Page 66 - AEI Insights 2020 - Vol. 6, Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 6, Issue 1, 2020

By looking at the involvement of North Korea in various organization, it is clear that North
Korea is seeking for alliances in order to strengthen their regional cooperation. In terms of
North Korea’s recent issue of threatening the US with nuclear due to US conducting military
exercise with South Korea in waters surrounding Korean peninsula, this issue has indirectly
impacted ASEAN (Cabato & Jiao, 2017). Donald Trump administration declared North Korea
as ‘an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority’ – it is said that it was
focusing on economics and diplomatic pressure. This included the Chinese cooperation in
containing its defiant neighbour and ally, and remained open to negotiations (Network, 2017).
Due to this crisis, North Korea turned to ASEAN for support against US. North Korean Foreign
Minister Ri Yong-ho wrote a letter ASEAN urging ASEAN to give them proper proposal on
the situation. In order to maintain allies with US and North Korea and uphold the ASEAN
principle of peace and security, ASEAN called for North Korea to comply with United Nations
Security Council resolutions on its nuclear program and make a positive contribution to
regional peace.
ASEAN with its norms and principles of ‘musyawarah’ and ‘muafakat’ used its diplomacy in
solving issues and conflicts. It is crucial for ASEAN to maintain its centrality when dealing
with external powers. Thus, ASEAN can foresee that this threat is not only limited in a form
of direct attack from North Korea, but also its implication if the war initiated. On the one hand,
problems like refugee crisis could also occur. Southeast Asia will inevitably serve as the
‘limbo’ for Asian refugees.

Conclusion and Recommendation
‘New regionalism’ has opened up deeper understanding in multidimensionality, complexity,
fluidity, and non-conformity. In fact, it is closely related to globalization with the enhancing
integration and interaction amongst regions. The theory shown in the elevation of bilateral
relations between ROK and Southeast Asian countries to multilateral partnership of ASEAN-
ROK that expands in the area of economic, political, and socio-cultural, while education
emerged as a new sector of exchange. Despite many challenges between ASEAN-ROK, both
parties have made a remarkable progress throughout the years. The challenges serve as
opportunities for increased multilateral cooperation and efforts in community building.

In comparison to other Northeast Asia country, ROK has a relatively weak ties with ASEAN
in terms of economics and politics whereas China and Japan have an enormous economic
power and significant political positions at the international stage. For example, Japan has
established the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and China responded to this by creating the
Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that engages further with ASEAN in economic
and political terms. It is not easy for ROK to follow the same path as these two ‘super power’
countries. However, at the development of cultural exchanges show, socio-cultural relations
between ASEAN and ROK have rapidly improved. This suggests that ROK has remarkable
strength and potential in the socio-cultural and education sector in ASEAN.

Undeniably, Korean Wave has improved ROK’s image with the people of ASEAN. Hallyu has
also contributed to the increased economic power of ROK. Hallyu has also become an
enormous stimulus to cooperation between ASEAN-ROK, yet ASEAN-ROK need to work
together to develop a strategy beyond Hallyu that takes advantages of its impetus. Three main
focus and suggestions are therefore to improve future partnership between ASEAN-ROK in
socio-cultural sector.

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