South Korea's Indo-Pacific Strategy: More than Strategic Clarity and toward Becoming a Global Player

Abstract

I s the region we live in called the “Asia-Pacific” or the “Indo-Pacific”?1 Many countries around the world are currently formulating their positions toward the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, actively or passively, and regardless of whether they support it. In the case of South Korea, at a summit with U.S. president Joe Biden in May 2022, President Yoon Suk-yeol agreed to strengthen cooperation with the United States with the goal of promoting a free and open IndoPacific region.2 This move by the newly inaugurated Yoon signified that South Korea, which until that point had been debating whether to use the term “Asia-Pacific” or “Indo-Pacific,” had determined decisively to go all in on the latter. Then, on December 28, the administration officially unveiled its Strategy for a Free, Peaceful and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region, in which it pledged to transform South Korea into a “global pivotal state” that contributes to the freedom, peace, and prosperity of the international community.3 South Korean foreign minister Park Jin not only described the strategy as a “turning point in the history of South Korea’s foreign policy” but also announced that it would serve as the “foreign policy doctrine of the Yoon Suk-yeol government.”4 This essay argues that the Yoon administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy plays a crucial role in realizing the president’s vision of South Korea as a