An Analysis of the Korean Government Policy toward Russia : from High Politics to Low Politics

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate Korean government policy toward Russia after establishing diplomatic relations between Korea and Russia in 1990. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, South Korea and Russia established diplomatic ties in 1990. For the last some 25 years, Korea has been implementing expansive diplomatic policy toward Russia. In 1994, under the former president Kim Young-sam administration, Korea-Russia relations were enhanced into Constructive Mutually Complementary Partnership. In 2004, at the summit meeting held in Moscow, Korea-Russia relations were developed to Mutually Trustful and Comprehensive Partnership and in 2008 the relations were once again upgraded as Strategic Cooperative Partnership. Korea and Russia shared similar view and interests on many issues, such as peace in the Korean peninsula and the North Korean nuclear issue, economic interests, South Korea-North Korea-Russia Trilateral Cooperation including the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) and Trans-Korean Railway (TKR) extension, and so forth. However, neither Korea nor Russia could be completely assured of the stability of projects mentioned above due to the North Korea factor. For instance, constructing a Korea-Russia pipeline via North Korea is a lucrative project for both sides, but it causes complex security and military implications. Nevertheless, of special interest is that South Korea maintains its active foreign policy toward Russia for last 25 years. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate transition of Korean government policy toward Russia for past years in the Korea-Russia relation. At first, it will provide an overview of Korean government policy toward Russia after the normalization of Korea-Russia relations in 1990, and then it will analyze changing focus of Korean government major policies toward Russia from high politics to low politics. Considering the transition of Korean government policy to Russia and its policy issues, it is estimated that Korea-Russia diplomatic relations has been moved from high politics area to low politics area. Within the subfield of international relations, the concept high politics covers all matters that are vital to the very survival of the state, namely national and international security concerns. In opposition, low politics is a concept that covers all matters that are not absolutely vital to the survival of the state as the economics and social affairs. The hypothesis of this study is that the Korean government policy toward Russia started from high political area and gradually changed to low political area. Finally, this paper aims to evaluate Korean government policy toward Russia and implications from policy implementation.