This book examines the first regional strategy of South Korea toward Southeast Asia and India. At issue is how a middle power (a G20 country with the tenth largest economy in the world) seeks to play a larger and more comprehensive role in regions beyond the Korean peninsula. Hitherto, South Korean foreign policy has focused on nuclearizing North Korea, alliance maintenance with the United States, tricky relations with its most important economic partner China, and difficult ties with Japan marred by historical and territorial disputes. The Moon Administration has sought to diversify South Korean foreign policy by elevating ASEAN and India to the same strategic level as the United States, China, Russia, and Japan. To be sure, the latter countries continue to be most significant to the Korean peninsula. However, this book offers different country and regional perspectives on Seoul’s first regional grand strategy to play a role commensurate with its status as a middle power.

Faced with significant security challenges, in recent years Japan and South Korea have both sought to raise their international profile through peacebuilding, development, humanitarian assistance, and human security. This book assesses the past, present, and future potential of these niche diplomacy initiatives undertaken by Japan and South Korea, largely in Southeast Asia. The book concludes that not only do such nontraditional security channels have the potential to achieve meaningful change for partners and beneficiaries, but they could also form the basis of future confidence-building and security cooperation between Japan and South Korea, which have to date achieved little in the field of traditional security cooperation, despite facing many shared challenges. Working across disciplines and national boundaries, the contributors to this volume argue that policy prioritization in the fields of peacebuilding, development, and human security by Tokyo and Seoul could have the potential to accrue wider benefits not only to the Northeast Asian actors and the Southeast Asian partners, but also to wider regional and even global security communities. At a time when the role of so-called middle powers is receiving increasing levels of attention both domestically and internationally, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of Japan and the ROK, as well as development, security, and foreign policy researchers more broadly.

The papers in this CSIS compendium were written by the nine members of the 2019 TUPP delegation. Each participant was asked to reflect on their in-country experience and produce a short article analyzing a policy issue related to Taiwan. These papers are a testament to the powerful impact that follows first-hand exposure to Taiwan.

This book explores the struggle between China and the United States to expand their influence in Asia through economic assistance and defensive alliances. It brings together the diverse viewpoints of scholars from various countries on how Asian countries will exploit this geo-strategic competition to pursue their national interests, while also balancing their relations with the two great powers. The book offers a valuable asset for all those who have an interest in great power politics and international relations, especially academics, policymakers and security experts.

This book looks at the regional policies of two ‘middle powers’ in the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan and South Korea, and provides critical reflections on the ways both have sought to broaden their options for strategic manoeuvres with their southern neighbours. The chapters in this edited volume carefully examine the ‘New Southbound Policy’ (NSP-T), introduced by Taiwan (2016-present), and the ‘New Southern Policy’ (NSP-K), by South Korea (2017-2022). Both policies are aimed at important neighbours, namely Southeast Asia and India, who are major recipients of Taiwanese and South Korean capital, technology, cultural influence, and educational aid, and seek to improve diplomatic and foreign relations of these two countries with the region. Southward Bound: Examining the Regional Policies of Taiwan and South Korea will be of great value to students and scholars interested in Asian Studies, foreign policies of Asian countries, politics and international security. The chapters in this book were originally published in Asian Affairs.

This book studies the internal framework of the Indo-Pacific region and examines the strategic issues faced by the countries that belong to it. Over the years, the Indo-Pacific region has become a prime driver of global economic growth and has generated considerable interest from countries both within and without. The region is now witnessing an intensified great power competition for greater geostrategic space, thus shaping the 21st-century world order. The volume focuses on the emerging strategies of the main actors involved in this competition. It discusses various key issues such as the purpose of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and its post-pandemic agenda, the conceptualisation of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) amid an intensifying Sino-US great power competition, the strategies of ASEAN and South Korea, China’s activities in the Indo-Pacific, economic architecture and supply chain disruption in the region, as well as the geopolitical strategy of the European Union for the Indo-Pacific. A crucial study of the Indo-Pacific region in the post-COVID-19 world, the book gives fresh insights into the areas of convergence and divergence in the strategic visions of the many regional actors. It will be of great interest to policymakers as well as students and academics in the fields of political science, international relations, foreign policy, geopolitics, security studies, strategic studies, as well as area studies, namely East and Southeast Asian studies, European Union studies, American studies and Australian studies.

Southeast Asia-North Korea Relations reveals the genesis and evolution of Southeast Asian countries’ diplomatic relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) by unpacking the underlying political, economic, and security connections. In this book, chapters analyse in detail the individual bilateral linkages of the ten states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with the DPRK that vary in intensity and visibility. Bringing together an international group of experts, including, uniquely, authors representing every individual ASEAN state, this edited volume dissects the parameters of the bilateral relationships as well as the multi-faceted regional-level interactions and the roles of certain key external actors, especially South Korea and China. This book is a path-breaking addition to the study and analysis of regional inter-linkages in Asia and will be of interest to students and scholars working on North Korean studies, Southeast Asia, including ASEAN, and also on Korean Peninsula topics as well as international relations and security studies, especially considering the role of “small” states.

The book offers a vivid analysis of the new geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific in terms of big power rivalry between the US-China and country-wise perspectives situating largely within the late 2000s and culminates with the developments of the COVID-19 period. The great power shift, marked by the rise of China and the relative decline of the US, poses a serious challenge to the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region and the world order in general. Ironically, the play of realism in the region is stymied by broad partnerships of key countries that utilise the liberal approaches of cooperation with both rivals – the US and China. The book captures the mosaic of stakeholders – rivals the US and China along with Russia; other QUAD members Australia, India, and Japan; key ASEAN members, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam; vulnerable states in East Asia, viz. Taiwan and South Korea; and groupings including the ASEAN and QUAD – that constitute the new world politics of the Indo-Pacific. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Indo-Pacific studies, global politics, and international relations.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the relations between the two Koreas and the different ASEAN states, including their relations with ASEAN as an organization. It outlines a complex picture with both bilateral and multilateral relations in play at the same time. It charts for each relationship how the present situation has arisen, discusses current difficulties and strains, and assesses how the relationship may develop in future.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2021 provides insight into key regional strategic, geopolitical, economic, military and security topics. Among the topics explored are: US−China decoupling and its regional security implications; Japan’s security policy and China; India’s emerging grand strategy; Southeast Asia amid rising great-power rivalry; Australia’s new regional security posture; NATO’s evolving approach to China; The United Kingdom’s ‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific; and Emerging technologies and future conflict in the Asia-Pacific. Authors include leading regional analysts and academics Kanti Bajpai, Gordon Flake, Franz-Stefan Gady, Prashanth Parameswaran, Alessio Patalano, Samir Puri, Sarah Raine, Tan See Seng, Drew Thompson, Ashley Townshend, Joanne Wallis and Robert Ward.