Jeju Peace Institute

LEE Dong Sun(Associate Professor, Korea University)Sino-American relations are entering an important period of transition. Currently, the United States sets the maintenance of its status as the world’s only superpower as its main strategic objective. The country is striving to maintain the supremacy of its national strength through the smart exploitation of its available resources and to bolster the pro-American alliance through military, economic, and ideological means. Meanwhile, China is striving to establish its status as an independent power and as the leader of Asia. Thus, China seeks to expand its influence by using its enhanced economic strength and to establish pro-China alliances.China is continuing to build up its strength. If it reaches the status of a world power equal to that of the United States, it will expand the role of military strength in its efforts to exercise influence and strive to establish alliances that are friendly to it. That being the case, the United States will also make increasingly concerted efforts to stay ahead of China in terms of national strength and will likewise build friendly alliances. It is highly possible that the security strategies of the two powers will intertwine, and they will vie for global leadership in earnest. In Asia, the alliances led by each of the two powers will prevail and they too will vie with each other. Nevertheless, it is expected that extreme rivalry between the two can be avoided if the two powers build their respective spheres of influence apart from one another, i.e. one along the ocean and the other along the continent.In the rivalry between the United States and China, South Korea is highly likely to be forced to choose one of the two as its ally. The least worse option open to South Korea would be to remain in the alliance led by the United States. In preparation for such an eventuality, the country needs to strive to maintain a more substantial relationship with the United States and maintain good relations with the other allies of the United States. The country should pursue this policy gradually and inconspicuously, and strive to lay China’s concerns to rest at the same time.

KIM Dong-ryul(Professor, Korea National Diplomatic Academy)Observing the recent conflict between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine crisis, some scholars have predicted the advent of a new period of geopolitical struggle. What lies behind such a view is the demand for a reappraisal of the post-Cold War world order in which people harbored great expectations about the end of ideological conflicts and the birth of greater social and economic collaboration between western and eastern countries. This study intends to shed new light on the nature of the foreign policy of the United States, and to review whether it can be applied properly to the reality as part of the effort to understand American-Russian  relations systematically against such a background. This study focuses on the relative influence of ideology and materialistic benefit, which are widely recognized as the two factors that exert the greatest influence on the foreign  policy of the United States. In connection with the Ukraine crisis, the basic direction of the country’s  foreign policy can be defined as the pursuit of geopolitical interest based on the ideology of free democracy. It is true that the pursuit of political and economic benefits based on national interest is the main motive behind the United States’ Ukraine-related policy toward Russia, but the collision of the values of the two powers appears to take precedence. In this respect, the return of geopolitical struggle can be said to be the returun of ideology from a more realistic perspective.

KIM Heung-kyu(Director, Institute for China Policy Studies at Ajou University)China’s diplomacy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift. It is important to note the shift in the country’s sense of its identity from the world’s largest developing country to a power in the process of development or from a continental country to a continental-marine country. Armed with this new sense of identity, China is implementing a new strategy concerning the Korean Peninsula from the perspective of normal inter-country relations. China has reappraised the level of North Korea’s nuclear capability and adopted a new attitude concerning its negative impact, and has consequently expressed a stronger than ever commitment to non-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean government should maintain its current strategy of alliance with the US and reconciliation with China, while considering a more nuanced strategy of alliance with the U.S. and collaboration with China.

CHO Sei Young(Professor, Dongseo University/Former Director-General of the Foreign Ministry’s Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau)The so-called 1965 regime acted as a brake on conflicts over the history between the two countries amid the need for mutual cooperation on security and economy. The said regime has reached its limit due to the end of the Cold War, changes in the international situation including the rise of China, a reduction of the economic power gap between the two countries, and so forth. The two countries need to take their relationship to a new level with the focus on cooperation for unification of the two Koreas, as well as on security and economy, through reciprocal understanding and exchanges between the peoples.South Korea’s diplomacy needs to develop a logical minuteness that can persuade the Japanese as well as Koreans. The country should maintain cooperative relations with Japan in the areas of security and economy, while adopting a resolute attitude against any attempt to distort historical facts, including sovereignty over Dokdo. The country should also adopt three-dimensional thinking focusing on peace and stability in all of Northeast Asia. The two countries need to cooperate with each other to establish stability in the region and develop a new agenda designed to make their voices heard.

YI Seong-Woo (Research Fellow, Jeju Peace Institute)Conventionally, the concept of security used to refer to war, armed provocation or local clashes. Then, the term comprehensive security emerged as a concept expanded to include crises such as natural disasters or calamities or problems with a country’s core infrastructure and with public safety. It is necessary to re-orient our understanding of security-related risk factors at a time when the new security paradigm is displaying a tendency to integrate conventional security with non-traditional security.With regard to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, security-related risk factors can be classified from a tempo-spatial perspective, as follows: 1) internal risk factors, 2) external risk factors, and 3) those associated with the reunification of the two Koreas.Internal risk factors existing from the past are composed of 1) ideological conflict, 2) regionalism, and 3) class conflict. External risk factors that have newly emerged amid the increase in exchange and collaboration between South Korea and other countries in the process of globalization include: 1) multicultural integration, 2) cybercrime, 3) international crime/terror threats, and 4) the spread of anti-Koreanism. Risk factors that could emerge in a newly unified Korea include: 1) equal opportunities, 2) integration under the market economy, and 3) cultural heterogeneousness.This study conducted a statistical analysis based on the results of a survey on the opinions of domestic and foreign experts concerning the aforementioned ten risk factors in three sectors.

LEE Hong Sub(Professor, Korea National Defense University)The ongoing situation surrounding the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia looks rather alarming. It does not appear that the two are making efforts for reconciliation or diplomatic considerations for each other either. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul continued to maintain a sour relationship with the Russian government and finally resigned after only one year in the post. The way Russians view his replacement John Tefft is not very friendly.The conflict between the two powers has much to do particularly with the frustration of Vladimir Putin’s attempt at reconciliation with Western countries in the first few years of his term and even the conciliatory gestures of his companion Dmitry Medvedev. Russia came to acquire a deep antipathy for western countries’ intervention in its internal politics. Vladimir Putin also expressed strong concerns about the NATO’s continued expansion despite his conciliatory efforts.Concerning the expansion of Western economic sanctions against it following the Ukraine crisis and the abrupt in international oil prices since October 2014, Russia views them as elements of an anti-Russian conspiracy. Thus, the relationship between the two powers has soured further still. Vladimir Putin has adopted an anti-Western stance and strengthened friendly relations with China. The situation has also led to the launch of the Eurasian Economic (EEU) led by Russia and the rise of a nationalism that stresses Russian values, to the concern of Western countries.

LEE Ju-heum(Visiting Professor, GSIAS, HUFS/ Former RoK Ambassador to Myanmar)International relations in Northeast Asia are largely characterized by the separation of economy and politics: Countries are suffering from rising political tension over the interpretation of war atrocities in the region while yet seeking a win-win trade situation, combined with the conflict between China aspiring to change the existing international order on the one hand and the United States and Japan wanting to maintain it as it is on the other. Japan’s rightward shift has been a cause of conflicts between itself and Korea and China. It stems from the country’s failure to recognize its responsibility for its historical atrocities among other things. Also, the country is seeking to recover its former status as a great power, adopting aggressive approaches in its international policies. Korea needs to look squarely at the reality of the situation in Japan and wage creative diplomacy. While strict when it comes to the matter of principles, Korea needs to put the long-term goal of national unification within its sight. With universal values as the connecting link, the countries in the region must seek the common ground of their national interests and build up Western-type friendly relations among the regional powers.

CHOI Jinwoo(Professor, Hanyang University)Amidst the worldwide trend towards new regionalism, Northeast Asia has seen very slow progress with regard to any instituted form of regional integration, the reason for which has been attributed to a strong sense of nationalism. For the Northeast Asian nations that still remain within the framework of modern international relations, maintaining their sovereignty is a vital national interest, and thus they share concern that the pursuit of regional integration and its associated potential for encroachment on sovereignty could undermine the legitimacy of their regimes. Such concern is based on the assumption that it is nationalism that shores up the legitimacy of their regimes, and that since regionalism and nationalism are bound up in a mutually exclusive relationship, the political leaders of East Asia are inherently reluctant to promote regionalism in the region. However, the fact remains that there has been quite significant opposition to connecting the links of nationalism, legitimacy and regionalism. Moreover, should regional integration have a chance of serving as a prescription for both regional economic prosperity and political peace, the regional powers in East Asia should join forces to broaden the discourse on regionalism in the region and promote the building of ‘an imagined community’ as the regional identity of East Asia.

LEE Jaehyon(Research Fellow, Asan Institute for Policy Studies)This study examines the implications of the Track 2 diplomacy for Korea’s major diplomatic strategies, including the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative and the Trust-Building Process on the Korean Peninsula, by shedding fresh light on the roles of CSCAP, the most representative track 2 meeting in the Asia-Pacific region. CSCAP has played a significant role in enabling regional powers suffering from a lack of trust in the post-cold war era to build up and maintain security cooperation through ARF among other initiatives. Track 2 specialists, who are relatively independent of their own national interests, have discussed regional security issues and provided feedback to regional governments, promoting security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. Furthermore, their discourse has also contributed to identifying new security issues and informing governments in the region about them. An irony of this success is that the room for CSCAP to maneuver has continued to shrink while trust has built up among governments to some degree over time. The fact that in the Asia-Pacific region other opportunities have arisen for security experts to meet and discuss has also contributed to some extent to this decline in CSCAP’s significance. Nevertheless, the CSCAP experiences have great implications for Northeast Asia, which is suffering from a shortage of cross-border trust and cooperation. In Northeast Asia, where international dialogue is still a challenge, if track 2 dialogue and hard security issue discussions there are accepted as supplements to nontraditional or soft cross-border security discussions, it will be possible to further promote cross-border cooperation and the buildup of trust in Northeast Asia.

HAN Intaek(Senior Research Fellow, Jeju Peace Institute)Multilateral security cooperation has the potential to complement and eventually replace existing security strategies and institutions in Northeast Asia, as the latter increasingly show signs of dysfunction. Discussions on multilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia are usually focused on how to replicate Europe’s experiences in Asia. However, Southeast Asia is more similar and close to Northeast Asia than Europe is in terms of history and culture Southeast Asia is also an exemplary case in which multilateral security cooperation was achieved in a short period.Track 2 diplomacy refers to policy dialogues between public officials acting in their private capacity and policy experts. In multilateral security cooperation in Southeast Asia, Track 2 diplomacy has often led and complemented Track 1 diplomacy. A network of policy experts called ASEAN ISIS has played a significant role in this process.In order to promote multilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia, it is necessary to enhance the competency of policy experts and institutionalize dialogues between policy experts and policy-makers, as was the case in Southeast Asia. Also, it is important to ensure the “integrity” and “credibility” of the processes that generate ideas for multilateral security cooperation in order for such ideas to be embraced by governments in the region.