SEOUL, South Korea – Russia’s war against Ukraine has had far-reaching ramifications on Ukraine’s economic relations with some Asian countries.
Ukraine, illegally deprived of its territories in the eastern Donbas and Crimean peninsula by Russia, now ideologically, politically, and economically drifts further away from the former ally towards the European Union. In the meantime, South Korea seeks deepening economic ties with Russia as it is envisioned in the country’s New Northern Policy.
Having such diverging approaches to Russia, the two countries – South Korea and Ukraine – need a new strategy for the development of bilateral relations, the chairman of South Korea’s Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation Song Young-gil told the Kyiv Post on April 2.
South Korea, the 4th largest economy in Asia and the 11th in the world, established diplomatic relations with Ukraine in 1992 after the country gained independence. Since then the two countries signed 16 various agreements, Song said, but many obstacles to cooperation appeared as a result of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia that broke out in 2014.
“Due to political complications, the annexation of Crimea in particular, South Korea and Ukraine need a new strategy for the development of their relations,” Song said. “I believe there are opportunities for cooperation in technology.”
He pointed that the process of integration with the European Union is positive for Ukraine. However, South Korea has to be flexible and separate its interests in Northern Asia, which includes Russia’s Far East, from the sanctions over the annexation of Crimea, which is closer to Europe, he said.
According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the trade turnover between two countries was $630 million in 2017. South Korean businesses invested $198.8 million in Ukraine which was less than 1 percent of all foreign direct investment.
Proposed by South Korean president Moon Jae-in in 2017, New Northern Policy aims at creating a new economic map connecting the Korean peninsula with Russia’s Far East, Mongolia, and Central Asian states. Within this policy, South Korea has developed the Nine Bridges Strategy that envisions multiple cross-border projects with Russia in gas exploration, electric power generation, shipbuilding, railways, agriculture, port construction, and fishery. In addition, South Korea wants to boost logistics capacity of the Northern Sea Route, a shipping route in the Arctic waters which is a part of Russia’s exclusive economic zone.
As Song Young-gil said on April 2, besides enhancing business relations with Eurasia, South Korea hopes the new economic policy will help to resolve North Korean nuclear threat and engage Pyongyang into cooperation.
“It is aimed at helping the isolated state of North Korea to integrate into the international community and normalize relations with the United States and Japan,” Song said.
North Korea threatened its southern neighbor and the U.S with nuclear strikes since in 2013 the United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions against the police state for nuclear tests. Under the third-generation leader Kim Jong-un who has been in power since 2011, it fired 90 missiles and conducted four nuclear weapon tests. The international tension increased after the North launched its first-ever intercontinental ballistic missile last November and threatened to attack the U.S. territory of Guam raising fears over a possible nuclear war.
“In order to resolve the nuclear problem of the Korean peninsula we need to engage North Korea, Russia, Japan, and the U.S,” Song said.
The meeting of North and South Korean presidents will take place on April 27. It will be the first high-level talks between two Koreas in over a decade. Moreover, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to sit down with the U.S. President Donald Trump in a historic summit scheduled for late May – early June.
Editor’s Note: Kyiv Post staff writer Bermet Talant took a press trip to Seoul organized and paid for by the Korean Culture and Information Service on April 1-6 for journalists from Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
