Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy broadens diplomatic, security, economic horizons

By Song Kyung-jin

Korean diplomacy wrapped up 2022 with the announcement of its Indo-Pacific strategy just before the year-end, as promised. I welcome the government's effort and its comprehensive Indo-Pacific strategy. It is a strategy for a free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region with three overt principles of cooperation ― inclusiveness, trust and reciprocity ― and with nine core lines of effort. Korea's Indo-Pacific reaches out even to the African Indian Ocean, Europe and Latin America, expanding its geographical boundaries further than other countries with their own Indo-Pacific strategies.

A free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region is of particular significance for Korea's national interests, when the region accounts for 62 percent of the world's GDP and 46 percent of global trade and 78 percent and 67 percent of Korea's exports and imports. Hence, not just economic security but also maritime security is critically important for safeguarding and promoting Korea's national interests.

On top of that, it to me is a clear sign of confidence of Korea as a nation and an explicit statement of its intention to play a responsible role toward its aspirations of transforming into a global pivotal state. Despite being defined as a regional strategy, it indeed moves beyond that, given its much broader geographical scope. This breadth conveniently provides effective building blocks for Korea's aspiration to be a global pivotal state, meaning the success of the Indo-Pacific strategy will be a useful precursor for realizing Korea's global ambition.

It also signals the beginning of a departure from Korea's conventional diplomacy, narrowly focused on North Korea and the Korea-U.S. and a few more bilateral relations, to a comprehensive diplomatic strategy encompassing security, economic and technological cooperation with more diversified partners, with the conventional issues duly integrated. The Korea-U.S. alliance, the Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation and cooperation with the U.N. Security Council still remain critical to strengthening non-proliferation and counter-terrorism efforts across the region.

The strategy recognizes the emerging importance of technology in today's diplomacy by stating: "Technologies determine a nation's security and competitiveness for the future. Ultimately, they will be conducive to a free and prosperous region when used in the service of fostering cooperative international relations." Korea pledges throughout the text of its Indo-Pacific strategy to cooperate with partners with regards to critical and emerging technologies, where appropriate, not just bilaterally but also minilaterally and multilaterally such as the Quad and NATO.

In the face of declining multilateralism, issue-specific minilateralism may be a more useful option to go about to boost necessary cooperation among like-minded countries on certain specific issues. Minilateralism has its own advantage of agility, for instance, in that any partner interested in the issue or likely to benefit from such cooperation can easily make proposals and choose to join. Minilateral cooperation is relatively easy to dissolve when objectives and targets are achieved.

Per the principles of cooperation ― inclusiveness, trust and reciprocity ― minilateralism should not exclude any partner, insofar as it abides by mutual respect and reciprocity, guided by international norms and rules.

That said, the ever-changing geopolitical, geoeconomic and geo-technological circumstances will likely allow or compel Korea and other nations for that matter often to adjust and fine-tune their stance, as and when such circumstances arise. We must therefore be ready to respond to the changes accordingly instead of resisting them.

While respecting ASEAN centrality and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, the strategy elaborates Korea's intention to engage in more "contributive diplomacy" that is focused on more mutually beneficial and substantive cooperation by aligning ASEAN's needs with its strengths, with particular emphasis on digital, climate change, environment, energy transition and public health. In a rapidly urbanizing Indo-Pacific region, more people are moving to cities in need of affordable housing, sound physical and digital infrastructure and public health. Korea can offer knowledge and assistance in building smart cities, for example.

The spirit of contributive diplomacy, an essential component of a global pivotal state, is not limited to ASEAN only but to all its development partners around the world. A whopping 18 percent increase in the official development assistance (ODA) budget for 2023 explains Korea's commitment. Such commitment should come with well-thought-out planning and empathizing ears for the taxpayers' money to be well spent.

However, a greater budget should not be equated with more projects. With a greater budget, more multi-year and scaled-up projects aiming at a more substantial level of outcomes should be produced. A contributive diplomacy should involve an overhaul of the existing planning, implementation and evaluation methodology and techniques of ODA projects. The Indo-Pacific region fits perfectly for this purpose, for out of Korea's 27 priority development cooperation partners, 13 are located in the region.

In short, how the commitments described in the nine core lines of effort are detailed and implemented in line with the vision and principles of cooperation of Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy will likely be the final verdict.

Dr. Song Kyung-jin (kj_song@hotmail.com) led the Institute for Global Economics (IGE), based in Seoul and served as special adviser to the chairman of the Presidential Committee for the Seoul G20 Summit in the Office of the President. Now, she is executive director of the Innovative Economy Forum.