Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, used a largely successful summit with U.S. President Joe Biden over the weekend to lay the foundation for his goal of enabling South Korea to play a more active role around the world.

Inaugurated on May 10, Yoon has said his main foreign policy goal will be to make South Korea a “global pivotal state” with a focus on promoting freedom, peace, and prosperity based on its liberal democratic values and cooperation.

Biden had called for like-minded democratic democracies to collaborate. This allowed the pair to agree to a remarkable number of cooperation areas. Yoon also highlighted how he sees U.S. closer ties as a path to global engagement.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo from the Brussels School of Governance, Korea chair said that Yoon had clearly used this visit to push his ‘global pivotal’ state agenda.

The two leaders signalled in a summit joint statement support for Biden’s framework for economic cooperation in Asia even before it was unveiled, pledged cooperation on everything from international cooperation on nuclear power to cybersecurity, and included mentions of the Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pacheco Pardo stated that although the language regarding Taiwan and South China Sea is not significantly different from Yoon’s cautious and liberal predecessor Moon Jaein, it could be changing.

He said, “I believe that Yoon will join condemnation China as part or groups of like-minded nations in due course.”

Pacheco Pardo doubted that South Korea would change its current policy of providing non-lethal support to Ukraine. He also stated that NATO was not pressing the Asian partner for weapons.

Other analysts, however, saw indications that Yoon’s language regarding Ukraine might be laying the groundwork to increase aid.

Washington sees Ukraine as a test case for their coalition of countries with similar values. So I would not be surprised to hear more about South Korea’s aid,” Mason Richey of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Seoul said.

Yoon could be more vocal in support of Ukraine, as well as improving relations with Japan, which is a key area where he may differ greatly from his predecessor. Both will do well in Washington.

CHINA’S SSHADOOW

North Korea’s increased weapons testing threatens to undermine Yoon’s attempts to look beyond the peninsula, however, and like Biden, he will have to prove to the domestic audience that foreign engagement is improving lives at home.

Pacheco Pardo stated that Yoon’s commitment to economic cooperation and the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity was especially notable. This programme, which Biden started in Japan Monday and aims to strengthen regional countries through common standards, including in areas like supply-chain resilience, clean electricity, infrastructure, digital trade and other issues, is particularly important.

He said, “Joining IPEF in my view is more important than what we may realize because China explicitly requested Korea not to.”

China is South Korea’s most important trading partner. South Korea has faced economic retaliation in the past for challenging China.

With these interests in mind Yoon’s team highlighted that China was not excluded from the IPEF and it was in South Korea’s national interest to take part in this type of rule-making process.

The foreign ministry stated that South Korea plans to strengthen its relationship with China via “qualitative as well as quantitative economic cooperation”.

James Kim from the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Seoul, said that while the IPEF and other efforts to create a norm-based order are partially intended to control China, by not directly mentioning China, it seemed they were trying to maintain the principle of mutual understanding.

Yoon was criticized by opposition members for risking antagonizing China. Kim however suggested that Yoon might have implicitly admitted to rising anti-China sentiments in many South Koreans.