Analysis On Korean-EU Foreign Policies

The South Korean government officially established After second World War in 1948. During the Cold War, US-Soviet confrontation led to the outbreak of the Korean War, and the split of the Korean peninsula. Under the protection of the United States, South Korea achieved a great developments, especially in economic aspect and gained the title "four little dragons in Asia,". Compared with the exchanges with the major countries of Europe in economic and trade, the political cooperation and exchange were not that much.After the Cold War and the end of US-Soviet confrontation, it was a key point for Northeast Asia development and almost all the countries in this region had adjusted its domestic and foreign policies. The big change of this region's political, economic, military and security forms provided a greater external space for the development of South Korean diplomacy. South Korea not only have to adjust the relations with the countries of Northeast Asia, but also begun to pay more attention to the European Union (EC) which has improved its international status gradually. So South Korea's foreign policy about EU has became more active and positive.In addition to the tremendous changes of international conditions, the strengthened diplomatic relations between EU and South Korea also included internal factors. First, with the strengthening trend of European integration, the increasing influence of the European Union and the rising political status of European countries in international community, all the countries of EU have advocated with "one voice" in the world. As for South Korea, the South Korean domestic middle class's voice about the independent democratic status in international community is improving. Especially during Roh Moo-hyun's government, relations with foreign countries were actively developed, and said South Korea should get ride of the United States's control stand for a "balanced" role in the Northeast Asian region.In the role of the above factors, South Korea and EU launched a series of cooperation and contacts. As the economic and trade exchanges have been strengthened, EU is become the second-largest trading partner of South Korea (this paper take the European Union as a country, mainly because of its as a whole research and analysis), the EU's investment amount to South Korea rapidly growing. Apart from the strengthening of bilateral economic and trade relations, the two sides also take the North Korean nuclear issue as a turning point to set up political and security cooperation. Roh Moo-hyun the former president of South Korean and Lee Myung-bak the new President all welcomed EU to involve in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. All of these are breaking the geopolitical cooperation prerequisite of the security cooperation model, making it more diversity and multilateral.South Korea not only is an important country of the Northeast Asian region, but also is an important neighboring country of China. So the relationship between South Korea and China is an important component of China's diplomacy. In recent years, the close contacts between China and South Korea is increasing, the frequent cooperation and exchanges is involve in economic, trade, political fields, as well as the cultural aspects. Therefore, the study and analysis of the South Korea foreign policy, will play a positive role in the development of China's foreign relations.