Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy to improve relations with ASEAN countries: Vietnamese ambassador

Ambassadors attend Foreign Minister Park Jin's briefing on Korea's new Indo-Pacific strategy at the ministry headquarters in central Seoul, Dec. 28. Courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs

By Nguyen Vu Tung

Ambassador of Vietnam to Korea Nguyen Vu Tung / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

The introduction of the Republic of Korea (ROK) strategy for a free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region on the last days of 2022 was a welcome event. Not only was it another strategy applied to the Indo-Pacific region by an important and regionally residing country, it also represented a much-awaited piece of regional policy by the new Korean government following the election of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Although its main features were debuted by President Yoon in November in Cambodia, the introduction of the strategy in a full-text document gave rise to positive reactions from Korea's foreign policy watchers. Based on and in line with a global pivotal state outlook, the strategy highlights the fact that Korea is both "able and willing" to contribute to the region and, more importantly, to "redefine [Korea's] international role and responsibility, commensurate with [its] heightened international stature," in Foreign Minister Park Jin's words.

What Korea can contribute to the Indo-Pacific region in general and to Southeast Asia in specific is multi-folded. Most importantly is the commitment by Seoul to uphold the rule of law and norms in the region.

By stating that Seoul "will play a leading role to strengthen the rules-based international order by respecting and enforcing internationally agreed rules, and by respecting new rules to govern emerging domains," the strategy indicated that Seoul will join other countries in the region to make sure that the international laws and international institutions/organizations are respected.

In this regard and of equal importance, Seoul's recognition of and support to ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) also suggest that Seoul and ASEAN support the inclusive approach to cooperation in the region, utilize the ASEAN-led institutions and hence adopt the ASEAN Way in promoting peace and stability in the region.

In this regard, the strategy's emphasis on minilateral cooperation is an innovative tool which can encourage cooperation based on bilateralism and multilateralism in complementary ways. In other words, the strategy provides an important assistance to ASEAN's efforts to build and improve a security architecture to cope with both traditional and non-traditional security issues in the region.

Seoul can work with ASEAN to promote cooperation in other fields, too. Guided by this strategy, Korea and ASEAN will elevate the cooperative framework into a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2024. In a similar manner, as the strategy indicated, Korea and individual ASEAN members will also elevate their bilateral relationships in the coming years.

The comprehensive strategic partnership between Seoul and Hanoi announced in early December 2022 was the most recent case in point. As a result, economic and socio-cultural cooperation as well as people-to-people exchanges between Korea and ASEAN countries are expected to boom in the coming years.

New resources have been committed with the introduction of the strategy. Across the board, an 18 percent increase in the official development assistance (ODA) budget for 2023 represents Seoul's commitment to its contributive diplomacy. For Southeast Asia, Seoul will double its contribution to the cooperation funds with ASEAN in the next five years, totaling $48 million per year by 2027.

At the same time, Korea can serve as a bridge between developed and developing countries with its fresh developmental experience. The strategy announced: "with regard to ASEAN, which accounts for 31 percent of our bilateral ODA and is our top priority partners, we will increase assistance in areas where our strengths and the needs of our partners coincide, namely digital education, climate change, smart city and transportation."

What is also noteworthy is that the strategy suggests a higher level of continuity in Korea's policy with regard to ASEAN as compared with the New Southern Policy adopted by the Moon Jae-in government. The introduction of the Korea-ASEAN Solidarity Initiative (KASI) represents this upward trend as the strategy considers KASI a "regional policy tailored to ASEAN within the framework of the Indo-Pacific Strategy."

It can therefore be said that the strategy creates a welcoming sense of Korea's greater diplomatic proactivism in the region in which many commonalities between Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy and the AOIP can be found especially in terms of foreign policy goals, principles of cooperation and the priority line of actions.

In the final analyses, the strategy, I believe, will open up new opportunities for relations between Korea and ASEAN countries to thrive for the common efforts at promoting peace and creating prosperity in the region.

The next steps are to turn the vision and political will pronounced in the strategy into specific action plans and their effective implementation. ASEAN and its individual members will join hands with Korea in this important endeavor.

The consultations conducted between Seoul and ASEAN capitals when Seoul was formulating the strategy and the future mutual agreement on the "customized assistance based on the on-site demand of partner countries" will raise the hope of smooth and effective implementation of the strategy.

Nguyen Vu Tung is the ambassador of Vietnam to the Republic of Korea.