Foreign Min Proposes 'Comprehensive Strategic Partnership' w/ASEAN

South Korea's Foreign Minister Park Jin has proposed a 'comprehensive strategic partnership' with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a further display of evidence that South Korea (as well as Japan) are keen to improve diplomatic and economic links with regional organisations in an effort to counter increasing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.

• Yonhap reports that as part of a visit to Seoul by ASEAN Sec-Gen Kao Kim Hourn, "Park made the proposal to create a new turning point for the development of bilateral ties, [...] .In response, Kao expressed expectations that cooperation between the regional bloc and South Korea, its key dialogue partner, will develop further, and called for close cooperation in the process of creating the strategic partnership, according to the ministry."
• Earlier in June, SCMP reported that a number of ASEAN nations increasingly see South Korea as a key source of supply for military equipment, with its equipment cheaper than Western equivalents and coming with fewer strings attached in terms of technology development.
• SCMP: "Southeast Asian countries also see South Korea as a reliable partner country with “no hidden strategic agenda” and “less political and strategic” baggage as compared to other arms suppliers, according to Jaehyon Lee, a Southeast Asia expert at The Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul."