A Critical Review of Balanced Diplomacy as a Leadership of Administrative Leader

This paper aims to propose a constructive direction for diplomatic policy through a critical review of the Moon Jae-in adminstration’s ‘balanced diplomacy’. In order to accomplish this, major leadership theory was used as the methodology to analyze the current government’s diplomatic power in the areas of the North Korean nuclear issue, ROK-U.S. ROK-China relations, and ASEAN diplomacy. The current government must consider the North Korean nuclear issue from two perspectives. North Korea, that possesses nuclear weapons, is not in a position to maintain a stable institutional relationship with South Korea. Moreover, the utmost priority of policy towards North Korea is the Korean people. There must not be any ‘cracks’ within Korean society regarding methods of dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. Secondly, the ROK-U.S. relations must work towards institutionally securing a nuclear umbrella. This must be fulfilled by ensuring practical security through documenting an ‘automatic intervention’ clause in the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement. Thirdly, South Korea can show its presence to China in the ROK-China relations only when it is in a strong alliance with the U.S. Fourthly, diplomatic expansion into Southeast Asia can actually be a cause for losing diplomatic balance in Northeast Asia due to it being an escape from the reality of U.S.-China relations. In conclusion, the Moon government’s diplomatic leadership can be categorized as a ‘Transformational leadership’ that acquires political support by casting a vision for government administration and creating motivation. Three positions must be set in order to practice changeover diplomacy: (1) Acknowledging the reality of inter-Korean relations and building constructive relations with North Korea, (2) establishing an innovative ROK-U.S. security position and foundation for ‘self-strengthening security’, and (3) emerging as a confident and flexible diplomacy.