Be on the side of peace, human rights, democracy

By Yun Byung-se

Just two days ago, a new South Korean government led by President Yoon Suk-yeol set sail with a new vision and resolve for the next five years. The preceding Moon Jae-in government had to hand over the baton to a successor with a starkly different orientation on both domestic and foreign policy, leaving various daunting challenges behind.

As a result, the Yoon government has inherited problems in many areas of statecraft, especially regarding foreign policy and national security. This grim situation has made it inevitable for the new team to overhaul or rectify previous policies. President Yoon set a right tone and a bold direction for a new course in his inaugural address.

Setting aside the ongoing North Korean conundrum, the biggest challenge will be to navigate safely and smoothly through turbulent waters and tectonic changes that are taking place across the world. You may wish to call it a new Cold War or some semblance of it. Whatever the nomenclature, the relatively good old days of the past 30 years are gone.

We are already deeply into a fragmented and transformed world, with globalization waning and no end to the geopolitical and geo-economic confrontations in sight. A series of voting results at the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February is a microcosm of the world we are living in ― good, bad and most certainly, ugly.

Over the last several years, the U.S. and many other countries have been primarily focused on the rise of China and its potential to change the international order for the coming decades in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. On top of that, the Ukrainian situation caught the world off guard and highlighted the vulnerability of the new regional and global order unfolding on the Eurasian landmass. At stake is one of the sacrosanct principles of international law enshrined in the U.N. Charter ― the territorial integrity of states.

Such revisionist tendencies of some Eurasian and Pacific powers are rooted in several factors ― history, geopolitics, restoration of imperium of a by-gone era, irredentism, the pursuit of the rejuvenation of a certain nation and more than anything else domestic considerations. Most of them are misguided or at least anachronistic and are becoming a cause for serious concern and heighten the need for democracies across the world to flock together to safeguard peace, human rights, the rule of law and democracy.

The first serious litmus test for the Yoon government will come next week when U.S. President Joe Biden visits Seoul prior to his attendance at the Quad summit in Japan. This visit carries a big significance in many ways going beyond diverse bilateral agendas. Its key signal is that the Korea-U.S. alliance, especially with the like-minded Yoon government, is vital to the U.S. grand strategy for the Indo-Pacific, Eurasia and the rest of the world.

A well-functioning bilateral alliance is indispensable for trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., Japan and South Korea as well as for reinforcing the Quad and other like-minded groupings, regardless of Korea's formal membership. This linchpin role of the U.S.-ROK alliance and the cornerstone role of the U.S.-Japan alliance can be likened to that of trans-Atlantic NATO and they are deemed more useful and powerful than the Quad which is geopolitically and geo-economically significant, but loosely integrated.

The previous Moon government spent most of its five years with one-sided love for Kim Jong-un and de facto equidistant diplomacy vis-a-vis the U.S. and China until it belatedly adjusted its stance on the alliance-related issues through a leaders' joint statement in May last year.

The forthcoming Biden visit to Korea will be a golden opportunity for the Yoon government to add flesh to and upgrade what is called the comprehensive strategic alliance. In a rare compliment, the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) assessed in 2017 that the two previous conservative governments under President Lee Myung-bak and President Park Geun-hye made the alliance stronger than ever ― since the conclusion of the Mutual Defense Treaty in 1953 ― laying a very solid foundation for its future.

The Yoon government should build on their achievements and elevate the alliance to a new height. Progress in bilateral agendas is a necessary condition, but it is no longer a sufficient condition for a sustainable alliance. The Yoon government publicly pledged to step up to international leadership as a "global pivotal state" during its term by "contributing to freedom, peace and prosperity of the world."

To fulfill this commitment, it should be willing and ready to play its role and bear responsibility commensurate with its enhanced status in regional and global diplomacy. In this sense, Yoon's transition team's policy blueprint and action agendas unveiled last week followed by President Yoon's globally focused inaugural address are a step in the right direction.

No doubt, the Biden administration seems to be enthusiastic about this positive development and will take advantage of the forthcoming summit to translate widening areas of common interests and values into updated joint platforms and action plans through a leaders' joint statement or the like.

Both this statement and the ensuing Quad outcome in late May, as well as, the NATO summit statement in June will send out a timely and powerful message from like-minded nations on how they will tackle global agendas and respond to peace-breakers, rule-breakers and human rights violators across the world.

President Biden made his favorite remark in his address to a U.S. Joint Session of Congress in late April last year as follows: "Folks, as I told every world leader I've ever met with over the years, it's never ever, ever been a good bet to bet against America and it still isn't." Such advice or warnings has reappeared this year as well.

During the summit in Korea, Biden does not need to touch on this, because the new South Korean government will inherit and build on a conservative tradition symbolized by the alliance slogan "We go together." President Biden's visits to Seoul and Tokyo should serve as a turning point to open a new era of trilateral as well as multilateral cooperation on many daunting regional and global challenges facing our nations together.

I genuinely hope that it could also pave the way for personal summit diplomacy among three leaders, calling each other on a first name basis ― Joe, Suk-yeol and Fumio. Again, South Korea should be on the side of peace, human rights, rule of law and democracy ― the right side of history.

Yun Byung-se is a former foreign minister of South Korea. He is now a board member of the Korea Peace Foundation and a member of several ex-global leaders' forums and taskforces, including the Astana Forum and its Consultative Council as well as the Task Force on U.S. Allies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.