’s version makes relatively little mention of its larger neighbor, while pushing for a “sounder and more mature relationship” with Beijing.
It also avoids directly linking ties with China with its call for international cooperation on North Korea, despite both Washington and Seoul’s past calls for Beijing to do more to convince Pyongyang to denuclearize.
Robertson says this is not surprising and reflects Seoul and Beijing’s usual approach of “quiet diplomacy” on North Korea, in which “positions are not declared publicly.” He adds that in some cases this can boost engagement and even “achieve substantially greater results” than more overt collaboration.
On the whole, however, he emphasizes that the new strategy’s “real test” lies in Seoul’s ability to work with newer partners on Korean Peninsula matters.
“As a middle power vis-a-vis the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, it is in South Korea’s interests to again make it an international issue where it can work with like-minded powers to better secure its interests,” he said.
Beyond regional collaboration in the North Pacific with the likes of the U.S., Japan and China, the strategy promotes the development of “a network of strategic partnerships” across South and Southeast Asia, Oceania, the African Coast of the Indian Ocean, Europe and Latin America, as part of the administration’s push for global cooperation. It also calls for boosting cooperation in maritime security and emerging areas such as space, cyber and health security.
“The Yoon Suk Yeol government’s Indo-Pacific strategy will become a milestone in securing the values and national interests sought by the Republic of Korea and in expanding the horizon of our foreign policy in an Indo-Pacific region whose strategic importance is growing by the day and where causes for challenges lie,” the presidential office said in a press release Wednesday.
Edited by Bryan Betts
