Understanding continuity in South Korea’s foreign policy

Yoon has left the building - but what happens to his foreign policy ideas?

Yoon has left the building - but what happens to his foreign policy ideas? What happens to closer South Korea - U.S. relations, closer South Korea - Japan relations, and closer trilateral relations? What happens to South Korea’s burgeoning relationship with NATO? And let’s not forget the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the “Audacious” plan for North Korea?

They are all but gone. Continuity in foreign policy is not South Korea’s strong spot.

South Korea’s foreign policy is trapped in five-year (okay, let’s say indeterminate) cycles of reinvention. Each new presidential administration, eager to establish its own legacy, discards, rebrands, or reinvents the foreign policy initiatives of its predecessor. The structural features of South Korea’s political system make continuity more the exception than the norm. The causes are well known.