South Korea's Foreign Policy Shifts Under President Yoon and Implications for the Sino-US Peer Competition

Abstract

South Korea, caught amid the intensifying Sino-US peer competition, has begun to re-orientate its foreign policy under President Yoon Suk-yeol, significantly shifting it away from his predecessor President Moon Jae-in. At the crux of these policy changes is a shift away from the so-called “Three Noes”, which have existed as a policy stopgap in order to stabilize Seoul's position between China and the US following the 2017 THAAD debacle. This policy shift indicates that the Yoon administration has begun removing policy stopgaps that facilitated hedging behavior and is trimming South Korea's hedge tacking harder on the US for security and aligning as a core Asian state with the Rules-based International Order. Nevertheless, careful strategic calculus is required to avoid backlash from Beijing, despite Yoon seeking closer alignment with Washington. The policy shift underway has the geostrategic potential to solidify the Northeast Asian flank of Washington's efforts to counter Beijing, with a phalanx of Asia-Pacific allies and partners.