Korean Foreign Policy Challenges in the 21st Century: Threats and Opportunities for Security, Peace and Prosperity in East Asia

Korean Foreign Policy Challenges in the 21st Century: Threats and Opportunities for Security, Peace and Prosperity in East Asia

This paper addresses the nature of US-Korean relations as a search for renewed relations with each other and other East Asian powers in the context of changing challenges to their mutual survival, security, and prosperity. Transitions from Cold War politics and conflictful competition regimes to the realities of cooperative competition in a globally interdependent world are recognized as difficult but vital to the long-term interests of all parties. Ultimately the challenge is one of envisioning and constructing a new, East Asian regional regime, one consistent with the inevitable struggles for power, prosperity, peace, and yearnings for social justice, as these goals are culturally, politically and financially. A number of scenarios are envisioned, none of which are without their limitations, but which at least offer greater stability for Korea while honoring the interests of its neighbors. It is concluded that although there are challenges to rethinking North-South relations with East Asian countries and the US, an effort to address regime change with alternative scenarios for moving forward produces some rather optimistic possibilities.

This paper addresses the nature of US-Korean relations as a search for renewed relations with each other and other East Asian powers in the context of changing challenges to their mutual survival, security, and prosperity. Transitions from Cold War politics and conflictful competition regimes to the realities of cooperative competition in a globally interdependent world are recognized as difficult but vital to the long-term interests of all parties. Ultimately the challenge is one of envisioning and constructing a new, East Asian regional regime, one consistent with the inevitable struggles for power, prosperity, peace, and yearnings for social justice, as these goals are culturally, politically and financially. A number of scenarios are envisioned, none of which are without their limitations, but which at least offer greater stability for Korea while honoring the interests of its neighbors. It is concluded that although there are challenges to rethinking North-South relations with East Asian countries and the US, an effort to address regime change with alternative scenarios for moving forward produces some rather optimistic possibilities.