By Daniel DePetris
On May 10, Moon Jae-in will step down as South Korea's president after a five-year term. The man who will replace him, conservative Yoon Suk-yeol, will enter office with a large to-do list waiting for him, the most pressing of which is unifying a highly divided South Korean population, lowering high living costs across the country and ensuring South Korea's economy continues to grow after a 4 percent increase in 2021—the highest spurt in more than a decade.
Yoon is a largely unknown commodity. If people have heard of his name, it's probably due to his career as a prosecutor, during which he helped convict former South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye on bribery charges. Yoon is a political novice; his very first political campaign was this year's presidential race, a contest he won by less than a percentage point. So it's only natural if countries around the world are a bit curious about how Yoon will run his government or deal with any number of foreign policy issues that await him.
If there is any clarity about Yoon's foreign policy, it can perhaps be summarized as "look at what Moon did and do the opposite." The new conservative government, which will be inaugurated in roughly two weeks, aims to distance itself from many of its predecessor's policies, particularly on North Korea, China and Japan.
This piece was originally published in Newsweek on April 29, 2022. Read more HERE.