hankyoreh

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is in attendance at a session of the G7 summit held in Cornwall, England, on Saturday. (Yonhap News)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in shared his “reaction” to the recent G7 summit on social media Sunday as he was departing the UK and heading to his next stop in Austria.

In his message, Moon wrote that he had been reminded of two historic incidents in the 20th century: the Second International Peace Conference in The Hague in 1907, and the Potsdam Conference in 1945.

“[Korean diplomat] Yi Jun arrived in The Hague via the Trans-Siberian Railway to alert the world of Japan’s diplomatic aggressions, but he never made it into the conference venue,” he wrote.

“At the Potsdam Conference where the decision was made to divide Korean Peninsula, our fate was determined by the powers at the time, without Korea ever having the chance to make its voice heard,” he added.

He recalled those incidents — symbolizing the history of hardship and humiliations experienced by Korea — because of how profoundly moved he felt about South Korea being invited to attend the G7 summit as a guest alongside India, Australia, and South Africa.

During the summit, Moon had bilateral meetings with the leaders of the UK and France, discussed international issues such as COVID-19 vaccines and advanced technology supply chains, and called for international cooperation on the Korean Peninsula peace process.

He discussed cooperation on new vaccine development with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and requested French President Emmanuel Macron’s cooperation on key high-tech areas such as semiconductors and electric vehicles. At the expanded summit, he was shown taking part in discussions while seated to the right of Boris Johnson, prime minister of the host country, in what was seen as a symbol of how far South Korea’s star has risen.

As he wrapped up his G7 schedule, Moon said, “Today, the Republic of Korea ranks among the world’s top ten economies and is a country where the world’s most mature public works together toward democracy, disease control and carbon neutrality.”

“We are now a country that decides our own destiny and is capable of exchanging support and cooperation with other countries,” he added.

But this increased national standing also comes with a greater burden of responsibility in the international community.

During the summit, Moon announced plans to spend a total of US$200 million on COVID-19 vaccine assistance for the developing world, including US$100 million this year and US$100 million next year.

“The role that the international community is demanding from South Korea is far greater than the South Korean people realize,” said one foreign affairs expert, who asked not to be identified.

“A lot of people think that even US$200 million is not all that much relative to our economic strength. Calls for us to share responsibility when it comes to international public goods will only grow,” the expert said.

The US previously announced plans to donate US$2.5 billion to the COVAX Facility, an international project for joint purchasing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, while Japan pledged US$1 billion.

With the increase in international greenhouse gas reduction targets in response to the climate crisis, South Korea is also under pressure to actively participate in policy efforts aimed at achieving carbon neutrality.

Moon has announced that he plans to formulate a low-emission development strategy within the year to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and to submit nationally determined contributions converted into absolute quantity targets to the UN as national greenhouse gas reduction goals for the year 2030.

But many are arguing that the South Korean government needs to present its concrete reduction targets earlier and speed up its policy efforts to achieve carbon neutrality.

Adding to the burden on South Korea is the intensified criticism of China in the G7 Summit Communique.

As a summit guest, South Korea did not sign the communique. But it did add its name to an “Open Societies Statement” — part of a major program at the summit — where it joined the advanced Western economies in pledging a joint response to “rising authoritarianism” and “politically motivated internet shutdowns.”

“Through our participation as a guest at this summit, we ended up gaining many things diplomatically without the need to assume responsibility,” said Korean National Diplomatic Academy Chancellor Kim Joon-hyung told the Hankyoreh in a telephone interview.

“In the future, we are inevitably going to be exposed to great demands for a role toward China, so we will need to develop ways of overcoming that jointly with the other G7 members,” he said.

According to Kim, South Korea could mitigate the “cold war” between the US and China alongside other countries that differ from the US in their calculations, including France and Germany, both of which are involved in major trade with China.

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

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