research paper about south korea

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• NATURE INDEX
• 27 May 2020
• Correction 02 June 2020

How South Korea made itself a global innovation leader

• Leigh Dayton 0

Leigh Dayton is science and innovation writer based in Sydney, Australia.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

South Korea is a global leader in information and communication technologies. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

South Korea’s position as one of the world’s most innovative nations is a remarkable achievement considering that, for the first half of the twentieth century, it was an agrarian-based Japanese colony, then a battle ground.

It is second only to Germany in Bloomberg’s 2020 Innovation Index, having reigned at the top of the 60-country list for the previous 5 years. In the separate 2019 Global Innovation Index, published by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization, South Korea is at number 11 and Germany is in 9th place among the 129 countries ranked.

Both indices highlight South Korea’s outstanding performance in research and development (R&D) intensity, an indicator based on R&D investment by government and industry and the number of researchers working in and between both sectors. For example, South Korea had the greatest share of researchers who moved from industry to academia in 2017 to 2019 among 71 countries, data from academic recruitment firm, League of Scholars, show.

Top-down success

The high R&D intensity that helped South Korea become a global leader in information and communication technologies has emerged from a historically ‘top-down’ innovation system that promotes “close collaboration between government, industry, and the academic community in the process of nation building”, says Tim Mazzarol from the University of Western Australia in Perth, who specializes in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Nature Index 2020 South Korea

President Park Chung-hee drove South Korea’s economic development between 1961, when he took power in a military coup, until 1979, when he was assassinated. Park shifted the economy from its post-war dependence on technology imports and the construction of industrial facilities by foreign companies to focus on home-grown labour-intensive industries, such as clothing and textiles. Crucially, strong support for R&D was central to his first Five-Year Economic Development Plan in 1962 and manifest in his establishment of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in 1966, and the Ministry of Science and Technology the following year.

These instruments supported the emergence of large industrial groups called chaebols, which were owned and controlled by South Korean individuals or families. The government pushed the chaebols to invest heavily in R&D while shielding them from competition. With increased R&D intensity that focused on applied knowledge, chaebols such as LG, Lotte and Samsung were driven towards new heavy industries, including petrochemicals, car manufacturing and shipbuilding, as well as consumer electronics.

Sources: Nature Index; OECD Gross domestic spending on R&D (indicator) https://doi.org/10.1787/d8b068b4-en (Accessed 8 May 2020)

Samsung — the classic chaebol

Samsung is a case in point. The company that started life as a grocery trader in 1938 is now South Korea’s largest chaebol, operating in industries as diverse as electronics, insurance, construction and shipbuilding. In 2018, it produced roughly 15% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Its founder, Lee Byung Chul, with help from government protectionist policies, expanded into textiles after the Korean War, electronics in the 1960s, then heavy industries, aerospace and computing during the 1970s and early 1980s. By the 1990s and 2000s, Samsung was a world leader in tablets and mobiles, and in the design and manufacture of computer chips. The company is South Korea’s leading corporate institution in the Nature Index by far, based on contributions to research articles published in the 82 high-quality natural science journals tracked by the Index. With a Share of 10.36 in 2019, it ranked 28th among the country’s institutions overall, eclipsing its nearest rival in the corporate ranks, LG, which had a Share of 1.99. Samsung also features in each of South Korea’s nine leading corporate-academic collaborative pairs in the Nature Index.

The most productive pairing is with Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in Seoul, with 159 joint articles between 2015 and 2019. Their collaboration is particularly strong in electrochemistry and the development of new energy sources such as lithium-ion batteries ( J. K. Shon et al. Nature Commun . 7 , 11049; 2016 ). Other partnerships include Seoul National University in Seoul, (41 articles) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon (35 articles).

Samsung’s top ten

Samsung Group’s top ten collaborating academic partners on articles in the Nature Index journals are split between United States and domestic institutions. Here they are ranked by bilateral collaboration score (CS), 2015–19. CS is derived by summing each institution’s Share on the papers to which authors from both have contributed.

*Count = Article count

Investing in the future

Park’s successors continued to promote research and innovation as the driver of national economic and social advance. Government and industry investment in R&D soared, and basic-research capabilities were expanded. By the mid-1980s and early 1990s the government’s attention had shifted to high-tech industries such as semiconductor design and manufacture. For instance, in 1971 it founded KAIST, which remains a leading national research university (see ‘Manipulating brains with smartphones’).

Manipulating brains with smartphones

A team of researchers at KAIST — not to be confused with the KIST, with which it was initially integrated — has fulfilled a dream of neuroscientists worldwide.

Working with colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle, they have built a novel device capable of remotely controlling the brain circuitry of mice, via a smartphone. It is the first wireless neural device that can continuously deliver multiple drugs and coloured light beams to control brain circuits. Until now, researchers needed rigid metal tubes and optical fibres to accomplish the task.

The device could speed up the study of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression and pain, says team leader and electrical engineer, Jeong Jae-Woong. Weighing 2 grams, it uses LEGO-like replaceable drug cartridges, a probe the thickness of a human hair, and powerful, low-energy Bluetooth to deliver the drugs and light, which turn neurones on or off without hurting the rodents. This ‘plug-and-play’ interface was the major challenge, Jeong says.

After two years of laboratory and animal trials, the proof-of-concept paper was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering ( R. Qazi et al. Nature Biomed. Eng. 3 , 655–669; 2019 ) by the team of neuroscientists and engineers from electrical, mechanical and software backgrounds. Jeong plans to commercialize the device and technology.

Targeted nation-building programmes were also established. In 1995, for example, the government began a US$1.5-billion, ten-year plan to build up the national broadband infrastructure and provide public programmes about maximizing its use.

The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis prompted many chaebols to shift from the reliance on low-value added exports characteristic of a ‘tiger’ economy towards technology and knowledge-intensive products and services such as semiconductors, mobile phones and mobile applications.

Working with chaebols, the government began developing regional innovation centres such as Gyeonggi, an area of nearly 13 million people surrounding Seoul, which is now regarded as the nation’s economic and innovative powerhouse.

The centre brought industry R&D and production infrastructure together with local and national universities and research facilities. For instance, the Gyeonggi-based Samsung Electronics, Samsung’s flagship subsidiary, is collaborating with SKKU Chemistry to develop a semiconductor material that can reduce the amount of radiation exposure while taking medical X-ray images. By 2010, South Korea had 105 regional innovation centres and 18 techno-parks, as well as 7 federal programmes to strengthen the competitiveness of industrial cluster programmes.

Although government funding continued to promote R&D spending and programmes to boost translational development and scientific, engineering and managerial expertise, the weight of major investment in R&D shifted to the corporate sector in search of patents and profits. Private R&D spending accounted for nearly 80% of South Korea’s total R&D spending in 2019, ahead of leading innovative nations such as Germany, Sweden and Switzerland, at 70%. The shift was supported by R&D tax incentives and importation of foreign technology.

Source: League of Scholars

The new breed

In the 2010s, small to medium-sized businesses in biotechnology, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and broadband-based firms began to emerge. Founded by a new generation of entrepreneurs, they were backed by government funding and supported by the national technological infrastructure.

Woowa Brothers is one example, among many, of the strategy’s success. The Seoul-based 2010 start-up exploited the national broadband to build a mobile food-delivery application connecting restaurants, customers and riders.

In December 2018, Woowa joined the ‘unicorn’ club — a rare status denoting a privately held start-up valued at more than US$1 billion — with investment from national and international venture-capital sources. In December 2019, Germany’s Delivery Hero bought the company in a $4-billion deal that will see co-founder and chief executive, Kim Bong Jin, manage the Asian business, including South Korea, Vietnam and Hong Kong. A delivery robot, self-driving technology and an online customer and revenue-management system for restaurants are in development.

The South Korean government’s systematic approach has been the crucial factor in creating an innovative economy adept at turning ideas from laboratories into products and industries. Martin Hemmert, an expert in east Asian innovation systems, at Korea University, adds that the cultural mindset evident in South Korea helps. “Complacency is not on the cards. The glass is always half empty,” he says.

Even so, as Mazzarol concludes: “It’s a miracle when you consider where Korea was.”

Nature 581 , S54-S56 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01466-7

This article is part of Nature Index 2020 South Korea , an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.

Updates & Corrections

Correction 02 June 2020 : This article originally gave the incorrect founding date for KAIST. It was founded in 1971, not 1981. The article has now been corrected.

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Research Article

Global trade of South Korea in competitive products and their impact on regional dependence

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

¶ ‡ DK, PSH and DHL are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Business Management, College of Social Science, Gangneung-Wonju National University (GWNU), Gangneung, Republic of Korea

Affiliation Economics of Technology Research Division, Future Technology & Strategy Research Laboratory, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Daejeon, Republic of Korea

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Business and Technology Management, College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea

• Dongsuk Kang, 
• Pil-sun Heo, 
• Duk Hee Lee

• Published: May 4, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695
• Reader Comments

The economic growth of a nation under the competition among countries can result from the interaction of the diversity and complexity of product export and import relations on the globe. This research aims to evaluate the competitiveness of South Korea’s trading products and its partner countries’ dependency by implementing a product and partner-based analysis. This research raises questions about the transactional positions of products and trading partners based on the diversification of import-export relations of South Korea. This study utilizes the matrix of products and trading partners from the Korean product export and import data from 1995 to 2015. The research analyzes Korea’s product competitiveness and dependency of trading countries on Korea using the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and a nonlinear iterative method (NIM). The study finds that the products of several manufacturing industries showed a large production scale. From the global perspective, the trade dependency on Korea was high in Asia and in Africa and South America where the portion of underdeveloped or developing countries is relatively large. This research suggests that Korea may face difficulties of continuing growth if it maintains or intensifies its trade relation pattern under the environment of rapidly changing technology and economy. Therefore, diversification and mutual complementarity could be important for the export of promising products and industrial development policy.

Citation: Kang D, Heo P-s, Lee DH (2022) Global trade of South Korea in competitive products and their impact on regional dependence. PLoS ONE 17(5): e0267695. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695

Editor: Dao-Zhi Zeng, Tohoku University, JAPAN

Received: October 13, 2021; Accepted: April 14, 2022; Published: May 4, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Kang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: This research obtained the paid dataset of Korea’ global trade products from Korea Trade Statistics Promotion Institute (KTSPI. Its website: https://www.bandtrass.or.kr/index.do ). If one wants to obtain some information/explanation on the research data, please contact Dr. Heo, Pil-sun by email ( [email protected] . Principal researcher at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)). In addition, KTSPI has the whole data of Korea and its partners’ international trade. One can get access to big data from the institute with payment by email ( [email protected] ). The authors did not have special access to the data that other researchers would not have.

Funding: Dr. PSH received financial support from his research organization. Grant number: 1711077940, Research on the Techno-Economic Analysis and Standardization of ICT Technology for the Enhancement of ICT R&D Competitiveness Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) https://www.etri.re.kr/eng/main/main.etri The sponsor offered financial support to PSH, but it did not implement any role in research activities.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The global contagion of COVID-19 (or SARS-CoV-2), which began at the end of 2019, its economic shocks, concerns about the disruption of world trade, and human mobility could explain the current situation in which many nations interact (in)directly with each other from the viewpoint of global value chains [ 1 ]. The consequent blockade or standstill of certain regions and countries such as Italy [ 2 ] for the prevention and control of infection of COVID-19 would denote the impact of global interdependence and trade portfolio resulting from the densely connected relationship among many countries.

This research aims to evaluate the competitiveness of South Korea’s trading products and its partner countries’ dependency by implementing a product and partner-based analysis. This study analyzes the transactional positions of products-trading partners’ (e.g., countries and territories. hereinafter partners) export structure focusing on the diversification of import-export relations of the Republic of Korea (Hereinafter “Korea”). This research empirically investigates the case study of Korea as it has several meaningful points of research values, such as the exemplary analysis of the economic complexity of the Netherlands [ 3 ].

Above all, Korea ranked high in terms of economic capabilities and global trade, for example, twelfth in GDP (US$ 1.62 trillion in 2018), tenth in product imports (US$ 509 billion in 2018), and fifth in product exports (US$ 617 billion in 2018) around the world [ 4 ]. Korea encountered the Asian financial crisis in 1997, and it overcame several economic shocks (e.g., the Asian crisis and the United States of America financial crisis in 2007) with comparative ease [ 5 ]. It has also been recognized as one of the leading countries in the field of electronic government (e-government), the ICT industrial infrastructure and mobile businesses [ 6 , 7 ]. Changing the Korean trade relationship would be a topic of geopolitical research that can affect trade and foreign policy related to several major countries (e.g., the USA, China, and Japan).

Therefore, this research establishes the following two research questions concerning the individual product competitiveness of the nation and the dependency of major trading partners: Research question 1 (i.e., RQ 1) . Which are the important products in Korea’s trade relationship, and how can they be measured? RQ 2 . Which are the major trading partners in the transactional relationship, and how can they be measured? Answers to these questions could be helpful in establishing the portfolio strategy and such status in the global market for the products as basis for sustained growth and development under the changing environment of trade competition.

This research utilized the trade data of transactional partners during the period 1995–2015 for Korea, which has an export-led economic system, using the metrics on the product competitiveness and dependency of the trading partner country based on the nonlinear iterative method (hereinafter NIM ) derived from the product-country matrix. This research revised the methodology of Tacchella, Cristelli [ 8 ]’s economic complexity and offered new measurement of product fitness (competitiveness) and its trading partners’ dependency in a nation’s viewpoint (Please see the Literature Review ). The result showed a large production scale in several manufacturing industries. In general, Korea has maintained significant trade relations with Asian countries that have similar physical space and socioeconomic environment and countries in Africa and South America where the portion of underdeveloped countries is relatively large.

As a contribution, this research identifies the import and export structure of products at the national level and assesses the fitness of the export products and the dependency of the trading partner country vis-à-vis Korea. This finding can highlight that a country’s diversification with its export products is an important survival strategy and a source of competitiveness in the global competitive environment. Therefore, the diversification of export products and trading countries can be one of the sustainable economic growth strategies under the dynamically evolving global economic system built on science and engineering-based innovation (e.g., the Fourth Industrial Revolution [4IR] and the development of Artificial Intelligence [AI]).

Literature review on a nation’s economic growth and its competitiveness in trade diversification

Managing dynamic portfolio of product exports of a nation could be a critical factor in its economic development. Earlier studies in the field of global trades explain the increase in wealth of a nation as a consequence of an agent’s (e.g., a country) economic effect on its relative advantage to others and its division of work and specialization [ 8 , 9 ]. From this perspective (e.g., Adam Smith and Ricardian approach), many countries would export and import very differentiated products from each other. However, recent empirical analyses on the trade networks of a nation have found conflicting results that developed countries export various products with different qualities or complexities, and developing countries export a small number of products that other countries manufacture [ 8 – 11 ].

The new methodological stream of international trade and economic growth is the analysis of the economic complexity of countries with a trade network that utilizes the transactional matrix of nations and their exporting products [ 8 , 9 ]. This methodology was first named the Method of Reflections in research conducted by Hidalgo and Hausmann [ 9 ] (hereinafter MR). Subsequent research has developed it into a methodology family called economic complexity [ 8 , 12 ]. This methodology would be fundamentally different from the existing econometric studies that capture the relationship between economic performance of a nation and its inputs (e.g., labor, capital, technological capabilities) with their aggregate equations [ 9 , 11 ]. The new methodology analyzes the relationship as the international trade web that nations utilize their non-tradable capabilities and resources and export their competitive products from the perspective of the complex networks of countries, such as bipartite or tripartite network of countries (their hidden production competences), and products [ 9 ]. The methodologies of MR and economic complexity commonly investigate the competitive advantage of a nation c ’s product p under its superior condition (i.e., RCA pc ≥ 1) of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) [ 8 – 11 ]. MR also could be similar to the measurement of Google’s Page Rank capturing the relative important position in the network data, which seems to be a kind of linear analytic tool [ 13 ].

The economic complexity methodology analyzes the competitive values of a nation and its export product(s) based on information on the number of export goods of the nation (i.e., the diversification of a nation) and the number of other countries that export the same goods (i.e., the ubiquity of a product) [ 9 ]. Empirically, nations with various export products are less likely to manufacture goods produced and exported by other nations [ 9 ]. Conversely, countries with few export products have relatively low competitive goods capabilities from viewpoint of RCA; the countries consequently could encounter the quiescence trap [ 11 ] which has low incentives to develop capabilities for producing and exporting various competent products.

Research on economic complexity can be categorized into two groups: Hidalgo and Hausmann [ 9 ]’s linear analysis (MR) and Tacchella, Cristelli [ 8 ]’s nonlinear analysis (hereinafter TC). MR can reflect qualitative information about exporting products (e.g., a product’s complexity and the competitiveness of its exporter) and overcome the shallow analysis of the existing diversification measurement (e.g., Herfindahl–Hirschman Index [HHI], Entropy Index) [ 11 ]. For example, these indices hardly identify the information difference between the export backet A (apples: semi-conductors = 9:1) and basket B (apples: semi-conductors = 1:9) [ 11 ]. However, several studies have repeatedly criticized MR for inaccurately measuring the competitiveness of the exporting product by averaging the competence of its exporting country on the basis of its linear calculation [ 3 , 8 , 10 ]. As an alternative to MR, Tacchella, Cristelli [ 8 ]’s nonlinear analysis can gauge the competitiveness or fitness of the export product by taking the reciprocal value of the competence of the exporter because the competence of the exporter can be measured as the sum of competitiveness of its products.

Recent research has investigated viewpoints of competitive exporting products and its trading partners at the national/regional level with the Method of Reflection (MR) and nonlinear analysis [ 14 – 16 ]. At the regional level, identifying and investigating the core products and key partners could be useful for industrial restructuring of development plans and regional innovation. For example, Canada’s key exporting products were natural resources based on goods (e.g., wood pulp, oats, rapeseed) with high RCA but low product complexity calculated by MR with its major traders in 2017 being the United States (75.9%), China (18.2%), and the United Kingdom (13.6%) [ 14 ]. This finding can suggest a nation/region (e.g., Canada, Quebec) needs to evolve its competitive edge of products and partners toward a kind of diversified portfolio of exports with high complexity and various trading counterparties [ 14 ].

The matrix of exporting products and transactional regions at one nation’s level could also offer insights in capturing leading regions and relieving provincial discrepancy by trades [ 15 , 16 ]. Several dominant tendencies about high economic complexities of regional transactions were in the costal and capital city-neighboring provinces [ 15 , 16 ]. This high level of industrial economic complexity and the regional fitness could be the outcomes of increasing urbanization and trade in China [ 15 ]. Further, the economic complexity by MR could also contribute to the regional growth by GDP in Mexico [ 16 ].

The aforementioned literature has mainly investigated the dynamic relationship between exporting countries and trading products [ 8 – 12 , 17 , 18 ]. Several studies offer findings of exporting regions and goods, but their findings appear to highlight the features of the trading regions [ 3 , 15 , 16 ]. In this research, we newly analyze the relationship of exporting products and their major partners (importing countries) at a nation’s viewpoint with the measures of product fitness and country/region’s dependence. The “product fitness (in a nation)” in this study calculates the number of products that the nation exports to other countries with RCA in the matrix of its products and importers in a nation. This measurement could be similar to the measurement of a nation’s fitness with RCA where it exports competitive products to other countries in the matrix of products as well as globally in other study of economic complexity index [ 3 , 8 , 10 , 12 , 17 , 19 ]. This variation of fitness is applicable to a region’s fitness in the trade matrix between provinces in a nation [ 15 ].

This study also suggests the measurement of “dependency of countries/regions in an exporting nation”, which is the number of competitive products imported because of no local domestic production or just imported from other countries. This measurement could be an analogy to the calculation of product complexity in the product matrix, which implies the product’s low level of complexity produced by countries in other studies of economic complexity index [ 3 , 8 , 10 , 12 , 17 , 19 ].

In summary, this research analyzes the competitiveness and competence of exporting products of Korea by revising Tacchella, Cristelli [ 8 ]’s nonlinear methodology of economic complexity. The existing literature on economic complexity has focused on the analysis of multinational competitiveness [ 8 – 11 ]. These analyses can easily capture the comparative status of the competence of nations, but the analyses can rarely investigate in-depth findings on the relative comparison between products and key partners across the nation. Furthermore, finding out about the dynamics of competitive goods and their importers over time could be important for a country that may have the opportunity to promote its strategic industries and negotiate with others, such as making concessions of exports and imports in concluding its Free Trade Area (FTA).

Methodology and data

This study utilizes international trade data between Korea and its trading partners over an extended period of time and applied various complementary methodologies to analyze the competitiveness of Korean products and the dependence of trading countries on Korea ( Fig 1 ). This research defines trading partners as transactional countries and their territories because this definition of the partners could accurately reflect their physical distances or geological boundaries (e.g., the identical, different, or distant continent) from Korea than the sole definition of trading countries.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g001

Data matrix of product and trading partners with Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA)

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g002

The measurement of a product competitiveness and a trading partners’ dependency

This research analyzes the competitiveness of a trade partner’s exporting products and dependency of its counterparties by measuring the imported and exported products from the country’s viewpoint. This study revises Tacchella, Cristelli [ 8 ] and Cristelli, Gabrielli [ 12 ]’s methodology about assessing national fitness and product’s complexity in order to evaluate the competitiveness of Korea’s products and its trading partners’ dependency. This methodology would be a kind of nonlinear estimation of variables as the slope or coefficient of each variable depends on the other variable (Eqs 7 and 8 ).

In the matrix Q pc of products and trading partners ( Fig 2 and Eqs 1 – 3 ), the diversification of products produced by a country is the number ( h p in Eq 5 ) of imported or exported to/ from trading partners where the product is competitive and the numerator ( Eq 7 ) of a product’s fitness. The number of competitive products in the trading partner (connectivity) is the zero-order estimate ( h c in Eq 6 ) of dependency indicating how the trading partner depends on the analyzed country. That is, h p and h c represent the degree of node p and c in a bipartite network of products ( p ) and trading partners ( c ), and these metrics indicate the diversification of a product and the connectivity of a trading partner [ 12 ].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g004

Sample data

This study obtained the paid data of exporting and importing Korean products for each trading partner from the website of Trade Statistics Services (TSS) which Korea Trade Statistics Promotion Institutes (KTSPI) manages [ 21 ] (Please see the Acknowledgment). This research categorized the products into 2- and 4-digit codes according to the Harmonized System 2007 (HS Code 2007) coding system [ 22 ]. This research employed a non-financial (or non-monetary) unit of data (e.g., the trade amount of products) in order for the realistic measurement for a nation’s production capabilities [ 8 , 10 ]. The number of trading partners including countries and their territories varies each year but is around 200 in all cases ( Table 1 ). This concrete identification of trading partners would be more accurate than nations because the identification can reflect the geological and continental location of the trading destination. The research analyzed datasets in the period of every five years (i.e., 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015). Our final dataset for the analysis of Q pc is a matrix with 97 products and 261 trading partners in accordance with 2-digit codes of HS Code 2007.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t001

The aggregation of importing and exporting trading partners for each year did not exactly match the raw data due to the dynamics of import and export over time. If there was a pair of product-trading partner in a year, the pair were included in the analysis in order to generate the matrix of products and trading partners with the same size of the matrix during the period. As the result, this research finally identified 1,261 products with 4-digit codes (or 97 products with 2-digit codes) and 261 trading (i.e., importing and exporting) partners ( Table 1 ). The import of 4-digit products was higher than the export in all years, and the number of importing trading partners gradually increased and eventually surpassed the number of exporting partners in 2015.

Characteristics of the metrics’ fixed point

This study applies the iterative algebraic method that represents the coupled maps between F p and D c in order to measure the product’s fitness and the dependency between trading partners (Eqs 7 – 10 ). Before analyzing the characteristics of a measured value, it would be necessary to review the robustness of the NIM methodology. In other words, for the non-trivial fixed point to be valid for the given product-country matrix, the point must exist and be unique regardless of the initial value at the same time [ 12 ]. This research implemented a numerical simulation analysis similar to Cristelli, Gabrielli [ 12 ]’s methdology in order to confirm the fulfillment of the criteria. This research generates a random matrix Q pc (Eqs 1 – 3 and Fig 2 ) and sets an initial value for the application of nonlinear iterative method (NIM), which is the revised version of Cristelli, Gabrielli [ 12 ]’ s methodology. In the case of a random matrix with the condition that r is the size of the matrix and r = c / p (i.e., c and p refer to the number of trading countries and products, respectively), the research sets Q ij = 1 with the probability of p h ≠ 0 if the elements of the ith row are j ≤ ri . Then, this study sets Q ij = 1 if p l < p h , p l ≠ 0 and j > ri . In the case of the initial value (i.e., the matrix of p dimensions), the p − 1 number of points having uniform distribution at the interval [0, 1] is distributed, and the lengths of the resulting p sub-intervals are divided by their average lengths [ 23 ].

This study sets p h = 0.6, p l = 0.05 for the triangular-shaped matrix Q pc [ 12 ]. The study sets r = 2.7, which is similar to our final dataset of the matrix with p = 97 and c = 261 (i.e., r = 2.6907). The research gathered the sample of 100 matrices with the changes in p values of 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100. And then, the research analyzed 1,000 random initial values of each matrix. The following results (Figs 3 and 4 ) show that all cases of the initial values with the matrix size r converge on a certain level of their fixed points. Fig 5 shows the evolution of coupled maps between the product’s fitness and the dependency of trading partners generated from the matrix in 2015. The other periods also show a qualitatively similar evolution pattern.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g005

Changes in product fitness and country’s dependency

Variation of product fitness..

This section explains the consequences of product fitness and trading partners’ dependency in order of descriptive statistics (i.e., annual correlation), top ten members of products and partners, and several selected products and partners. Above all, this research analyzed the Pearson correlation for small or medium-sized sample values in order to investigate statistically the product’s fitness change by year. Since the correlation between the product fitness (i.e., fit95, fit00, …, fit15) of 96 products is at least 76.7% ( Table 2 ), the interrelationship of the product’s fitness value in each year is considerably linear. Therefore, the structural change of the fitness of Korean products every five years seems to be somewhat smaller than the time change of every five years in the linear distribution of total volumes. The ratio of the amount of export to that of import (i.e., exim95, exim00, …, exim15. Eq 12 .) of Korean products has correlation of at least 65.6% in each year ( Table 2 ). However, the correlation to the product’s fitness is a maximum of 33.1% (exim00-fit10 in Table 2 ) in the same period, indicating a relatively low linear relationship. The results of Kendall’s Tau correlation are also very similar to the results of Pearson’s correlation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t003

Differences in trading partners’ dependency.

The dependency of 261 trading partners on Korea had a linear relationship of a minimum of 62.3% ( Table 4 ). The linear correlation of relative export portion (minimum 87.1%) was high except for 2000, which was right after the Asian financial crises during the period 1997–1998. The mutual linear distribution between the two variables was a maximum of -8.9%, indicating a very low linear relationship. The results of Kendall’s Tau rank correlation are also very similar to the results of Pearson’s correlation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t004

The physical distance from Korea to the region can affect a trading partner’s dependence on Korea. This feature can raise the need to examine the frequency of the region of countries in the top ten partners in terms of dependency. Asia and Africa show the highest dependency among the regions ( Fig 6 ). The regional distribution of 5-year average is generally similar in order of Asia (i.e., 10 trading partners), Africa (seven partners), South America (three), Oceania (three), North America (two), and Europe (one) ( Table 5 ).

※ Note. NES: Not Elsewhere Specified.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g006

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t005

Industries’ competitiveness and regional dependency

It would be necessary to match the products with the most suitable industry in order to analyze them at the industry level. This research collected the import and export data in accordance with the product categorization standard of HS Code 2007. The research allocated each product to the most suitable industry using the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) on all economic activities which United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) offers; it rearranged the products into 14 industries as shown in Table 6 (i.e., I-01, I-02, …, I-14). This research integrated trading partners into 6 regions: Africa (R-1), North America (R-2), South America (R-3), Asia (R-4), Europe (R-5), and Oceania (R-6). As shown in Eqs 13 and 14 , the industry’s fitness F s is the weighted average of fitness F p of the matched products ( p ), whereas dependency D r of the global region is the weighted average of dependency D c of trading partners ( c ) [ 3 ].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.t006

Fig 7 shows the evolution of the industry’s relative GDP and competitiveness evaluated with the methodology described above. This research measures the relative value of GDP as the value normalized with total average in order to have the relative characteristics in the same way as in the competitiveness comparison.

※ Note. Please see Table 6 for the classification of the 14 industries (e.g., I-01, I-02).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g007

In GDP, I-01 (agriculture/forestry, fishing, and mining), I-06 (chemical), I-11 (electrical and electronic equipment), and I-13 (transport equipment) industries belonged to top one group throughout the analysis period (1995–2015). These groups accounted for more than 60% of the total production. These notable changes denote the finding that the I-11 industry surpassed I-01 to take first place from 2004, and the I-13 industry increased steadily to raise its ranking in third place. Although the top two groups included the I-03 (textile), I-08 (basic metals), and I-10 (machinery and equipment) industries at the beginning of the analysis period, the I-09 (fabricated metal products) industry has replaced I-03.

Our relational evaluation shows different results among industry sectors. The I-11 industry, which ranked in first place with its production volume in the latter part of the analysis, showed a pattern of declining competitiveness during the same period, implying the instability of GDP growth as a monetary index. The I-13 industry showed a relatively high level of competitiveness from the diversification viewpoint throughout the analysis period. However, the declining pattern of competitiveness and the production stagnation of during the analytic period imply the need for improving industrial and export competitiveness by increasing the trade volume or the market diversification. I-01 and I-12 (precision instruments) have shown the opposite evolution patterns. I-01 had high but rapidly decreasing production size, whereas relational competitiveness has steadily increased. I-12 had gradually increased production size, but relational competitiveness has steadily decreased.

The evaluation of dependency of trading regions shows a notable decline in the Oceania (R-6) region ( Fig 8 ). Although the export volume to this region is not large, it is gradually increasing. Its decreasing dependency on Korea indicates that the items exported to the region appear to be relatively uncompetitive and their proportion seems to be large. The Asian region (R-4), which accounts for more than half of Korea’s total trade volume, shows a similar pattern. While the total export volume (i.e., 50–60% of the sum value) is rapidly increasing, the region’s dependency on Korea seems to be somewhat diminishing.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267695.g008

This study utilized the import-export data of products and trading partners and analyzed the competitiveness of Korean products and dependency of partners in the global market with respect to two research questions. As the answer to RQ1 with regard to “product competitiveness”, Korea’s top ten export-competitive products were vehicles (id 87), rubbers (id 40), fibres (id 55), nuclear reactors (id 84), optical and relevant parts (id 90), manufactured articles (id 96), printed materials (id 49), filament (id 54), wadding articles (id 56), and plastic articles (id 39) in Table 3 . They showed relatively small change during the period 1995–2015.

As the answer to RQ2 with regard to the analysis of major trading partners, those with high “dependency” on Korea were mostly in Asia—which was physically close to Korea—and Africa as developing countries. These results imply that Korea’s trading pattern had the status quo aspect of concentrating on specific products and partners.

The existing global analysis evaluates the competitiveness of products exported by a country based on the relative volume [ 8 , 9 ]. This study’s local analysis considers not only the evaluation of the relative volume of each product but also the diversification of trading countries. It would be important for a country to secure robustness amid external impact through diversification under the dynamic environment of international competition and technology innovation. This diversification strategy with dynamics can become one of the important explanatory factors describing national or industrial competitiveness and wealth [ 8 ].

Moreover, the findings of this research show some differences of trade dependencies in regions and transactional partners. The top 10% trading partners were in the regions of Asia and South America ( Fig 6 ). On the other side, the regional dependence by Korea’s trade was high for South America, Africa, and Asia ( Fig 8 ). Some geographical and geopolitical factors may affect this discrepancy of regional dependence between partners and regions. For example, some Asian nations (e.g., Mongolia, Pakistan, and Indonesia in Table 5 ) have high tendency of geographical proximity (e.g., the Strait of Malacca as the choke position of international trades in Asia [ 24 ]) and similar background in oriental cultures with Korea. However, the proportion of top 10% trading partners in Asia is comparatively low, which could be the results of socioeconomic competition between influential countries (e.g., China as Group two (G2), Japan) and the increasing trading portion of other regions (e.g., South America, Africa) with economic growth.

Fig 8 also denotes that the Asian region has a high portion of trade to Korea but a low level of dependence in comparison with other regions, which could suggest the unique features of the Asian region. The Asian region has achieved rapid economic growth and political stabilization; thus, it has consequently realized its higher level of trade diversification than the other developing countries [ 25 ]. In addition, the hegemonic competition/conflicts between global influential nations (e.g., USA, China, Russia, and Japan) has been accelerated in the Northeastern Asia, referred to the “Cold War” and “New Cold War [ 26 , 27 ].” However, many developing countries in South America and Africa has slowly achieved their economic advances with their (inter)national conflicts of politics and war. Their trade volume might be smaller than those in Asia and their transactional dependence on Korea could be higher than those in Asia.

Therefore, this study suggests the need to diversify the trade policies and industrial development strategies at the national level whenever the current comparative advantage of product export and distribution of major trading partners are maintained or strengthened. For example, the Asian financial crisis (1997–1998) and the US-initiated economic crisis (2007–2008) had been influenced on the world trade as these events had driven nations to changes of their dependence to specific regions and products.

Our results of the competitiveness of Korean products and its dependency about trading countries focusing on particular products and regions (during times of crises) will raise concerns about the long-term technological and industrial adaptability and sustainability of trade strategy of Korea. In this turbulent era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the global economic shocks of pandemics (e.g., SARS in 2003, MERS in 2012, and COVID-19), Korea, and other similar export-oriented nations need to diversify the transactional products and trading partners for their dynamic changes and future in the medium and long-term future.

It could be very important for a country to diversify and upgrade its industrial structure and trade products for the country to attain stable long-term economic development in its global competition. This study configured the matrix of products and trading partners from Korea’s trade data of each product and trading country during the period 1995–2015. The study analyzed the product’s competitiveness and trading partners’ dependence using revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and nonlinear iterative method (NIM). These results showed that Korea had continuously maintained its competitiveness with specific products (e.g., electrical and electronic equipment, chemicals, and transport equipment) even during the Asian and US-initiated financial crises; many developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America were major trading partners. This research suggests the necessity of the strategy of diversification of traded products, trading countries, and regions as one of the industrial and trade policies for Korea and export-oriented countries with their narrow domestic market or insufficient natural resources.

This study implements an analytical approach based on the data from a specific country, which would be a limiting point in the generalization of results in comparison with the competitive trade and industrial strategies of other countries. It would be necessary and important to analyze the competitiveness of the traded products and the complexity of trade relationship within the complex trade relationship of the network. Moreover, sustainable economic development with the problems of global warming and environmental destruction has already become a global issue as an international concern [ 28 , 29 ]. The analysis of national and regional industrial structure and the ripple effect from the trade relationships between the supply and demand of inter-industry sectors would be also important, as some of the subjects in future research. For example, energy and natural resources, which would not be replaceable in the short-term between countries in geographical proximities, could be strategic trading goods for nations in the era of the “New Cold War” provoked by military conflicts in Ukraine in 2022 and the consequent inflation of imported goods due to the recovery from COVID-19 and highly inter-dependent networks of international trade.

Acknowledgments

Authors appreciates the editorial board and two anonymous reviewers for improving their research. Any typos or errors are the authors’ responsibility.

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• 22. Harmonized System (HS) 2007 coding system in Korean produced by Korea Customs Service (KCS) [Internet]. 2019. https://unipass.customs.go.kr/clip/index.do .

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South korea becomes global leader in innovation through investment in research, systemic reform and talent mobility.

Nature Index 2020 South Korea , published in the May 28 issue of Nature, investigates South Korea’s strategy to become a “first mover” by investing in basic research grants and original discoveries.

Seoul | Sydney, 27 May 2020

South Korea’s spending on research and development as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) is the second highest worldwide, being topped only by Israel. Between 2000 and 2018, research and development funding grew from 2.1% of GDP in 2000 to more than 4.5%. The nation’s goal to become a “first mover” instead of simply a “fast follower” to maintain economic growth is reflected in this investment, and is the focus of Nature Index 2020 South Korea.

According to the Nature Index, South Korea has retained its position in the top 10 countries in terms of high quality research output, as measured by the key metric “Share” over the past four years. Aside from the sustained investment in research and development, South Korea has also demonstrated growth in collaboration, in particular with China. In 2018, China displaced Japan as South Korea’s second-most collaborative partner in the index, after the United States.

This special report demonstrates how a concerted government push to make South Korea an innovation leader, backed by strong investment and systemic reform, has brought rapid and long-lasting results. The South Korean government’s systematic approach has been the crucial factor in creating an innovative economy that turns ideas from laboratories into products and industries. Nature Index 2020 South Korea also looks at how the Institute for Basic Science network will fare under increased scrutiny, and considers what’s in store for the nation as a new generation of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity businesses mature. South Korea’s scientific landscape is becoming more diverse and more productive, with an influx of globally mobile researchers since 2017. These researchers have been found to be 50% more productive than other academics in the country.

David Swinbanks, Founder of the Nature Index, said: “South Korea’s ‘top-down’ planning forged the strong ties between government, academia and industry that helped it become a global leader in information and communication technologies and in innovation generally. The top-down approach played a key role for example in the nation’s ability to quickly develop and produce diagnostic kits for COVID-19.”

The creativity and determination demonstrated by the country’s post-war economic and scientific transformation point to further success ahead. It is encouraging to see governmental initiatives to promote basic as well as applied research aimed at transitioning South Korea from a ‘fast follower’ to a ‘first mover.’”

Further features of this special report include: league tables of South Korean Institutions listed by Share; graphics showing South Korea’s position among the leading scientific nations and its notable strength in the physical sciences; the leading research collaborators with tech giant, Samsung; and the South Korean institutions attracting the most talent from overseas.

Note : The Nature Index is one indicator of institutional research performance. The metrics of Count and Share used to order Nature Index listings are based on an institution’s or country’s publication output in 82 natural science journals, selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields (see below). The Nature Index recognises that many other factors must be taken into account when considering research quality and institutional performance; Nature Index metrics alone should not be used to assess institutions or individuals. Nature Index data and methods are transparent and available under a creative commons license at natureindex.com.

Further Information

The Nature Index 2020 South Korea is available here .

A PDF of the supplement is available to journalists on request.

About the Nature Index

The Nature Index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in 82 natural science journals, selected on reputation for quality by an independent group of leading scientists.

The Nature Index provides absolute and fractional counts of article publication at the institutional and national level and, as such, is an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration. Data in the Nature Index are updated regularly, with the most recent 12 months made available under a Creative Commons licence at natureindex.com. The database is compiled by Nature Research, part of Springer Nature.

Nature Index metrics

The Nature Index uses Count and Share to track research output.

A country/region or an institution is given a Count of 1 for each article that has at least one author from that country/region or institution. This is the case regardless of the number of authors an article has, and it means that the same article can contribute to the Count of multiple countries/regions or institutions.

To glean a country’s, a region’s or an institution’s contribution to an article, and to ensure they are not counted more than once, the Nature Index uses Share, a fractional count that takes into account the share of authorship on each article. The total Share available per article is 1, which is shared among all authors under the assumption that each contributed equally. For instance, an article with 10 authors means that each author receives a Share of 0.1. For authors who are affiliated with more than one institution, the author’s Share is then split equally between each institution. The total Share for an institution is calculated by summing the Share for individual affiliated authors. The process is similar for countries/regions, although complicated by the fact that some institutions have overseas labs that will be counted towards host country/region totals.

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South Korea as a Developing Region Research Paper

Political system impact, legal system impact, economic system impact, economic freedom.

Despite authoritarianism, the region’s politicians understand the importance of collaborating with social forces for economic growth. One of the main directions in the economy of South Korea is industrialization, forced by the state, although this is less typical for the agricultural region of South Jeolla (Baek et al., 2022). The relationship between the government and the private sector, coupled with its economic growth, are understood as necessary to compensate for the lack of political legitimacy of authoritarian regimes. Thus, despite the political authoritarianism, the region has the potential for further development.

The state actively intervenes in the economy, giving legal grounds for economic protection. During the current global economic crisis, governments have stepped in to support financial institutions (Liu et al., 2020). South Korea’s legal inflation control and interest rate policy is a rigid government system (Vartanyan, 2018). The obligation to strictly follow the established legislation provides opportunities for stable growth with government support. Small businesses in the South Jeolla region are protected so farmers can thrive and grow their businesses.

The economic system is critical to establishing prosperity in the region. South Korea’s economy is a highly developed mixed economy dominated by family conglomerates (Cardinale, 2019). In agricultural regions such as South Jeolla, cultivation of crops according to ancient traditions is strong. The state actively stimulates the agricultural sector, which allows farming to remain one of the main activities in the region. Sustainable development was the result of successful economic reforms to support business and stimulate production.

The South Korean economic, political and legal systems restrict economic freedom. However, South Korea remains one of the most sustainable regions in Asia and has strong economic performance (Yang et al., 2020). Despite limited economic freedom, Korean entrepreneurs can be successful in the traditional agricultural sector, as well as successfully establish family businesses. In the face of severe government restrictions, there are also competent business support measures that allow both small businesses and the state demonstrate sustainable growth.

Baek, S., Yoon, H., & Hahm, Y. (2022). Assessment of spatial interactions in farmland abandonment: A case study of Gwangyang City, Jeollanam-do Province, South Korea . Habitat International , 129 (1), 1-10. Web.

Cardinale, R. (2019). Theory and practice of state intervention: Italy, South Korea and stages of economic development . Structural Change and Economic Dynamics , 49 (1), 206-216. Web.

Liu, Y., Lee, J. M., & Lee, C. (2020). The challenges and opportunities of a global health crisis: the management and business implications of COVID-19 from an Asian perspective . Asian Business & Management , 19 (3), 277-297. Web.

Vartanyan, E. G. (2018). South Korea’s Economic Course: from State Dirigisme to Liberal Monetarism . East Asia , 35 (4), 347-357. Web.

Yang, L., Wang, Y., Wang, R., Klemeš, J. J., Almeida, C. M. V. B. D., Jin, M., & Qiao, Y. (2020). Environmental-social-economic footprints of consumption and trade in the Asia-Pacific region . Nature communications , 11 (1), 1-9. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2023, November 22). South Korea as a Developing Region. https://ivypanda.com/essays/south-korea-as-a-developing-region/

"South Korea as a Developing Region." IvyPanda , 22 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/south-korea-as-a-developing-region/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'South Korea as a Developing Region'. 22 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "South Korea as a Developing Region." November 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/south-korea-as-a-developing-region/.

1. IvyPanda . "South Korea as a Developing Region." November 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/south-korea-as-a-developing-region/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "South Korea as a Developing Region." November 22, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/south-korea-as-a-developing-region/.

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Most Asian Americans View Their Ancestral Homelands Favorably, Except Chinese Americans

5. korean americans’ views of south korea and other places, table of contents.

• Most Asian adults would not move to their ancestral homelands
• Majority of Asian Americans see the U.S. as the world's leading economic power in the next decade
• Chinese Americans mostly uninterested in moving to China
• Two-thirds of Filipino adults say they would not move to the Philippines, though interest differs by nativity
• Interest in moving to India differs across time spent in the U.S.
• 4. Japanese Americans’ views of Japan and other places
• Most Korean adults say they would not move to Korea
• 6. Taiwanese Americans’ views of Taiwan and other places
• A large majority of Vietnamese Americans say they would not move to Vietnam given the chance
• Acknowledgments
• Sample design
• Data collection
• Weighting and variance estimation
• Appendix: How we defined the survey’s Taiwanese sample

A large majority (86%) of Korean adults in the U.S. have a favorable view of South Korea. They see the country most favorably of all the places asked about in our survey.

“Not long ago, I went to Korea and came back after about three and a half months. Now, Korea has developed so much that I wonder why I received (U.S.) citizenship. Still, if you want to live [comfortably] with the same amount of money, I don’t think there is anywhere comparable to the United States.”

– Immigrant man of Korean origin, age 48 (translated from Korean)

Korean men and those with a postgraduate degree stand out in their positive views. Nine-in-ten Korean adults of both groups (92%) view South Korea favorably, including 61% of men and 50% of advanced degree holders who say their opinion of South Korea is very favorable.

About three-quarters of Korean adults hold broadly positive views toward the U.S.

When asked about their views of Taiwan, Korean Americans skew positive in their opinions but are more split: They are only slightly more likely to say they have a favorable view than a neutral one (52% vs. 41%). Few Korean Americans (5%) have negative views of Taiwan.

Korean Americans are about evenly split when it comes to views of Japan. Some 36% of Korean adults have a favorable view of the country, 34% have a neutral opinion and 29% have an unfavorable view.

Korean Americans hold more neutral views of Vietnam, the Philippines and India.

About six-in-ten Korean adults say their opinions of Vietnam and the Philippines are neither favorable nor unfavorable (59% and 57% respectively). Around three-in-ten see each of these countries favorably, and around one-in-ten see each unfavorably.

While around half of Korean adults (52%) say they have a neutral opinion of India, the balance of opinion is somewhat more negative (30%) than positive (17%).

A majority of Korean adults have negative views of China. About two-thirds of Korean Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of China.

Stronger ties to the Korean Peninsula are associated with less favorable views of Japan

Korean adults are about half as likely to hold a favorable view of Japan as other Asian adults. 10 Perhaps related to the contentious historical relationship between Korea and Japan , Korean Americans’ views of Japan vary by their connection to the Korean Peninsula.

U.S.-born Korean adults are more likely to have positive views of Japan than those born abroad (50% vs. 31%). Among Korean immigrants, those who have been in the U.S. for more than two decades are more likely than those who arrived more recently to say they have a favorable view of Japan (38% vs. 20%).

Younger Korean adults are also more likely to have a favorable view of Japan than older Korean adults: Four-in-ten Korean adults in the U.S. ages 18 to 49 say their opinion of Japan is very or somewhat favorable, compared with about a quarter of those 50 and older.

Though an overwhelming majority of Korean adults in the U.S. have a favorable view of South Korea, only about a quarter (26%) say they would ever move there. Roughly three-quarters of Korean adults (72%) say they would not move to Korea.

Views do not differ between those who are foreign born and those who were born in the U.S.

Among the one-in-four Korean adults who say they would move to Korea, about half said the main reason would be to receive better health care (24%) or to be closer to friends or family (22%).

Smaller shares of Korean adults who said they would move to South Korea said the main reason is because they feel safer there, they’re more familiar with Korean culture, or because South Korea has better support for older people (10% each).

“It has been more than a decade since I first came to the United States, and in the meantime South Korea has developed a lot. Electronic devices that used to be dominated by Japanese products have now been replaced with Korean products, making me proud to be a Korean. There are many Korean cars, and K-pop and Korean food – all have grown a lot.… Talking about Korea’s rapid growth made me feel proud as a Korean.”

– Immigrant woman of Korean origin, age 41 (translated from Korean)

• To make comparisons between Korean adults in the U.S. and the rest of the U.S. Asian population, “other Asian adults” is used in this chapter to refer to Asian adults who do not report being Korean or report being two or more Asian origins. ↩

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A worrying divide has been growing between South Korea and its Asia-Pacific security partners. Although Seoul regards the threat posed by North Korea as more acute than ever before, countries including Japan, Australia, the United States and Britain are overwhelmingly preoccupied with China’s regional ambitions. But they ignore Pyongyang’s continuing brinkmanship at their peril. Escalation and proliferation risks are growing on the Korean Peninsula, and Seoul’s mounting sense of isolation exacerbates both dangerously.

A recent project conducted by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) and the European Leadership Network (ELN) explored perceptions of nuclear risk in South Korea, Australia, Japan and Britain. Experts and officials in the four countries were asked a series of questions about the risk of conflict in Northeast Asia. Although there was a fairly broad consensus among them on the main causes for concern in the Taiwan Strait, opinions diverged regarding escalation risks on the Korean Peninsula. For example, whereas South Koreans considered it likely that a Korean conflict will take place in the near future, with devastating consequences for South Korea’s national security, participants from the other three countries downplayed these risks and dismissed South Korean concerns that North Korea might intentionally initiate a crisis.

This gap in South Korea’s threat perceptions could have serious security implications over the next few years, especially if Seoul sees self-reliance as its only option for dealing with its hostile and unpredictable neighbor. Escalation dangers are already growing — recently, South Korea’s defense minister instructed the military not to show restraint in response to North Korean provocations. Instead, it has been ordered to “take action immediately, strongly and until the end,” and not wait for permission from their political leaders. This change in military posture has occurred against a backdrop of increasing domestic support for an independent South Korean nuclear weapons capability, spurred on by the North’s constant verbal threats and missile tests, and by concern that Seoul will face an existential crisis if U.S. alliance resolve wanes.

If there is a change of administration after the U.S. elections this year, South Korea’s deep insecurity and sense of isolation could intensify, increasing proliferation, conflict and escalation dynamics. Urgent steps should be taken to reduce these risks, including measures to strengthen bilateral ties between South Korea and its security partners. For while Japan, Australia and Britain have taken great strides in strengthening bilateral ties with one another, they are only just beginning to explore the potential of their respective partnerships with South Korea. These efforts need to be deepened and accelerated.

The four countries should also engage more closely in policy dialogue and coordination as a group and carefully consider how they would plan to uphold their shared security interests on the Korean Peninsula, including in conditions of conflict and conflict escalation. As they undertake these activities, they should take steps to reassure Pyongyang and Beijing that their coordination efforts are defensive, based on their shared, legitimate security interests and not aimed at creating an Asian NATO.

Two collaborative initiatives should be prioritized:

First, experts in each of the four countries who have deep knowledge of the nuclear non-proliferation regime should be tasked with analyzing and communicating the role that such frameworks play in promoting stability in Northeast Asia, and the likely regional and global consequences of allowing the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) regime to collapse. This is critically important because the joint APLN-ELN project identified a growing dismissiveness among policymakers — especially in Seoul — regarding the value of key multilateral legal and normative frameworks, including the NPT.

Second, officials from the four countries should conduct tabletop exercises to explore specific conflict scenarios on the Korean Peninsula, including under conditions of U.S. retrenchment. These exercises should be used to improve understanding between the three Asia-Pacific countries of escalation risks and their respective approaches to crisis decision-making, and test responses to potential crisis signals from Chinese and North Korean leaders. Brtiain, as an actor from outside the region, could host these exercises in a neutral location.

Policymakers must use these and other initiatives to refocus their attention on North Korea's nuclear activities and do so in a way that fully engages South Korean experts and officials. The tendency among experts and officials in Australia, Japan, Brtiain and the U.S. to treat nuclear risks on the Korean Peninsula as secondary to those in the Taiwan Strait is cultivating a sense of resignation among South Koreans that they must ‘go it alone.’ Bringing North Korea back onto the security agenda could reduce proliferation pressures in South Korea and help bolster strategic stability in Northeast Asia.

Dr. Tanya Ogilvie-White is a senior research adviser and member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN), a non-resident senior fellow at the Pacific Forum and a member of the International Group of Eminent Persons for a World without Nuclear Weapons. This essay is published in cooperation with the APLN.

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