The Yoon Administration's Foreign Policy Undertaking: Turning New Southern Policy into "Korea's Indo-Pacific Strategy"

Choi Yoon Jung

(yjchoi@sejong.org)

Director of the Department of Diplomatic Strategy Studies, 

the Sejong Institute

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English Abstract

​Korea has developed its foreign policy in consideration of changes in Korea's national status and international environment. The New Southern Policy sought to expand Korea's diplomatic horizon to ASEAN member countries and India. Now they are further strengthening cooperative relations with partner nations and each other to meet their own internal demands of sustainable economic growth, security enhancement, and social development and to cope with external factors such as confrontation between the blocs triggered by the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China. Based on the experience and lessons learned in implementing the New Southern Policy, the incoming Yoon administration should develop a "Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy" that maximizes Korea's national interests by incorporating the needs from the region itself and fine-tuning with the Indo-Pacific strategies of the like-minded countries, including the United States. 

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