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President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan enter a room for a photo with the leaders of Australia and New Zealand to mark their summit on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 12. (Yonhap)

By Kim Jong-dae, visiting scholar at Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies

What would happen if the political leader of a middle power carries out summit diplomacy abroad by blatantly proclaiming that he will sell military arms and nuclear power plants? Chances are, he’ll be perceived as a heartless money-grubber.

The defense and nuclear power plant markets operate with the same logic as black markets. Within them, deals have to take place silently, and governments aren’t supposed to brag about achieving results. Because these items are perceived negatively as fomenting conflict and threatening people’s safety, it’s normal for governments to keep out of the spotlight. While corporations take charge of marketing, the government silently provides support behind the scenes.

While attending the recent NATO summit, President Yoon Suk-yeol, the self-professed “No. 1 salesperson of South Korea,” packaged his diplomatic tour as motivated by national interest surrounding defense, nuclear power plants, and infrastructure. Even before his departure, Yoon talked about going to the conflict zone of Poland and selling weapons and nuclear power plants there.

During a press conference marking his 100th day as president last year, Yoon had announced his grandiose goal of turning South Korea into a “top 4 country in the worldwide defense industry.” Following that speech, the South Korean government has been pursuing a plan to package defense, nuclear power plants, and infrastructure into one deal and export it. Government outlets are still intensively promoting this plan. South Korea is the only country in the world where such a strange practice goes unnoticed.

This is so embarrassing that one can only hope to be able to hide in a mouse hole. Instead of offering a vision of peace and cooperation at a time when the world is reeling from the tiring effects of the war in Ukraine, Yoon blathers about wanting to sell weapons and nuclear power plants. How could this align with the sentiment in NATO countries? Who would think fondly of Yoon when he calls himself an arms dealer and a salesperson for nuclear power plants? Yoon’s unlikability is one of the reasons South Korea is struggling in its bid to host World Expo 2030 in Busan.

What’s annoying leaders of the West most of all is how South Korea is evading providing support to Ukraine despite its excellent weapons manufacturing capability, only interesting itself in selling weapons. Last year, during a defense ministers’ meeting amongst NATO members held to discuss how to support Ukraine, the Polish defense minister denounced Germany for avoiding supplying weapons to Ukraine as promised while only showing interest in selling weapons. Eastern European countries with hard-pressed finances that face urgent security threats were outraged by Germany’s duplicitous outward condemnation of Russia, which belied its internal profit calculations.

Then, what would Poland think about Yoon, who said he would try to sell defense products and nuclear power plants to Poland during bilateral talks? Polish President Andrzej Duda publicly expressed his disappointment in South Korea during his interview with the New York Times in April. He demanded US President Joe Biden pressure South Korea, which had yet to supply weapons to Ukraine. That shows how Poland truly feels.

Yoon, whose near-religious faith in nuclear power plants is no secret, did not express any concerns about the potential effects of the release of Fukushima water into the ocean on the ecology and safety when meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Because building nuclear power plants is a priority for our president, the entailing risks and costs are secondary matters. It’s no wonder that he couldn’t confidently express our public’s concern regarding the release of irradiated water. What annoys Pacific Islands most of all is the attitude of the South Korean president, who seems to approve of this “greatest public urination incident the 21st century has ever seen” instead of denouncing it. Plus, lawmakers of the South Korean ruling party visiting seafood markets and drinking water straight from fish tanks probably appalled them. How does the current administration think it can host the World Expo in Busan with such low class?

The president and the government are always talking about values diplomacy and ideological diplomacy. Their supposed pursuit of values over profits would be interpreted as a commitment to overcoming the climate crisis and inequality, respecting labor, and caring for minorities and women in other countries. That is the grammar of international politics. As a matter of fact, the most frequently used words in NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept and the joint statement released following the G7 summit this year were “climate crisis,” “safety,” and “cooperation.” These are values Yoon, who says he elevated South Korea’s national stature by attending a NATO summit, has avoided.

Although this government says it is pursuing values diplomacy as its summit diplomacy, it in fact divides the world into camps and erects walls. It is totally out of touch with the universal values of the world. This is why it is questionable whether Yoon ever read agendas and literature discussed in conferences he was invited to. If he read through those documents at least once, he would know what democracy, rule of law, and human rights means, and why he should use the expression “values diplomacy” strictly and appropriately.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]