Seeking balanced diplomacy

Seoul must clarify its core interests to all partners

Two news items drew diplomatic watchers’ attention over the weekend.

One was the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and visiting South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on the sidelines of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. The other was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s news conference at the U.N. headquarters.

At the Xi-Han meeting, the Chinese leader made some “suggestive” remarks. For instance, Xi said South Korea and China should show their will to value and develop bilateral ties with their “policies and actions.”

That could be seen as an indirect expression of Beijing’s dissatisfaction with Seoul’s rapidly strengthening relationship with the U.S. and Japan.

Earlier, Xi stressed the need to “reject Cold War thinking and battles between blocs.” The meeting came amid escalating rivalries between Washington-Tokyo-Seoul on one side and Beijing-Moscow-Pyongyang on the other.

In New York, Lavrov said he would visit Pyongyang next month according to agreements between the two countries’ top leaders earlier in the month.

Lavrov did not pinpoint it, but his agenda could include discussions on President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang. The top Russian diplomat pointed out “strengthened U.S. military capabilities on the Korean Peninsula” and the “continuous rejection of Russian and Chinese efforts to prioritize humanitarianism and political solutions.” He also blamed the U.S. and its allies for forcing the rest of the world to “play by their rules.”

It’s apparent that China and Russia dislike the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s diplomatic stance. After the Han-Xi meeting, the Korean media highlighted the possibility of a visit to Seoul by Xi. However, China’s 630-word release did not mention it. President Yoon Suk Yeol warned against military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang in his U.N. speech. Russia’s foreign ministry immediately called in the South Korean ambassador and said the “unfriendly remark seriously hurt bilateral cooperation and development.”

After the U.S., South Korea and Japan firmed up their ties to a semi-alliance at Camp David last month, diplomatic experts called for the government to restore the relationships with China and Russia for balance.

We agree.

In conclusion, Korea must not stand at the forefront of the new Cold War, but become a pivotal country in a multipolar world. Seoul must start with an airtight alliance with Washington but secure as much maneuvering room as possible with Beijing and Moscow. It must do at least three things to turn the seemingly impossible task into reality.

First, Korea should enhance its economic, scientific and technological capabilities. The Yoon administration’s budgetary stringency and its cuts in R&D spending are suicidal. The nation must maintain and strengthen its prowess in the semiconductor and IT sectors. It must stick to free and fair trade while diversifying markets and partners.

Second, it should declare indisputable values and goals. Yoon’s undue emphasis on liberal democracy may appear ideological outside the West. Human rights, climate issues and global peace, including the peaceful reunification of this divided peninsula, could be its core interests.

Third, the government must set and pursue policy goals, diplomatic or social, after sufficient discussions and persuading the public. The Yoon administration has made several policy changes without telling anyone outside its inner circle in advance. A case in point is Yoon's unilateral ignorance of Japan’s wrongdoing during WWII, like sexual slavery and forced labor. Such turnarounds could be reversed when political power changes ? or even before the next presidential election.

The inter-Korean relationship is at a crossroads. A few more years of severance could lead the peninsula to a dangerous situation. Yoon must remember things were quite different less than five years ago. He says only a show of force, instead of dialogue and exchanges, can bring genuine peace to this peninsula. However, Koreans would prefer what Yoon referred to sarcastically as "fake peace" to genuine tension when one or two sides are pushed to use that force.

A country’s foreign policy must not end up satisfying only foreign ideologues and weapons makers.