The article studies new foreign policy of South Korea after the administration change in Seoul in May 2022. Over the last period, the external environment for the country has become more complex. That was due to the growth of rivalry between the USA and China, COVID‑19 pandemic implications as well as the Ukrainian crisis, which resulted in increased global and regional instability and disruption of previously established supply chains. Along with that, the confrontation on the Korean Peninsula has become deeper and more protracted with no way forward to break that impasse. All previous attempts to engage North Korea into the dialogue, made by the Moon Jae-in administration, have failed. Those factors affected the priorities chosen by the new administration in foreign affairs. The author concentrates on the concept of the “global pivotal state” announced by the Yoon Suk-yeol’s government. With the criticism of the previous government’s approach that was narrowly focused on Inter-Korean agendas, the new foreign policy team is going to pursue the brand of a “value diplomacy”, emphasizing South Korea’s role in promoting “liberal democracy” and “rules-based regional order”. As for North Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol has shifted his strategy to a hard-line approach which implied strengthening deterrence and raising credibility of the U.S. assurances to provide a nuclear umbrella to defend its ally. The article highlights Seoul’s new policy aimed at rebuilding and strengthening the “comprehensive global alliance” between the ROK and the USA that presupposes cooperation on a wide range of international and regional agendas beyond the Korean Peninsula. The paper explores some emerging political dimensions of South Korea in the Indo-Pacific region. It is shown that Seoul wishes to be an active participant of the U.S. – led minilateral arrangements to ensure its expanded economic and security interests in the region.

Доклад посвящен анализу интеллектуального фона выработки основ внутренней и внешней политики основных стран тихоокеанского региона на длительную перспективу. Наряду с обзором важнейших концепций, лежащих в основе долгосрочной политики этих стран, авторы делают предположения о возможной модификации этих концепций в будущем и появлении новых теоретических положений, определяющих практические шаги государств региона.

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The article provides an analysis of the USA policy with regard to the DPRK under President Joe Biden administration. The issues related to transformation of American approaches are examined against the background of the President Trump failure to reach a Grand Bargain with Kim Chong Un on the nuclear problem. The peculiarity of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is that over the past quarter of century a variety of avenues and modalities have been explored and applied by the United States and other parties concerned to approach the resolution of nuclear problem. However, all of those attempts have proved to be unsuccessful so far. Although the Biden administration rolled out its North Korea policy review still in April 2021, the White House has yet to chart its clearly articulated strategy aimed at breaking the current crisis around nuclear issue. While distancing itself from the previous course for achieving final and comprehensive resolution of the nuclear problem, nowadays Washington is aiming at addressing more limited but practical goals related to ensuring the security concerns of both the United States and its Asian allies like Japan and South Korea. Particular attention is given to the new concepts of “arms control” and “risk management” in tackling nuclear issue which are gaining some popularity and have been broadly discussed by American academic community. The author argues that any move to accept directly or indirectly North Korea’s nuclear status and deal with it as nuclear power may have profound and negative impact on security situation on the Korean Peninsula and North East Asia as a whole. The only acceptable goal is to achieve nuclear disarmament of North Korea with proper verification measures although move forward towards that goal would require time and energy.

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