In the post-Cold War era, the aim of Korea's foreign policy has been focused on securing international support for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and devising a means to peacefully reunify the country. Economic diplomacy has been actively pursued to promote the prosperity of Korea, so that it may join the ranks of the advanced countries. Since the Asian financial crises hit at the end of 1997, the Korean government has put greater emphasis on the importance of economic diplomacy.


Historical Overview

Since its founding in 1948, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been continuously committed to the concepts of liberal democracy and a free market economy, but its foreign relations have undergone significant changes. As the East-West confrontation evolved into a state of Cold War after World War II, the Republic of Korea pursued its foreign relations in concert with the nations of the West which advocated liberal democracy. In the years following the Korean War (1950-1953), the international community viewed Korea as a devastated, poverty-ridden nation, but that image had begun to change in the early 1960s as Korea's newly adopted policy of export-driven economic development showed impressive high-speed economic growth.

As the East-West confrontation sharpened during the Cold War era, the Republic of Korea, regarded as a member of the Western bloc, began to expand its foreign relations by improving ties with its traditional allies and by building cooperative relations with Third World nations. The scope of its foreign relations expanded as trade ties and other economic links with these nations matured. Compared with Korea's total trade of US$500 million in 1962, its two-way trade of US$280 billion at the end of 1997 was an astounding achievement. Despite a financial crisis that began in the late 1997, the Republic is still recognized around the world as a leading trading nation.

Since the 1970s, the diplomacy of the Republic has been designed to promote the independent and peaceful unification of the peninsula, which was tragically split in two after World War II. Its diplomats have labored hard to build a climate conducive to maintaining dialogue with North Korea. At the same time, the Republic has fortified ties with allies and actively participated in international organizations. With its diplomatic foundation firmly in place, the Republic continued throughout the 1980s to pursue cooperative partnership with all countries in every field.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, epochal changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War, and the Republic of Korea moved swiftly to exploit the situation by actively promoting a "Northern Diplomacy." In 1988, Korea hosted the 24th Olympiad, unveiling a new image of the nation that had blossomed after 30 years of rapid economic development. The Seoul Olympics provided an opportunity for all nations of the world to compete in a spirit of friendship for the first time after boycotts marked two previous Games. Korea's energetic pursuit of its Northern Diplomacy also contributed to the strengthening of its ties with former socialist nations after decades of strained relations due to the international system and ideological difference. Korea's diplomatic relations with these countries, including the former Soviet Union and China, were normalized one after another between 1989 and 1992. As a result, Korea's foreign relations became truly global.

South and North Korea joined the United Nations simultaneously in September 1991, crowning the success of the South's Northern Diplomacy. Furthermore, the foundation for peaceful coexistence between the South and the North was laid in December 1991, when the two countries concluded the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression and Exchanges and Cooperation (the Basic Agreement) and the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. These historic documents planted the seeds of peace on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia and represented a strong first step toward the peaceful unification of the divided nation.

However, there is still a long way to go to achieve meaningful progress in the South-North relations. Since the 1994 Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed with the United States to put its nuclear program on hold, the Kim Jong-il regime has not stopped military provocations against South Korea. Despite Pyongyang's various economic reform plans, including projects to establish special economic zones in Sinuiju and Gaeseong, it is uncertain whether these attempts will have tangible results. Although South Korea will continuously maintain its basic line of cooperation and reconciliatory policy toward North Korea, Seoul will not be able to keep supporting North Korea if the pending military issues of nuclear weapons and missiles, conventional weapons and human rights are not properly handled.

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Korea has paid particular attention to enhancing economic ties not only with advanced industrialized countries, but with developing countries as well. As of 2005, the Republic engaged in diplomatic relations with 186 nations and has maintained 95 embassies, 31 consulates and three special missions around the world.