Revitalization of Korean diplomacy under President Yoon

By Yun Byung-se

Last week marked the first anniversary of President Yoon Suk Yeol's presidency. It is no surprise that the most favorable approval ratings came from his performance in foreign policy and security-related matters. He himself highlighted major achievements made in these areas in a recent cabinet meeting.

His first summit meeting was with President Joe Biden last year in Seoul, which came on the heels of his inauguration less than two weeks before. He then attended the NATO summit in Madrid in June as one of NATO's four Indo-Pacific partners, sometimes called the Asia Pacific-Four (AP-4). His first year of diplomacy culminated in two recent milestone summits: His state visit to the U.S. in April and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to Seoul last week, reciprocating President Yoon's earlier visit to Tokyo in March.

Both of them impacted the mindset of many Koreans who initially doubted how much could change through diplomacy. By this point, however, they seem to understand that diplomacy is after all a matter of mutual trust, at its core. It is not a lonely voice in the wilderness, but, with time, can bring about an echo and convergence of interests.

As the saying goes, he who laughs last, laughs best. If anything, President Yoon seems to have chosen to laugh last.

Despite his lack of experience in diplomacy, President Yoon is on a fast learning curve about the importance of diplomacy and the requisite know-how for proliferating summitry to enhance our national interests at this historical inflection point.

Today, he is kicking off his second year of multilateral diplomacy in Hiroshima, sitting with G7 leaders, together with seven other specially invited leaders from across the world, including India, Brazil and Australia. Several G7 leaders have either just visited or are going to visit Korea immediately before and after the summit. As government authorities aptly said, this will be an unusual "super week" for Korean diplomacy.

More than anything else, the expected trilateral summit among the U.S., Japan and Korea ― on the margins of the G7 summit ― will be a crucial event, carrying forward the positive momentum from the two latest summits in Washington and Seoul. This summit has a special meaning in the recent history of trilateral cooperation among the three countries. It will be the first post-rapprochement ― between Seoul and Tokyo ― trilateral summit in several years, free from high tensions and confrontations over past historical issues, which characterized former President Moon Jae-in's summit with his Japanese counterparts. The Seoul-Tokyo axis had been regarded as the weakest link in trilateral cooperation.

President Joe Biden would be pleased to move the trilateral cooperation and Quad, two key components of his Indo-Pacific strategy, in tandem amidst the tectonic changes to the Indo-Pacific geopolitical landscape.

For President Yoon, the G7 summit heralds another year of breathless 100-meter dashes in his second year of non-stop multilateral diplomacy. If the past can be a useful guide, he will be hosting the inaugural Korea-Pacific Islands summit, attending the NATO summit in Vilnius, the ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit in Indonesia, the G20 summit in New Delhi, the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in San Francisco, and chair the trilateral summit between Japan, China and Korea, and the 3rd Democracy Summit, to name a few.

As you can see, some of them are part and parcel of Korea's new Indo-Pacific strategy and others are related to its Global Pivotal State (GPS) initiative. Some are like-minded leaders' meetings, while others are more inclusive, with China and/or Russia participating.

Seoul has an additional agenda of its own: securing support for its bids for the World Expo 2030 Busan and a non-permanent seat of the UN Security Council for 2024-2025.

Korea's general election in April next year will be a moment of truth to assess the balance sheet of Yoon's second year of diplomacy. The Yoon government should get ready to answer what all these summits and diplomatic efforts have achieved, and why the GPS and the Indo-Pacific strategy matter for Korea.

However, the journey ahead will be long and bumpy, filled with many daunting challenges.

First, Korea has little maneuvering room amid the deepening U.S.-China strategic competition on almost all fronts ― trade, economic and technology, military, ideology and values. China is now engaging in diverse forms of Korea bashing or taming strategy in response to Korea's apparent tilt toward the U.S. and Japan. The Taiwan Strait could be a time bomb at any time.

Second, North Korea's nuclear and missile brinkmanship is likely to be translated into real actions, including a possible seventh nuclear test. It could catch us by surprise again but now with impunity due to Chinese and Russian collaboration.

Third, the ongoing Ukraine war is likely to demand larger roles for Korea, which could trigger harsher Russian retaliation measures against "unfriendly countries," including South Korea.

Fourth, the stance of the Global South deserves special attention and fierce competition is underway between democracies and autocracies to bring the Global South countries on board at the G7, G20, U.N., and the Democracy Summit. Their fence-sitting or unaligned stance has sometimes tipped the delicate balance, including at the U.N. General Assembly.

Fifth, as Eric Schmidt, former Google chairman warned, technology will define the future of geopolitics. Technological primacy, economic security and supply chain stability for fragmented blocs is becoming the name of the new geopolitical and geo-economic long game.

Unless we are re-globalized, the best way to cope with all these challenges, is to expand and consolidate a united front with like-minded countries in the region as well as in the world. Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has declared recently, "The happy globalization is over." Also, Richard Haass, CFR President, counseled that "The course of this decade will depend on the quality of officials' political skills at home and their statecraft abroad". As the Yoon government embarks upon another journey, in its second year, of foreign policy, we should be reminded again, "It is diplomacy, stupid."

Yun Byung-se, a former foreign minister of South Korea (2013-2017), is now a board member of the Korea Peace Foundation and a member of several ex-global leaders' forums and task forces, including the Astana Forum and its Consultative Council as well as the Task Force on U.S. Allies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.