Sejong Focus

(April 2022 Preface) Foreign Policy Agenda for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration

Date 2022-04-04 View 1,858


Foreign Policy Agenda for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration

 

The Editorial Committee 

 

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which will be inaugurated on May 10, has many difficulties in establishing and implementing foreign policies because of a very unstable external environment. 

As the hegemonic competition between the United States and China intensifies, the international security situation has become more unstable. There is a growing possibility of military clashes in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. North Korea's nuclear and missile threats have resumed, and North Korea tends to cross the "red line" (ICBM and nuclear tests) set by the international community. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are also rising. In addition, the security environment in Europe deteriorated dramatically due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. The international economic situation is also extremely unstable due to COVID-19 and the competition for scarce resources. Under such circumstances, the United States is strengthening its solidarity with democratic countries. The coalition of authoritarian states, led by China and Russia, is also strengthening. In other words, a new Cold War structure is becoming visible.

The editorial committee of 「Current Issues and Policies」 selected "Foreign Policy Agenda for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration" as the main theme for the April edition to help the Yoon administration establish its foreign policy. Six experts were asked to write about "policy issues for major countries." The titles and authors are 'Policy toward North Korea'(CHEONG Seong-Chang), 'Policy on the U.S.'(WOO Jung-Yeop), 'Policy on China'(CHUNG Jae-hung), 'Policy on Japan'(JIN Chang Soo), 'Policy on Russia'(CHUNG Eunsook), and New Southern Policy (CHOI Yoon Jung).