South Korea has been successful in the containment and management of the spread of the first wave of COVID-19. An early surge in the number of cases in Daegu briefly made South Korea the country with the second largest number of cases back in February. Five months since news of the COVID-19 pandemic emerged from China in late December 2019, however, South Korea is widely seen as a model for dealing with this crisis. To a large extent, this is due to the country’s preparedness to deal with pandemics. Since the MERS outbreak of 2015, and also the MS Sewol ferry disaster one year earlier, the South Korean state has developed the necessary capacities to prepare for pandemics.

While countries in the West have suffered from domestic struggles, the global crisis caused by COVID-19 has become an opportunity for public diplomacy for several countries in the East. Once having the second largest outbreak in the world behind China, South Korea succeeded in flattening the curve quickly thanks to swift government intervention and joined the soft power race immediately. However, the initiative was purposefully connected to public diplomacy at home with the aim of winning the 21st legislative election. Promoted as “South Korea’s corona-diplomacy” by government campaigns, the victory against the novel coronavirus narrative was deliberately employed to get domestic consensus behind approving the Moon administration, whose strategy achieved its objective.

President Moon Jae-in gave a speech on May 10th, on the occasion of the third anniversary since his inauguration. With two years in his non-renewable five-year presidency to go and South Korea recovering from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moon sought to set his government’s priorities for a post-pandemic world. Inevitably, the address was dominated by South Korea’s response to the economic consequences of the pandemic. But Moon also referred to how his government plans to make use of the international ramifications of the pandemic to press its foreign policy agenda.

April 2020 | KF-VUB KOREA CHAIR POLICY BRIEFRiccardo Villa Negotiations for the stability of the Korean Peninsula and North Korea’s nuclear disarmament are currently at an impasse, but a door for diplomacy is still open. The involvement of the private sector, mainly...

South Korea held its quadrennial National Assembly election on Wednesday. The full 300 seats were up for grabs. Widely seen as a referendum on Moon Jae-in’s presidency as he is about to enter the final two years of his non-renewable five year mandate, the results put him and his party in a strong position to move their agenda forward. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea, Moon’s party, and its satellite party won 180 seats. This allows the ruling party to fast track legislation. No party has ever won so many seats before. The main opposition party, United Future Party, and its satellite party won 103 seats. This means that the liberal bloc, including the Democratic Party, its satellite party and smaller parties, will enjoy a comfortable majority for the next four years.

At least 120 countries have asked South Korea for COVID-19 test kits and other materials to fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. South Korean biotech firms are shipping the kits everywhere from Europe and the United States to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The secret to South Korea’s test development and manufacturing success lies in Daejeon. This city is home to Daedeok Innopolis, South Korea’s main R&D cluster, including for biotech. Developed since the 1990s, South Korea’s biotech industry is a textbook case of the country’s industrial policy. It is based on two pillars: public-private cooperation and continuity across administrations. This is what Daedeok Innopolis and South Korea’s COVID-19 test success embody.

What is the perspective of key EU member states towards South Korea? While EU- South Korea relations have attracted growing attention in recent years, the relationship between key EU member states and the Asian country remains underexplored. This report addresses this omission by describing and analysing the recent evolution of the relationship between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Sweden, on the one hand, and South Korea on the other. The report covers the areas of economic relations, security relations, bilateral relations and North Korea, and cultural relations. The report shows that there is a clear trend towards greater cooperation between key EU member states and South Korea.

The South Korean Ministry of Justice has emerged as the epicentre of political turmoil since fall 2019. The main protagonists are former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who is under investigation for legal and ethical transgressions, and current Minister Choo Mi-ae, who reshuffled the Prosecutor’s Office amid investigations into political allies of President Moon Jae-in and his Democratic Party. The two close allies of President Moon have made the Democratic Party vulnerable to the accusation of hypocrisy and of pursuing a governance style in which their cause justifies all means.

Negotiations for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament face many difficulties, but an exchange of a few North Korean nuclear warheads and a partial lifting of economic sanctions is a work-around for both North Korean and U.S. concerns. Unlike dismantlement of nuclear or missile facilities, transfer of nuclear warheads does not weaken North Korea’s future bargaining position or is susceptible to deception by the regime. In exchange, the United States should offer a partial but significant lifting of economic sanctions because North Korean negotiators have asked for it, no one has to pay for it, and it is a quantitatively adjustable concession according to the number of warheads transferred.

Parasite (2019), a satirical masterpiece directed by South Korean helmer Bong Joon-ho, became the first non-English language film awarded the Best Picture in the 92 years of history of the Oscars. The film also won three other major awards including Best Director for Bong, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. The critically lauded film has been sweeping international awards since its premier and winning the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, including Golden Globes and BAFTAs, but also achieved a remarkable market success for a subtitled piece, currently ranked the sixth highest foreign language film of all-time at the US domestic box office. The win is, however, not a mere surprise or an exception but referred to as a ‘Game Changer.’