South Korea’s Challenges and Opportunities in the Indo-Pacific Economic Security

The Indo-Pacific trade routes host a large amount of the sources’ countries of the EU’s imports of raw materials and resources and enable the transport of substantial amounts of South Korea’s energy imports. Being both major actors in the region, South Korea and the EU need to ensure that access to the Indo-Pacific trade routes and their strategic chokepoints remain open and safe. With the expansion of China’s trade influence in the Indo-Pacific region, countries like South Korea tend to see both challenges, such as heavy dependency on China, and opportunities like coupling with partners in Europe. Upon this, South Korea and the EU are in a position to advance their Indo-Pacific strategies jointly and more effectively, especially to address China’s assertiveness in the region and prevent it from jeopardising trade routes.

Revised version of a paper presented at the conference on “New Convergences in EU-ROK Economic Security Relations”, organised in Rome on 30 January 2024 by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).