South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol opens the country’s first summit with Pacific island leaders on Monday as Seoul seeks to increase its influence in a region that has become the focus of intense geopolitical rivalry.
Yoon launched his administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy last year, pledging to promote a “free, peaceful and prosperous” region built on a rules-based order, amid concerns about China’s security ambitions over strategic waters and economic influence among small island states.
The South Korean president held bilateral talks over the weekend with some of the visiting Pacific leaders, including Kiribati President Taneti Maamau and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape.
“The president discussed expanding mutual cooperation in development, the sea and fisheries, as well as building health infrastructure and responding to climate change in bilateral meetings with each of the Pacific islands,” Yoon’s office said in a statement on Sunday.
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy also sees greater scope for trilateral cooperation with the United States and Australia to address regional issues such as supply chains, critical minerals and climate change.
Although the Yoon government’s strategy suggests closer ties with the US, “South Korea must still tread carefully between the two superpower rivals given Seoul’s larger economic and geopolitical stakes in China compared to other US allies,” said Andrew Yeo, Senior Fellow. in the American think tank Brookings Institution.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles will also attend the Korea-Pacific Islands Summit, his office said on Saturday, adding that it would showcase cooperation between the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum and South Korea for a secure region.
Australia and New Zealand are the largest members of the forum, a bloc of mostly small island nations threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change and dependent on aid from development partners. The bloc took a collective approach to dealing with the major powers.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged more trade and development aid at a summit with 10 Pacific island leaders in Papua New Guinea (PNG) last week. United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken also signed a defense agreement with PNG after the Pacific Summit. Micronesia was unable to attend the meeting in Seoul due to the typhoon, Yoon’s office said.
