Korea's New Southern Policy: Vision and Challenges

Abstract

The Korean government's New Southern Policy aims to cultivate its relations with ASEAN and India as key partners in the southern region, raise this partnership to the level of Korea's traditional four major diplomatic partners (the U.S., China, Japan, Russia), develop values that can be empathized with others, and build a mutually prosperous "people centered" community. The New Southern Policy aims to form a multilateral economic and diplomatic framework to adjust to the U.S.'s priority on domestic concerns, which has been in full swing since the inauguration of the Trump administration, and to the expansion of China's influence across East Asia. Korea's trade has been heavily dependent on the United States and China. Over the last three years (2015‒2017), the United States and China accounted for 38.1% of Korea's total exports. In terms of total value of exports and imports also, China and the U.S. accounted for 35 percent. This concentration on a certain few countries in its trade structure has made Korea susceptible to changes in their foreign policy strategies and constrained the range of changes in its foreign economic policies.