President Lee Myung-bak held a one-day session in Jakarta, Indonesia with delegates from the other countries in Asia to showe his idea, called the Jakarta Concept. Korea has historically paid most of its diplomatic attention to America, China, Japan, and Russia, but Korea needs to also extend its diplomatic attention to other Asian countries as well. Thus, the Jakarta Concept is a new diplomatic strategy that emphasizes Asian countries.
The new strategy has several purposes. First, it aims to expand economic exchange by promoting FTAs with every Asian country. Second, it plans to structure custom relationships with them by taking the lead to solve the global financial crisis and climate change. And third, the plan includes Korea playing a more important role in Asia by increasing aid and contributions to Asia.
According to the strategy, the government plans to lead Asia to cope with climate change by developing a Green Belt in the Asia-Pacific region and preparing a trade plan to exchange Korean information technologies for other Asian countries’ resources. The government decided to strengthen its contribution to Asia by transmitting Korea’s development experience by developing and expanding its Official Development Assistance (ODA).
As Korea plans to cooperate with Australia and Indonesia at G20 London Summit to meet the financial crisis, the government decided to promote making an international cooperative council – the Asian Caucus.
The government prepared to attend more outside activities with Asian countries. One of those is the East Asia Summit (ESA) on April 10 to 12 in Thailand. Another is the Korea-ASEAN Special Summit on June 1 to 2 in Jeju Island. Korea will also visit three central Asia countries in May, attend the ASEAN + 3 (Korea, Japan, and China) Summit in October, and participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in Singapore in November.
An official of Cheongwadae said: “Asia has the biggest population and markets, a huge potential to develop; it is a new chance for Korea’s economic growth. So, it is essential to cooperate with Asian countries.”
