Green Growth and Asian Donors: From Japan to Korea

Abstract

Japan and Korea emulate and compete in many areas. Korea regards each Group of Twenty (G20) state as having its own international issue niche (Kim 2013; OECD 2009). For 20 years Japan’s has been the human security approach; for Korea, the recent niche has been green growth. Japan is not party to the Korean-based Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Japan is a nonbinding Kyoto party in the second period, while Korea is a nonbinding state for both first and second periods. This position for Korea is often regarded as an opportunity to engender a “me first” approach and to promote a “mitigation” that is voluntary and as a means to gain soft power gravitas. On the other hand, once soft power is gained then it also offers a temptation for continuing “business as usual” industrialization with heavy emissions while “being seen” to be green. In this case, any slight gesture to any voluntary commitment is always going to appear as being to Korea’s advantage. However, Korea’s increasing proaction in strategically using soft-power resources and positioning in this particular green growth issue sphere also requires a measure of state-led soft-power credibility Yet with such credibility also emerge potential “tipping points” with matching domestic policy to the increasingly global role and responsibility that certain vested interests in Korea envisage on the “green” issue.