Will South Korea’s Incoming President Recommit to Public Diplomacy?

On March 9, South Korea successfully held its 20th presidential election, and former Prosecutor General Yoon Suk-yeol won the contest. Yoon edged out his liberal rival by only 247,077 votes, fewer than the 307,542 nullified votes and the smallest margin of victory of the eight presidential elections held since 1987.

During the neck-and-neck ballot counting, some observers exhibited concerns that South Korea might repeat the experience of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, which was undecided for weeks due to several rounds of recounts in Florida. However, the ruling party candidate Lee Jae-myung conceded his defeat promptly. In a gracious concession speech, he blamed himself for the defeat and asked Yoon to move beyond division and conflict to usher in an era of unity and harmony. It was a moment that moved South Korea’s democracy a step forward.

As a result, South Koreans, who had agonized over choosing between two unpopular candidates and felt concern for the future, were able to take a pride in the strength and health of their democracy. The outcome was more meaningful given that many other countries are suffering from a “democratic recession,” with key institutions for participatory politics under attack and protections for civil and political rights in decline.

The successful election reaffirmed the views of many scholars who closely monitor the state of South Korea’s democracy. According to Stephan Haggard, a professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at UC San Diego, South Korea’s democracy has maintained high levels of protection for political rights and civil liberties. In fact, South Korea’s democracy scores from 2017 to 2020 actually exceeded those of both the United States and the EU.

So what will the next five years bring to South Korea, particularly in terms of foreign policy?

President-elect Yoon emphasized strengthening South Korea-U.S. relations throughout his campaign. At a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) last November, Yoon said, “A firm alliance between South Korea and the U.S. has become ever more important in global issues beyond national security, not only for the United States, but also for South Korea.” Yoon also added that South Korea should be an active participant in efforts to build a global coalition of countries sharing the values of democracy and human rights, alongside the United States.

There are numerous pending issues between the countries. This was evident in the longest ever joint statement released after the summit between the countries’ leaders last May. Of particular importance is Official Development Assistance (ODA), one of the most important areas of bilateral cooperation. This issue has particular salience to South Korea because the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) played a key role in transforming the country into an economic powerhouse after the Korean War. Korean peoples’ memory of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers is still vivid and undergirds strong people-to-people ties that continue more than 40 years after the Peace Corps Korea program ended. More recently, in the context of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, the two countries agreed that they could contribute together to economic prosperity in the Indo-Pacific through cooperation between USAID and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

As an ex-prosecutor with no political experience, Yoon is a foreign policy neophyte. In order to get insight about his prospective posture on ODA and other issues, people turn to Yoon’s foreign affairs advisers. Yoon announced the members of his transition team on March 15 and three experts were listed for the subcommittee for foreign affairs and security. They are former Vice Foreign Minister Kim Sung-han, former Presidential Secretary on National Security Strategy Kim Tae-hyo, and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lee Jong-sup. One commonality among them is that they all held positions in the previous Lee Myung-bak administration (2008-2013).

Like all other administrations, there were debates and controversies over the foreign and security policies of the Lee administration. Notwithstanding, Lee’s foreign policy team was notably devoted to formalizing public diplomacy as one of three pillars of South Korean diplomacy, along with political and economic diplomacy. The Lee government wanted to enhance South Korea’s global status and play a bridging role between developed and developing countries as a middle power country.

On November 25, 2009, South Korea joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which consists of countries that provide loans among OECD countries. DAC is called the “advanced nations’ assistance club” and presents international standards for development cooperation and lead agenda setting.

In 2010, while hosting the G-20 summit, the Lee government added development to the G-20 agenda for the first time, leading to the adoption of the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth as well as the Multi-Year Action Plan on Development. In the following year, South Korea hosted the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to assess progress on global efforts to make aid more effective in reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. The High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness was the world's largest and highest-level conference on development aid and about 160 heads of states and cabinet level officials attended, including then-U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then-OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria.

In fact, South Korea’s ODA as a percentage of its gross national income (GNI) drastically increased during Lee’s term from 2008 to 2013.