‘Calibrated response’: can Yoon stabilise Korean peninsula even as he boosts ties with US, Japan?

Yoon, who marks his first year in office this week, is charting a new course in South Korea’s foreign policy and security, analysts say

He overturned his predecessor’s policy of reconciliation with North Korea and abandoned balancing US, China in favour of stronger ties with US, Japan

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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida in Seoul on May 7, 2023. Photo: AP

Published: 9:30am, 11 May 2023Updated: 9:33am, 11 May 2023

South Korea could face provocation from North Korea as well as souring ties with China and Russia, as President Yoon Suk-yeol charts a new course in foreign policy and diplomacy, analysts said.

The conservative president, who marks his first year in office this week, overturned his liberal predecessor Moon Jae-in’s policy of reconciliation with North Korea, accusing him of pursuing a “false peace” that naively relied on Pyongyang’s “goodwill”.

He also abandoned Moon’s diplomatic balancing act between the United States and China, as it becomes less sustainable and increasingly burdensome for South Korea amid growing rivalry between the two superpowers, observers say.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol waves as US Vice-President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy applaud during his address to Congress in Washington on April 27. Photo: via Getty Images

“If I think back to this time last year when I took office, there is no area that has seen greater change than foreign policy and security,” Yoon said at a government cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

He cited a series of diplomatic events he took part in, such as his meetings with US President Joe Biden, including one he had 11 days after his inauguration and the sixth and latest one in Washington last month.

This produced the “Washington Declaration” in which the US promised to provide a stronger nuclear umbrella for South Korea in return for not pursuing its own nuclear weapons.

The meeting between South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol and US President Joe Biden produced the ‘Washington Declaration. Photo: via Getty Images

Yoon, 62, also noted he was the first South Korean leader to take part in the Nato summit in Spain last year, where he said he had forged solidarity with countries that shared the same values as free democracies.