미ㆍ중 경쟁 시대 한국의 ‘중간국’ 정체성과 외교원칙 모색 = The ROK’s in-between “Middle State’ Identity and Diplomatic Principles in the Era of the US-China Competition

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Korea is a ‘middle state’ situated and squeezed between the US-China strategic competition. Korea as a middle state could be a pivot state receiving love-calls from both sides and a bridging state connecting both sides. Or Korea could be a shatter zone state, squeezed and destabilized between great powers, as it had suffered historically. Korea’s diplomatic decisions today is such a critical issue for all of us as its rise or failure in the future totally lies on such decisions. The US-China strategic competition is one of the biggest foreign policy threats to Korea just like many other like-situated middle states. To effectively deal with the US-China competition, Korean diplomacy should define its national vision and national interests based on its geopolitical identity. Only then unified integration of national power and strategic diplomacy will be possible.
This paper proposes 4 possible Korean identities as follows: a divided state with vulnerable national security due to the division, a geopolitical middle state surrounded and squeezed among both great power competition, and land and sea powers, a middle power state supporting rules-based international order, a trading state with a high foreign economic dependency. This report proposes ‘a global peace bridge state’ as Korea’s national vision in the US-China competition era. Also five diplomatic principles that Korea should follow in the US-China competition era were also proposed: principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, peace coexistence, regionalism and international cooperation, multilateralism and rules- based international order, and national unity. Such principles replace such traditional diplomatic principles as the absolute coincidence of Korea-US alliance, waite and see, reactive adaptation that the Korean diplomacy followed throughout the US-led Cold War and post-Cold War era. These principles proposed here for era of the US-China competition should become Korea’s general diplomacy principles that Korea should adopt in order to perform a strategic and autonomous diplomacy.