ASEAN-Korea Relations: Security, Trade, and Community Building

Foreword

Foreword Korea has been a dialogue partner of ASEAN since July 1991, and through the ASEAN plus Three multilateral framework of East Asian co-operation, it now meets regularly with ASEAN at summit levels. ASEAN members regard it as a valuable contributing partner. In November 1989 Korea and ASEAN established a Sectoral Dialogue relationship. In July 1991 the relationship was moved up to Full Dialogue Partnership. In these dialogues mutual support for moving towards strengthened Korea–ASEAN co-operation was reaffirmed. However, the level of public awareness of Korea in ASEAN remains low. Asian attentionontheKoreanPeninsulahasbeenfairlyparochial,withmuchfocusonthe vicissitudes in its security environment — weapons of mass destruction (WMD), nuclear proliferation, and problems in the north. In the light of this the image of Korea is inevitably skewed or distorted. Despite the popularity of Korean movies and actors and actresses — a new cultural phenomenon sweeping Asia, aptly called “The Korean Wave” (in Korean, Hallyu) — among citizens in ASEAN countries in recent years, our understanding of Korea needs to be further enhanced. The security environment in East Asia features prominently in our discussions of geopolitics. Within the East Asian equation, the Korea factor was overshadowed by Japan at one time, and now ever increasingly, by a rising China. The ASEAN public image of Korea was equally skewed in the post11 September era as well as the years following the onslaught of the Asian financial/economic crisis. The after-effects of these incidents of economic and political turbulence have not dissipated, and ASEAN has far from recovered its pre-Asian financial crisis economic turnovers. These images belie the realities of growing interdependence between ASEAN and Korea, for the latter is a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), an ASEAN dialogue partner, and a player in the ASEAN plus Three. Furthermore, the ASEAN states and Korea are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC). Korea and ASEAN have jointly executed over 100 co-operation projects since 1990 in the areas of trade, investment, FM.indd 9 FM.indd 9 1/24/07 2:06:04 PM 1/24/07 2:06:04 PM tourism, technology transfer, and the fostering of human resources. Globalization has brought Northeast and Southeast Asia much closer together, leading to expectations of an emerging East Asian integration process, and kindling hopes for an East Asian community. In October 1994, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) organized the first Korea–ASEAN conference in Singapore to look into the emerging issues in trade and investment relations between Korea and ASEAN. The conference proceedings were published in the ISEAS publication, ASEAN and Korea: Emerging Issues in Trade and Investment Relations the following year. That first Korea–ASEAN conference was followed by another conference in Seoul in cooperation with the Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies. The book compiling the papers presented at the second Korea–ASEAN conference, ASEAN and Korea: Trends in Economic and Labour Relations, was published by ISEAS in 1997. In the ensuing years both the ASEAN region and Korea have experienced momentous developments — 11 September, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rising spectre of new transnational threats, foremost of which is international terrorism, the reorientation of America’s international security role and attendant impacts on friends and allies, and regional expansion on the ASEAN side. These events have resulted in changes in North and South Korean relations, stagnation in the Japanese economy, the rising economic profile of China, and changing patterns of international economic relations. These developments have had various impacts on Korea and ASEAN countries; and as such, call for a much-needed re-examination of the political and economic realities governing the ASEAN–Korea relationship. In recent times ISEAS has successfully organized international forums and conferences on ASEAN–Japan, ASEAN–India, and ASEAN–China relations. Singapore has also successfully negotiated a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Korea, and is in fact tasked to lead the ASEAN side in the upcoming ASEAN–Korea FTA talks. ISEAS has had the great honour of fostering this spirit of co-operation when it jointly organized with Korea’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), the Conference on Strengthening the Korea–ASEAN Relationship on 15 September 2005 in Singapore, with generous funding from the Korea Foundation. This book is the product of the conference. Even as we try to cope with unfolding events, some of the analysis published now may have been dated by events that happened over the last one year...