ISDP’s Korea Center, in collaboration with Stockholm University is honoured to invite Dr. Lee Jae-Seung, Professor and Jean Monnet Chair in College of International Studies, Korea University, to hold a public lecture on the Challenges of the Indo-Pacific Strategy for South Korea.

The lecture will begin with a brief introduction and welcome by Riccardo Villa. In this lecture, Dr. Lee will pinpoint and discuss some key challenges to South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Launched in November of last year, South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy replaces the “strategic ambiguity” practiced by the previous government with a clear strategic vision of South Korea emerging as a “global pivotal state.” Given the strategy’s launch amid an intensive North Korean missile testing campaign and the escalating US-China strategic competition, Dr. Lee will first bring some clarity to the political and institutional context of the Indo-Pacific strategy to make clear its aims and why it makes sense for South Korea to pursue it at this time.

This backdrop allows the discussion to move on to exploring some potential challenges. Significantly, the strategy assumes an active pursuit of multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific on a broad range of economic, political, and technological issues, but South Korea is hardly the only one making moves in the region. What are the prospects of the Yoon government to achieve its foreign policy aims in an increasingly competitive world order? How do South Korean relations with North Korea, China, and India influence the strategy’s likelihood of success? And what is the strategy overlooking? The discussion will address these questions, among others.

Following the presentation, the floor will be opened up for a Q&A session.

Program
15:00-15:10 - Welcome & Introductory Remarks
15:10-16:30 - Lecture, moderated by Riccardo Villa
16:30-17:00 - Q&A Session
17:00 - Concluding remarks