Content warning: brief, non-graphic discussion of rape, sexual slavery, and torture. 

Introduction

In the last three decades, South Korea experienced a fast-paced rise to the global stage: economically, through its booming technological industry; politically, through its participation in global diplomatic initiatives; and culturally, through the popularity of K-pop and K-dramas. Underneath the country’s feverish growth, South Korea has committed to pursuing a set of goals so fundamental that they transcend changes in administrations: autonomy, security, prosperity, and status. As a whole, these goals encapsulate South Korea’s approach to long-term statecraft, or its “grand strategy.” 

We are often unknowingly entrenched in a US-centric perspective, which falls short of a comprehensive global security analysis. As students and citizens, we must expand our understanding of global issues beyond our immediate periphery to include other perspectives. 

This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to South Korea through the Clements Center’s program, A Summer Beyond Borders: Diplomacy on the Divided Korean Peninsula. During my time in South Korea, I explored the US’s complex relationship with East Asia with military officials, reflected on the deadlocked Korean conflict at the DMZ, and analyzed how historical hostilities shape modern diplomacy alongside former government advisors. 

The Summer Beyond Borders trip helped me develop a deeper understanding of nuanced global diplomacy. And because I cannot board you on a plane to fly 7,000 miles across the Pacific, I hope to introduce you to South Korean foreign diplomacy by contextualizing South Korea’s history and analyzing its evolving relationships with North Korea and the United States.   

History: Japanese Colonization

Because of its unique geographical position, the Korean peninsula is often at the forefront of global and regional theaters as the bridge between land and sea. From the ancient periods, South Korea’s history illustrates how location dictates geopolitical frictions. 

The end of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1897) marked Korea’s modern history with a tumultuous beginning. Throughout the 19th century, imperialist Japan threatened to invade Joseon (Korea) if it did not open itself up to foreign trade. After launching a naval invasion, Korea signed the one-sided Korean-Japanese Treaty, or Ganghwa Treaty, in 1876. Though the treaty established Korea as a sovereign nation, it also forcibly opened Korea’s ports to favor Japan’s trading industry and granted extraterritoriality privileges to Japanese merchants in Korea. 

After increasing domination over neighboring regions, the Japanese Empire officially annexed the Korean Empire in 1910. During the colonial period in Korea, Japan ruled with brutal authority. Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese surnames and endured hard labor in factories. Men were conscripted into the Japanese military, and women were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army. The euphemism “comfort women” will never fully encompass the horrific, exploitative, dehumanizing treatment of South Korean women and young girls who were raped and tortured at the hands of Japanese troops. Even today, Japan still fails to fully acknowledge, apologize to, or compensate victims of the atrocities it committed. 

While groups of Korean patriots resisted Japanese colonization, they were met with more brutality. Japanese colonizers threw defiant Koreans into prisons where the captives were subjected to inhumane conditions ranging from starvation to beatings. In spite of oppression, Koreans’ spirit of resistance flourished. In 1919, patriots signed the Korean Declaration of Independence and formed a provisional government to organize the Korean political movement. As demonstrations became more widespread and retaliation grew more violent, Korean resistance efforts resorted to armed struggles against Japanese forces. On the Korean peninsula, tension threatened to erupt. 

It was not until Japan’s 1945 surrender in the Pacific War that Koreans achieved liberation. To remove Japanese forces from the peninsula, Allied powers divided Korea at the 38th parallel, sending US troops to the south and USSR troops to the north. The division was intended to be temporary—the borderline chosen out of convenience. International powers agreed to leave the peninsula upon establishing a unified, independent Korean government. 

History: The Korean War

Conflicting ideologies between the Soviet Union and the United States threatened a permanently divided occupation of the peninsula. As a result, a socialist state emerged in the north (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, led by Kim Il-Sung), and a liberal state developed in the south (the Republic of Korea, led by pro-American Syngman Rhee). Because the Soviets preferred a communist government and the Americans insisted on instituting a system of capitalism, they turned to the newly formed United Nations to resolve the disagreement. However, on an early June morning in 1950, North Korea breached the 38th parallel and launched a surprise invasion of South Korea, sparking the Korean War. In less than three months, North Korean forces, backed by the Soviet Union, captured nearly all of South Korea. 

The United States, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, spearheaded a UN coalition to support South Korea. General MacArthur successfully executed the Incheon landing operation, changing the course of the war. UN forces were able to recapture Seoul and push the North Korean army back across the 38th parallel. Under the new political and military leadership of Mao Zedong, China perceived US involvement as a security threat and an attempt to contain their nation. Thus, China joined the Korean War, sending millions of soldiers to aid the North Korean military. While Chinese forces had less advanced military technology than the Americans, their strategy of guerrilla warfare and philosophy of morale triumphing over machinery caused the sheer size of the People’s Liberation Army to overwhelm UN troops.

Following China’s involvement, the battle frontline became stuck at the 38th parallel, with neither side able to capture more land. Though the last two years of the Korean War were no less devastating, the conflict slowly faltered to a stalemate. The Korean War was less about “North” versus “South” and more so “East” versus “West.” With both sides deeply invested in the deadly geopolitical chess, the US and USSR sought to emerge as the dominant postwar international power. Eventually, an armistice was signed in 1953, ending all active fighting. However, no formal peace treaty was signed, meaning that the Korean peninsula is technically still locked in a state of war today, albeit a very passive war. Additionally, the Armistice established a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 38th parallel, which acts as a heavily fortified buffer zone between the two countries and has occasionally been a hair-trigger hotspot for conflict. 

ROK-US Relationship: In Principle and Practice

Because the US supplied 90% of UN military personnel and suffered the heaviest casualty toll during the Korean War, it is important to understand the dynamic of the ROK-US relationship in the aftermath of the Cold War. America’s deep involvement in forming South Korea’s statehood explains why the US continues to exert a gravitational force on South Korea’s present-day foreign policies. This includes maintaining a substantial military presence in South Korea, whether by stationing dozens of US military bases, routinely conducting joint exercises, or maintaining a combined-forces-command. The ROK-US security dynamic is asymmetrical: while South Korea mostly relies on the US for its security, the opposite is not true. In exchange, South Korea implicitly agrees to support US foreign policy endeavors. 

Still, the ROK-US alliance offers several advantages: it places South Korea under the United States security umbrella and affords legitimacy to South Korea’s voice in global efforts. For South Korea, the top two concerns are China and North Korea. Many South Korean diplomats view China as a major threat, and close proximity to a rising Great Power is a cause for concern. Because South Korea cannot defend itself against the Chinese military alone, the promise of US protection helps set fears at ease. However, South Korea’s bilateral relationship with China itself is multifaceted. While some scholars consider China a security threat, China is one of South Korea’s largest trading partners. Therefore, South Korean diplomats are wary of “poking the dragon” at the risk of Chinese economic retaliation. Another benefit of the US security umbrella lies in the ability to deter North Korea from launching nuclear weapons on South Korea, acting as a check on unwarranted hostility. China and North Korea pose as existential threats to South Korea, but instead of self-defense, South Korea’s best deterrence strategy is relying on the world’s largest military. 

Yet, for a country intent on forging independence and autonomy on the global stage, South Korea’s alliance with the United States seems to contradict its grand strategy. Can a country fundamentally dependent on another country for security be truly autonomous? 

South Korea simultaneously fears overdependence on and abandonment by the US. Therefore, the United States security umbrella guarantees and undermines South Korean autonomy. The tension of these contradictory concerns has led South Korea to develop a balancing act in their foreign diplomacy. In order to enhance sovereignty, South Korea diversified its international relationships, from normalizing economic relations with China to spearheading East Asian regional initiatives. At the same time, the US alliance remains foundational to securing South Korea’s grand strategy goals of security and autonomy. By providing a shield of deterrence, the alliance allows South Korea to act more independently in nonmilitary matters. Therefore, to avoid provoking the US, South Korean diplomats have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to the ROK-US alliance. However, the more hawkish politicians want to ramp up South Korea’s offensive military capabilities. In their eyes, overreliance on the US weakens South Korea literally and perceptually. While the ROK-US alliance remains critically important, how can South Korea forge an independent presence on the international stage? 

North Korea: To Reunify or Not to Reunify? 

Of course, one cannot examine South Korean foreign policy without understanding its relationship with its neighbor: North Korea. Unlike South Korea’s elected democratic state, leaders of the Kim regime are seen as deities. Beginning with Kim Il-Sun, then Kim-Il Jong, and now Kim Jong-Un, North Korean leaders are more concerned with regime preservation than state preservation—that is, more concerned with preserving the Kim dynasty’s legacy than the well-being of the North Korean people. 

On the other side of the peninsula, the South Korean constitution does not recognize the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a legitimate state—in fact, successful North Korean defectors are immediately accepted and integrated into South Korea as ROK citizens.The goal, no matter how far distant in the future, is a reunified Korea. But while North Korea is understood as part of South Korea’s legal territorial claim, it is also a existential threat to South Korea. South Korean diplomacy has navigated this complex relationship in a modern context. For example, the Sunshine policy endeavored to establish friendly ties between the Koreas as a state of transition of adjustment before peaceful reunification talks could begin. However, North Korea’s escalatory acts of aggression threaten the possibility of reunification. Recent South Korean administrations now prioritize defending South Korea against a potential North Korean attack rather than attempt diplomacy with an irrational actor. However, to truly understand Korean relations, we cannot chalk up North Korea to the actions of a single entity—Kim Jong-Un—as we see in the media, but must understand that it is a nation where millions of innocent civilians survive under totalitarian control. Thus, our focus on national security in that region must also be supplemented with humanitarian concerns. 

North Korean nuclear proliferation is a massive security issue that South Korean officials have grappled with since North Korea began secretly developing nuclear weapons in the 1990s. The thought that Kim Jong-un could one day decide to nuke South Korea is a daily threat, tucked in the back of South Korean minds. But as a signee of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and implicit conditions in the ROK-US Alliance, South Korea cannot independently proliferate nuclear weapons. These constraints put South Korea in an uncomfortable position that requires absolute trust in the strength of the ROK-US alliance. 

As an alternate means of enhancing its position, South Korea resorted to a creative soft power technique: dropping balloons over North Korean land. Supplies carried across in these balloons range from flash drives with K-pop tracks to pamphlets that expose the truth of the world outside North Korea. The goal of South Korea’s information campaign is to spread support for democratization while undermining the legitimacy and godlike status of the Kim regime. In retaliation, North Korea responded with balloons filled with biohazardous materials (read: trash and poop). This exchange may not necessarily foreshadow military escalation but demonstrates the unmistakable deterioration of diplomatic relationships since the Sunshine policy era. 

The goal of eventual reunification with an adversary remains a puzzling dilemma. While predecessors of the Kim regime did not explicitly promote reunification with South Korea, they did not disparage it. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-un’s inflammatory rhetoric has surpassed that of his ancestors in outright refusing to reunify with South Korea. Additionally, if reunification happens, both countries insist it to be on their own terms, marking a return to the original Cold War stalemate. Finally, changing demographics are shaping future South Korean reunification policy. Older generations, having experienced firsthand the sorrows of the Korean War, believe that reunification is critical to the Korean identity. Younger generations, detached from the Korean War, are skeptical about pursuing reunification with an enemy. 

While it has blossomed into a prospering country, South Korea, a country with a rich and complex background, is still evolving. South Korea’s history tells a story of perseverance, and its foreign diplomacy navigates paradoxes in questions of autonomy and reunification. 

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Clements Center for the opportunity to travel abroad in summer 2024 to Korea, and all the guest speakers who took the time to engage with students on the trip. The Korea summer program has been modified to be a Maymester, where UT students can earn credits.