Follow us on social

2022-03-09t201257z_1364621158_rc27zs97l1vr_rtrmadp_3_southkorea-election-scaled

Hawkish Yoon wins in Seoul, posing challenges for Taiwan, North Korea policy

The conservative has won the closest presidential race in the country's history — so where does he stand on the contentious issues?

Asia-Pacific

South Korea's People Power Party candidate and former prosecutor Yoon Seok-youl has won the Blue House in the closest presidential race in South Korea's history.

A major foreign policy challenge that awaits Yoon will be to navigate relations with a more assertive yet economically critical China, all while the U.S. increases its pressure against South Korea to support its Indo-Pacific strategy that emphasizes containing rather than cooperating with China.

To maintain regional stability and good relations with both the US and China, Yoon will have to be clear about how far South Korea is willing to go on matters like defending Taiwan in case of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Some in Washington will argue that South Korea should join a coalition against China despite the fact that South Koreans are far from sold on such a containment strategy. According to the 2021 survey by Korea Institute for National Unification, support for a balanced/neutral stance on U.S.-China rivalry outweighed support for strengthening the alliance or strengthening cooperation with China every year from 2016 to October 2021. 

Similarly, a survey conducted by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University from 2018 to 2021 showed stronger preference for maintaining relations with both US and China, compared to strengthening US-ROK alliance or strengthening cooperation with China. So while passions may have run high during the campaign, it would be prudent for the Yoon administration to take a more moderate stance on the “strategic dilemma” presented by the deteriorating U.S.-China relationship. 

A related challenge for the new South Korean president is North Korea. During the campaign, candidate Yoon expressed support for deploying additional anti-ballistic missile defense systems while strengthening deterrence against North Korea. Yet a deterrence-only strategy without meaningful reassurances has failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear armament and increased North Korea’s desire for nuclear weapons as a security guarantee.  

A recent peace game exercise conducted by the Quincy Institute, U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Sejong Institute of South Korea found that a new analytical approach to the North Korea issue that puts equal emphasis on peacebuilding and denuclearization is needed to break the deadlock in talks between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, and other stakeholders in the region. Successful diplomacy and peacebuilding with North Korea will require a shift in the minds of conservatives in South Korea and the United States who tend to view North Korea as a permanent menace rather than as a rational actor. 

From surging Covid-19 cases to the real estate bubble to mending ties with young women voters, President-elect Yoon has a full plate awaiting him. Embarking on a balanced strategy toward the United States, China, and North Korea will ensure that the Yoon administration has the flexibility to enact his campaign pledges. It will also allow him to avoid unnecessary and costly conflicts at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.


Yoon Suk-Yeol, the presidential candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, who was elected South Korea’s new president on Thursday, holds bouquets as he is congratulated by party’s members and lawmakers at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea March 10, 2022. Lee Jin-man/Pool via REUTERS
Asia-Pacific
POGO
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

The non-empires strike back

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.

keep readingShow less
Trump Netanyahu
Top image credit: noamgalai / Shutterstock.com

Trump appears all in for Netanyahu's political survival

Middle East

On March 25, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed its long-delayed 2025 budget. Had the vote failed, it would have automatically triggered snap elections — an outcome Netanyahu appears politically incapable of surviving.

While Israel cited stalled hostage negotiations and ongoing security threats as reasons for ending the U.S.-backed ceasefire in Gaza, Netanyahu’s decision to resume large-scale military operations just days before the vote also appeared aimed at shoring up support from far-right coalition partners such as Itamar Ben Gvir. The budget, framed explicitly by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as a “war budget,” includes record levels of defense spending and a dramatic increase in funding for Israeli public diplomacy, a nod to the government’s attempt to counteract ongoing international condemnation of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

keep readingShow less
JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.’ Why didn't he?
Top photo credit: Unredacted memo by Arthur Schlesinger (JFK files) and President John F. Kennedy, 1962 (public domain/Donald Cooksey)

JFK wanted to splinter CIA ‘into a thousand pieces.’ Why didn't he?

Washington Politics

When the final, declassified records from the John F. Kennedy assassination files were posted on the National Archives’ website last week, the first document researchers and reporters searched for was White House adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s June 1961 memorandum to the president titled “CIA Reorganization.”

ABC News led its initial coverage on the release of the JFK papers with that document, quoting Schlesinger’s now unredacted, dramatic, statistics that showed that the "CIA today has nearly as many people under official cover overseas as [the] State [Department].” The New York Times also featured that document with a headline “A Kennedy aide worried that the C.I.A. threatened the State Department’s power.”

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.