Your Excellency Ambassador Sakal (Nina, Simon, Kazuo) Director Ms Rahimah Abdulrahim,
Dr. Alexander Chandra, Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon to you all.
First of all, my thanks to the Habibie Center for inviting me at this Seminar Series.
I would like to discuss the Korea-ASEAN relations under 3SP’s: first, Shared Peace in political and security area, second, Shared Prosperity in economy, third, Shared Progress in socio-cultural area.
Since Korea was given the status of ASEAN’s Sectoral Dialogue Partner in 1989, followed by the elevation of Full Dialogue Partner in 1991, the Korea-ASEAN relations have progressed over time and made some noticeable achievements along the way.
Before I go further, let me highlight the Korea-ASEAN milestones and Korea’s basic posture toward ASEAN.
Notable milestones are the two Commemorative Summits in 2009 and 2014 in Korea, the launch of the ASEAN-Korea Center in Seoul, 2009, the strategic partnership in 2010 and the opening of the Mission of ROK to ASEAN, in 2012.
Korea recognizes ASEAN’s interests. That is why Korea has worked together with ASEAN and its member states through its bilateral and multilateral cooperation programs.
ASEAN’s unity and centrality become more important than ever before. As a Dialogue Partner and committed member of various ASEAN-led mechanisms, Korea supports the ASEAN Unity and ASEAN Centrality in the regional security architecture. To accomplish an East Asian community in future, Korea recognizes the success of the ASEAN Community as a cornerstone for a greater East Asian community.
Now, let me talk about Shared Peace: Political Security Area.
First, in the area of political security, Korea and ASEAN have made some progresses.
- As a fundamental basis of our cooperation in the political security area, Korea acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in 2004.
- Both sides have recognized the importance and the need to
further strengthen political security cooperation.
From 2014, Korea and ASEAN have held a first separate session on political security area during our annual Korea-ASEAN Dialogue.
- Korea intends to strengthen the political security cooperation with ASEAN via our annual Korea-ASEAN Dialogue.
- To deepen our cooperation further, Korea wishes to hold a separate annual Senior Official Level meeting, focusing only on the political security issues around the region and beyond.
Such focus is critical in East Asia where we face with various traditional and transnational security challenges.
- One of these security challenges that we are facing is North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations against peace and stability in East Asia.
- Thus, it is essential for the international community, including ASEAN, to denounce North Korea’s provocations and urge North Korea to abide by its obligations and commitments under the UN Security Council Resolutions.
Korea values ASEAN’s expression of grave concern over North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations in early this year. In the future, Korea will look forward to continued cooperation and collaboration with ASEAN in responding to North Korea’s repeated provocations.
(Way Forward) ASEAN is important for Korea in political security domain. In terms of Korea’s East Asia policy, ASEAN is considered as top 5 (geopolitical and geo-economic) priority policy areas.
- Furthermore, ASEAN’s importance and potential has attracted Korea’s various stakeholders in public and private sector, academia, and media.
In responding to the traditional security challenges and transnational threats throughout the region and beyond, Korea will cooperate with ASEAN, particularly in the areas of transnational issues, namely disaster management, climate change, environment, transnational crimes and maritime cooperation.
Besides the Korea-ASEAN mechanism, in the broader regional context such as ASEAN+3, East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, Korea will support ASEAN-led broader regional mechanisms.
Particularly, in terms of APT mechanism, Korea and ASEAN have joined their hands together in developing the regional blueprints like the East Asian Vision Group I and II.
As an outcome of the East Asian Vision Group I’s recommendations, we are now seeing the growing recognition of the East Asia Summit around the world.
Korea and ASEAN are geographically distanced from each other, but the two sides must work together to achieve greater East Asian cooperation.
I would like to move onto Shared Prosperity: Economic Cooperation.
In the area of economic cooperation, Korea and ASEAN has made noticeable strides.
- Trade volume and investment to ASEAN in 2014 increased by 16 and 20 times respectively, in comparison to 1989 when first we established our dialogue relations.
- For Korea, ASEAN has become the 2nd largest trading partner and investment destination.
- For ASEAN, Korea has become the 5th largest trading partner and the 7th largest foreign investor.
- To achieve this level of close and complementary economic cooperation, the 2007 Korea-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement has played the major role.
As our leaders agreed at the 2014 Commemorative Summit, Korea and ASEAN will further expand our trading volume to meet the target of 200 billion US dollar by 2020.
- In order to attain the goal, Korea and ASEAN will need to utilize our current FTA and further liberalize it.
- For that, I will do my best to work closely with my ASEAN colleagues.
At the end of last year, ASEAN officially launched ASEAN Community. Indeed, it is another milestone in the history of ASEAN. The success of ASEAN Community is important to Korea, particularly the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).
The AEC’s success is not just only important to ASEAN, but it will also be crucial for a greater economic integration throughout East Asia.
- With such in mind, Korea will support the AEC and assist ASEAN’s socio-economic capacity building processes.
- For instance, Korea will support ASEAN’s Tariff Finder project in this year via the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund.
- The intent of this project is to create a web-based tariff search portal for and among ASEAN Member States.
(Way Forward) When the global community is concerned with China’s economic slowdown and the global economic forecast in general, ASEAN has become an attractive, alternative destination as a next global production base.
- Considering Korea’s history of economic development and national scale, Korea will be an optimal partner for ASEAN in order to achieve its economic development goals.
For Korea, ASEAN is not just a mere production base, nor market for our manufactured goods; rather, ASEAN is Korea’s genuine economic partner. In the post-2015 era, I believe that our mutual economic cooperation will further deepen as our overall relations grow.
Like the East Asian Vision Groups, Korea looks forward to working closely with ASEAN to strengthen a greater East Asian economic integration.
- I believe we have already obtained an economic foundation, the ASEAN Economic Community.
- The success of AEC is crucial for the greater regional integration. To that end, Korea will play a constructive role to support the AEC and its goals as well as the early conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Lastly, I would like to touch upon Shared Progress: Socio-Cultural Cooperation.
In the context of our socio-cultural cooperation, the two sides have indeed achieved remarkable progress.
Since 1989, Korea has made significant accomplishments with ASEAN on the socio-cultural area; particularly, people-to-people and youth exchange programs, and private sector engagement to name a few.
The combined number of visitors between Korea and ASEAN was about 180,000 people in 1989. By 2014, the combined number of visitors in between the two sides was about 6.8 million people.
The number of visitors between Korea and ASEAN has increased by more than 35 times.
Given the steady growth rate of people-to-people exchanges, we have come to appreciate and respect each other’s cultures and societies.
In this regard, I believe that the ASEAN-ROK Cooperation Fund (AKCF) and the ASEAN-Korea Center in Seoul, together with Korea’s bilateral Cultural Center around ASEAN countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines have helped promote people-to-people exchanges and raise awareness of the cultures in both Korea and ASEAN.
The Fund and the Center have selected people-to-people exchange programs and raised awareness of the cultures as their main goal.
At the 2014 Commemorative Summit in Busan, two initiatives in
socio-cultural cooperation were proposed by Korea: the opening of ASEAN Culture House in Busan by 2017 and the designation of 2017 as the year of Korea-ASEAN Cultural Exchange.
For ASEAN, the year 2017 has another special meaning. In 2017, ASEAN will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. For its part as a Dialogue Partner, Korea will try to raise the awareness and understanding of ASEAN’s culture and diverse societies by the official opening of the ASEAN Culture House and the Korea-ASEAN Cultural Exchange Year.
I am pleased to inform you all here that the construction of the ASEAN Culture House has been commenced in January this year.
The entire construction process is expected to be completed as scheduled. Once the ASEAN Culture House is completed, it will help raise Koreans’ understanding and awareness on ASEAN’s diverse cultural heritages. In addition, the designation of the Cultural Exchange Year 2017 will provide another good opportunity to promote our respective cultures and heritages.
(Way Forward) P2P exchanges between Korea and ASEAN have contributed to the promotion of mutual understandings and friendship. Beyond 2015, the two sides will maintain their focus on P2P exchanges as one of the crucial programs in our socio-cultural area.
But, we must remember that our socio-cultural cooperation
should be a reciprocal. Once the ASEAN Culture House is completed, I believe that it will reinforce our socio-cultural relationship to a more reciprocal one. Thus, it will be another force multiplier for Korea-ASEAN socio-cultural cooperation.
At the same time, the roles of the ASEAN-Korea Center and the Cooperation Fund will be continued.
- The ASEAN-ROK Cooperation Fund is in the midst of reorganizing its framework from project-based approach to program-based approach, focusing certain areas of Korea- ASEAN cooperation with multi-year implementations.
- Once completed, the Fund will focus more on the socio- cultural areas of the Korea-ASEAN relations.
Conclusion
In the post-2015 era, there will be a number of uncertainties that will challenge the region’s peace, security and stability. However, Korea’s relations with ASEAN will not be distracted. Korea will continue to sustain its mutually beneficial relations with ASEAN.
Thank you all for listening my remarks in the spirit of 3SP’s: Shared Peace, Shared Prosperity and Shared Progress.
