► Korea must consider a variety of strategies, including utilizing economic cooperation platforms, such as RCEP and the KORUS FTA, and normalizing high-level strategic dialogue between the ROK and China, to ensure that bilateral cooperation and strategic communication can continue in the future.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of 28 member states, including the United States, Canada, and several European countries, is a collective security pact formed in response to the threat from Russia. As the Cold War came to an end and the 21st century began, the role of NATO was brought into question as the alliance entered into cooperative relations with Russia. However, in 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine strengthened the solidarity of the alliance, signaling NATO’s revival. From this perspective alone, it may seem that although NATO had strayed away from its founding purpose for many years, the alliance has now been restored to its previous form. However, the 2022 NATO Summit highlighted two new important facts that cannot be ignored. The first is that NATO’s new Strategic Concept specified China as a threat. The second is that leaders from the Asia-Pacific region, including Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, were officially invited to the NATO Summit. So why did NATO establish China as a new threat and invite the top four leaders from the Asia-Pacific? And why do those two facts matter now? To uncover the answers to these questions, it is necessary to examine the recent international situation.

Power (Alliance) Transition, and the Role of Alliances

The recent international situation has been marked by U.S.-China hegemonic competition triggered by the trade conflict under the Trump administration, and while the world has been struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, this conflict has deepened and expanded to cover military, politics, economy, technology, values, and ideology. As U.S.-China competition ramps up, power transition theory, which predicts the possibility of hegemonic war resulting from the power struggle between an existing hegemon and a rising power, and alliance transition theory, which expands on that concept to include alliance power as part of national power, are gaining more attention.

Alliance transition theory posits that parity of alliance power between two allied groups increases the possibility of challenging the existing hegemon and the international order. In this case, the existing hegemon must either maintain its relative power advantage over the potential challenger or address the rapidly rising challenger’s grievances about the current order to prevent hegemonic war. For the first case, the theory states the importance of the hegemon enhancing solidarity with allies that are satisfied with the existing order to offset its declining national power. For the latter case, the theory emphasizes the role of a pivotal middle power in addressing the potential challenger’s grievances. It states that a pivotal middle power can deter the rising power from challenging the hegemon by cooperating with the hegemon to help it maintain its power advantage or serve as a bridge between the hegemon and the rising power to prevent a military conflict between the two major powers.

The Biden Administration’s Alliance Policy and the New Role of NATO

Since the presidential election, the Biden administration has advocated for the restoration and reinvention of alliances, as emphasized by the alliance transition theory. The Biden administration’s alliance policy can be broadly defined as i) maintaining and strengthening existing alliances, ii) forming new alliances with countries that share the same values and iii) strengthening alliance networks. More specifically, in terms of restoring relations with existing allies, the Biden administration is strengthening solidarity with like-minded countries through customized solidarity in small/multilateral fora, such as the Quad, AUKUS, and IPEF, that allow for cooperation on an issue-by-issue basis. In addition, through its network of alliances, the U.S. is creating a synergy effect that is greater than the sum of its existing bilateral and multilateral relationships. Inviting the four Asia-Pacific leaders to attend this past NATO Summit is a clear example of this.

Up until recently, European countries, including NATO member states, have shown a tendency to assert Europe’s autonomy in policy towards China while seeking independent strategies due to the Trump administration’s policy of downplaying alliances and close economic ties with China. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine coupled with the accelerating Sino-Russian strategic partnership has changed NATO’s perception of the threat of China. As a result, China was specified as a threat in the NATO Strategic Concept 2022, and four Asia-Pacific leaders from Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand – U.S. allies and countries that share similar values with the United States – were invited to the NATO Summit. By specifying China as a new threat in addition to Russia, NATO has gone beyond returning to its previous role and has instead taken on a new role. In addition, from the U.S. perspective, this can be interpreted as a plan to unite allies in the Asia-Pacific around NATO, the core of the U.S. alliance network, as a way to solidify the frontlines of containment against China to counter China’s challenge to the U.S.-led international order and U.S. norms and values.

Although U.S. allies exhibited an unprecedented level of international solidarity at the recent NATO Summit, total solidarity is not yet guaranteed. For instance, while the U.S., Korea, and Japan held their first trilateral meeting in four years and nine months at this past NATO Summit, the Korea-Japan conflict has not been resolved, and India, a member of the Quad, caused a crack in the sanctions against Russia by purchasing discounted Russian crude oil. However, NATO, which has experienced improved solidarity due to the war in Ukraine, declared in the new Strategic Concept its plans to jointly respond to the threat of China and uphold the existing international order, and began to reach a consensus and cooperate with major U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region, which can be seen as a major step forward for the U.S. alliance integration efforts.

The Yoon Government’s Plans for a Global Pivotal State

At the same time, President Yoon became the first Korean president to attend the NATO Summit. The attendance at the summit is notable because it was President Yoon’s first diplomatic move since he announced the global pivotal state initiative at the Korea-U.S. Summit on May 21, discarding the strategy of strategic ambiguity and expressing an active desire for the maintenance of a values-based international order and global issues.

First, in terms of Korea’s national interest, participation in the NATO Summit helped Korea reach its goals of “strengthening emerging security cooperation,” “building a global network,” and “solidarity of values and norms.” According to the Office of the President, President Yoon first strengthened cooperation for economic and emerging security issues, including semiconductors, AI, big data, and nuclear energy, through bilateral talks. In addition, by meeting and forming relationships with leaders from over 30 countries, President Yoon took the first steps toward building a global network. Finally, he emphasized the importance of values and norms in terms of the need for all countries across the globe to cooperate beyond their regions on liberal democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. In other words, by attending this past NATO Summit, the new Korean administration not only established a foundation for trust-building and economic and security cooperation with European countries but also started to form a consensus as part of a multilateral group responding to U.S.-China competition.

Furthermore, as the debut of the Yoon administration on the multilateral international stage, the attendance at the NATO Summit can be seen as an expression of Korea’s desire to transform into a global pivotal state. The Yoon government’s idea of a global pivotal state can be viewed as a concept similar to that of a pivotal middle power in alliance transition theory. A pivotal middle power is a middle power with significant military power located in a key geopolitical region with an interest in maintaining the international and regional order led by the existing hegemon. Importantly, alliance transition theory argues that a pivotal middle power can serve as a bridge between the hegemon and the challenging power, preventing military conflict between the two rivals. To play this role, it is imperative to build trust between the hegemon and the middle power. In this respect, President Yoon’s participation in the NATO Summit is significant in that it allowed Korea to begin building trust with other nations as a global pivotal state.

Prospects for the Future

Up until this past NATO Summit, the U.S. was focused on strengthening the unity and solidarity of its allies to maintain a relative edge over China, and it could be argued that the new Korean administration had abandoned its existing strategy of strategic ambiguity and begun the journey towards becoming a global pivotal state. Amid intensifying U.S.-China competition, the success of the Yoon administration’s plans to transform Korea into a global pivotal state will be determined by i) building trust with the United States, ii) cooperating with countries that share similar values and iii) managing Korea-China relations. In other words, through a consistent foreign policy strategy of building trust with allies and other like-minded countries along with the stable management of Korea-China relations, Korea can lay the foundation to take on the role of a creative bridge as a global pivotal state.

On July 7, 2022, at the first Korea-China Foreign Minister’s meeting under the new administration, the two countries agreed to maintain ROK-China relations based on mutual respect and actively operate channels of strategic communication between Korean and Chinese ministers and vice ministers. However, several concerns have since been raised regarding China’s reaction and retaliation to the new administration’s foreign policy, so it is possible that if U.S.-China competition intensifies and the Korean government’s foreign policy goals materialize, ROK-China relations could worsen in the future. Consequently, as a strategic partner, Korea must consider a variety of strategies, including utilizing economic cooperation platforms, such as RCEP and the KORUS FTA, and normalizing high-level strategic dialogue between the ROK and China, to ensure that bilateral cooperation and strategic communication can continue in the future.