In this series, S. Nathan Park examined the much-caricatured South Korean liberal foreign policy outlook. Far from being “anti-American” and “pro-Pyongyang,” Seoul’s liberal administrations have responded forcefully against provocations from the North and bolstered the alliance with the United States through military deployments abroad and a bilateral free trade agreement. Reflecting their reading of Korea’s…
April 27, 2022
In the previous article, S. Nathan Park examined how South Korea’s fractious political history birthed the country’s liberals and their foreign policy outlook. He observed that many in DC’s foreign policy circles view liberal administrations as anti-American and submissive to North Korea because the center-left political movement was initially mobilized in opposition to the anti-communist,…
April 19, 2022
Despite their record of advancing the U.S.-Korea alliance, South Korea’s progressive foreign policy posture has sometimes been caricatured as “anti-American.” In conjunction with the discussion on February 23, 2022, S. Nathan Park examines why this sentiment is prevalent in Washington D.C. In part one, he discussed how the U.S. policy circle’s close relationship with Korea’s…
February 22, 2022
Since democratization in 1987, South Korea’s progressive parties have produced less than half of the presidents elected to office. During their brief tenures, however, these administrations have deployed troops to Iraq, negotiated the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, and overseen the expansion of the country’s defense budget and capabilities. Despite this record, South Korea’s progressive foreign…