Clear the foam on Korea’s diplomacy

Lee Hyuk
The author is a former ambassador to Vietnam and a member of the JoongAng Ilbo’s Reset Korea Campaign.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea last month came as a shock to South Korea and the international community as Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a treaty of mutual military assistance in the event of an emergency. Putin’s visit to Vietnam after the North also has implications for the South’s diplomacy.

Despite strong opposition from the United States, the Vietnamese government provided a valuable diplomatic outlet for Putin who has been isolated from the rest of the world. With the help, Vietnam became a “creditor” in its relationship with Russia. Vietnam also prompted the United States to make stronger efforts to please it by raising its geopolitical profile while maintaining diplomatic independence.

Vietnam has kept close ties with Russia since the Soviet era. Many leaders, including the General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong, have studied in the Soviet Union and imported military weapons from Russia for up to 70 percent of them. During the Vietnam War, the country received significant military assistance from the Soviets and has maintained the closest relationship with Russia among Southeast Asian countries to counter potential security threats from China.

Vietnam signed the Comprehensive Cooperation and Partnership — the highest level of diplomatic relations — with seven countries. The partnerships were established in the order of China, Russia, India, South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Australia. The order shows that Vietnam has expanded its partnerships from socialist and non-allied countries to democracies and market economies. In other words, Vietnam is pursuing “bamboo diplomacy,” an approach that prioritizes its interests and shows flexibility in relations with other countries to protect its national interests regardless of their history, ideology or system. This was born out of the coolheaded thinking that it must have good relations with even former enemies to avoid repeating the bitter experience of being invaded and dominated by numerous foreign powers.

Vietnam, which has a similar geographic and historical experience to those of South Korea, is transforming a geopolitical curse into a geopolitical blessing. For over a thousand years, Vietnam was ruled by China and suffered numerous invasions. It even fought a war against the U.S. But it rarely expressed strong anti-Chinese or anti-American sentiments. Although South Korea had fought to support the United States in the Vietnam War, Vietnam has surpassed Japan to become Korea’s third-largest trading partner since last year. And South Korea became Vietnam’s largest investor long ago.

Of course, South Korea has a different system, ideology and geopolitical position from Vietnam. As a result, it does not have the same flexibility in foreign policy as Vietnam’s bamboo diplomacy. But we should note that Vietnam has been able to strongly restrain nationalistic and emotional responses and consistently develop substantive relations with important countries with which it has historical baggage — such as China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Given the partisan divisions over system, ideology and history — which deal a blow to the South’s diplomacy — there is much to learn from Vietnam’s pragmatic diplomacy.

Let’s take the case of Korea-Japan relations. Although relations between the two countries have recovered since last year, there is a sense of frustration in Korea that there has been no tangible progress. The view is that “Korea has filled half the glass, but Japan is not filling the other half.”

While the improvement may not be immediately tangible to the public, it will clearly benefit Korea’s national interests by strengthening the foundation for future exchanges and cooperation in various fields, including politics, security, economy, culture and people-to-people exchanges.

The essence of relations between countries is competition and cooperation. Japan is our competitor, not an enemy. Korea has been trying to catch up with — and surpass — Japan by learning and competing with the developed neighbor, and it became an important part of our economic growth process. Now, Korea’s per capita GDP is almost equal to Japan’s, and there are many areas where Korea is ahead of Japan, especially in the manufacturing industry. The stronger Korea becomes and the more stable the bilateral relations with Japan becomes, the closer the bilateral tie will become, because there will be as many areas for cooperation as competition with Japan.

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan. Rather than having unreasonable expectations, the two countries must use the occasion as an opportunity to sustainably develop the hard-won bilateral ties in a new direction in line with the new era. Last month’s South-Japan-China summit in Seoul — the first of its kind in four years — offered an opportunity for Seoul and Tokyo to restore some diplomatic points of contact with Beijing. Going forward, China will seek to elevate the Korea-Japan-China summit to the same level as the Korea-Japan-U.S. summit in order to weaken the security, economic and ideological coalition among the three countries.

In this light, South Korea must think about how to respond to various attempts by China — including the possibility of Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the trilateral summit after the country ended the practice of sending its prime minister to the event. The time has come for the South to deflate useless and counterproductive bubbles in its diplomacy, as the country faces increasing challenges and hardships.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.