The 21st Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity held in South Korea concluded on Friday. Speaking on the forum’s final panel, Dr Jagannath Panda, Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, argued that in a period of growing regional instability, South Korea must look to deepen its partnership with like-minded middle powers. Japan should be at its forefront, he remarked.
Jagannath Panda emphasised that the pragmatic approach of both Prime Minister Takaichi and President Lee had allowed real strides to be made in the countries’ relationship.
Continuing that momentum, he added, has become more important than ever. With regional threats mounting, not least from China and North Korea, the scholar highlighted that Seoul and Tokyo are united by a shared threat perception alongside their aligned democratic values.
The panel sought to go beyond simply identifying potential partners, however. Speakers also emphasised the frameworks through which cooperation could be deepened, and regional stability maintained.
Panda homed in on Japan’s Free and Open Indo Pacific (FOIP) as that critical architecture.
FOIP, a Japanese vision pioneered over a decade ago is an inclusive outlook grounded in shared values and respect for international law. In an increasingly contested regional theatre, Panda warned that the vision was under threat.
Defending it mattered, he argued. Not only is FOIP a structure which helps resist unilateral coercion and safeguards global trade, but it provides a community of trustworthy partners which South Korea can rely upon.
The need for middle powers to continually engage with the United States also emerged as a recurring theme on the panel. Panda highlighted the importance of trilateral cooperation between South Korea, Japan, and the US, pointing to real-time data-sharing on North Korean ballistic missiles as a pivotal area of continued engagement.
The overarching takeaway from the event was that stability in the Indo-Pacific requires greater cooperation between democratic, like-minded states. From Panda’s analysis, ROK-Japan relations appear to be both a deepening and necessary bilateral partnership for sustaining regional stability.
Sitting alongside Panda during the panel was Amitav Acharya, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, Thomas Wilkins, Associate Professor in International Security at the University of Sydney, Koga Kei, Head of Division at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme at Nanyang Technological University and Ku Youn Chung, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Kangwon National University.
The Jeju Forum has emerged as one of the foremost dialogues for international peace across its 21 meetings. Alongside Panda’s panel, this year’s edition featured a further 70 sessions under the umbrella theme of ‘Reinventing Cooperation in a Fragmented World.’
This year certainly elevated the forum to new heights with all five candidates vying to succeed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attending the conference and featuring on their own panel. Other high-profile attendees included former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and former Mongolian Prime Minister Gombojav Zandanshatar.
Prior to the conference, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told the Korea Times that the Jeju Forum could one day carry the same authority as Davos in the domain of peace and cooperation, rather than economic power. The success of this year's event suggests the forum is well on its way to achieving such status.
