Page 62 - AEI Insights 2020 - Vol. 6, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 6, Issue 1, 2020

ROK involve in various regional mechanism such as ARF, APT, EAS, and ADMM Plus
that supports the key interest in keeping up peace and success in each region. Apart from
relations of ASEAN-ROK, South Korea had built diplomatic partnership with Philippines
in 1949, followed by Thailand and Malaysia in 1960, Indonesia in 1973, Myanmar and
Singapore in 1975, and Brunei in 1984. Thus, the bilateral relationship between South
Korea and Southeast Asian countries continues until now.
b) the small country has recently made, or are making a significant unilateral form. This can
be seen in ROK acceptance of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1992, 1997 and 1995 which
the official relations were severed following the installation of communist regimes. Since
then, these three countries received visitors from Korea and likewise.
c) regionalisation is often ‘deep integration’ the partnership not just focusing on trade barriers
or economic policies but rather harmonising in other matters as well. This term is the most
significant for ASEAN-ROK relationship. The first diplomatic partner of Korea in
Southeast Asia was Philippines in 1949 followed by Thailand and Malaysia in 1960,
Indonesia in 1973, Myanmar and Singapore in 1975 and Brunei in 1984. The relationship
then became an official dialogue partnership in 1989, transformed to ‘full dialogue partner’
in 1991, elevated to ‘comprehensive cooperation partnership’ in 2004, and now as a
‘strategic partnership for peace and prosperity’ in 2010. The elevation of bilateral relations
was aimed to promote ASEAN-ROK exchanges and at the same time, reflect the
intensification of human exchanges between these two.
d) most of regional arrangement are based on strategic location; meaning that the countries
are mostly neighbours. Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia are neighbour countries. This
character applies to ‘old regionalism’ as well and can be applied as well in ‘new
regionalism’. Between ASEAN-ROK, the Asian Financial Crisis have made the most
impact of the regional integration between these two.

In summary, ASEAN-ROK relationship best fits in the ‘new regionalism’ theory. A regional
integration that involves a reform-minded small country with moderate trade concession links
with a large, neighbouring country that involve ‘deep integration’ between these two sides.

Strategies in Strengthening the Socio-cultural and Education Sector ASEAN-ROK.

Since the beginning of ASEAN-ROK partnership, the socio-cultural links and education sector
between both sides have come a long way. There have been efforts taken by both ASEAN-
ROK to build a continuously growing social-cultural. Such efforts can be seen through the past
developments which have led to the strong ties now. This people-to-people exchanges can be
seen in three different areas(Yang & Mansor, 2016).
The first area is tourism. Tourism is one if the effective way to learn more about the culture of
another country. Southeast Asia countries are the most popular tourist destinations. Number of
visitors have been increasing exponentially and doubled to 6.5 million from 2009 to 2013. In
2014, almost 4.95 million Koreans have travelled to ASEAN and in the same year, around 1.8
million ASEAN visitors have visited Korea. In 2016, the number of tourists to ROK hits record
of 14.5 million (Jin-a, 2016), that includes 2.2 million ASEAN visitors to ROK and around 6
million Koreans visited ASEAN (AKC, 2015). One of the factors that caused this phenomenon
was due to Southeast Asia low-cost carrier such as Air Asia, Cebu Pacific, Tigerair, and Viet
Jet Air which offers incessantly market cheap fare promotions for flights heading to Seoul,
Busan, and Incheon. Air Asia for example provides around twelve trips from Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia to Seoul and Busan in South Korea per day. This laidback schedule by Air Asia
simplify Malaysian people to travel to ROK at their flexible time. Another strategy for

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