► G7 summit participation allows Yoon to argue that Seoul is indeed becoming a Global Pivotal State.

► Participation in the G7 and, more generally, South Korea’s more active role in global affairs will demand Seoul to provide more public goods.

► Yoon’s attending the recent G7 summit hosted by Japan can be seen as recognition that South Korea is not only more powerful and active than in the past but also that the country is here to stay.

President Yoon Suk Yeol attended the recent G7 summit hosted by Japan in Hiroshima. This was the third invitation for Seoul to attend the summit out of the past four editions. Indeed, former President Moon Jae-in attended the summit organized by the UK in 2021 after the summit organized by the US in 2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, South Korea is on track to become a regular guest of the G7.

The invitations for South Korea to attend successive G7 summits respond to two dynamics primarily. To begin with, there is a dynamic specific to South Korea. With a GDP per capita only slightly below Japan’s and Italy’s, a robust full democracy, and, crucially, strong economic, technological, and security capabilities, South Korea is an appealing partner. After all, it is not only the G7 knocking on South Korea’s door but also NATO and a host of would-be partners from Canada to Indonesia to Poland.

The other dynamic is the shift in the center of global politics and economics towards Asia, mainly but not only due to China’s growing power and, relatedly, US-China competition. Simply put, the G7 is obsolete in its current configuration. Thus why not only South Korea but also India and, in the broader Indo-Pacific, Australia have become regular guests of the G7. Including actors from the region where the big geopolitical battles of the day are playing out gives more credibility to the group. NATO also understands this, thus why the AP-4 of South Korea, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand were invited to last year’s summit in Madrid.

The key question for South Korea now is what are the implications for its foreign policy regarding its participation in the recent, past, and (potentially) future G7 summits.

The main implication is that G7 summit participation allows Yoon to argue that Seoul is indeed becoming a Global Pivotal State. Certainly, Yoon is not the first South Korean president to try to make Seoul a more relevant global actor. Arguably, South Korea has been seeking to be internationally recognized as a significant foreign policy actor dating back to the Roh Tae-woo presidency—or at the very least to Kim Young-sam, with his emphasis on segyehwa (globalization).

However, the South Korea of 2023 is not the South Korea of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is a much more powerful actor, whether in terms of military capabilities, economic size, or soft power. Plus, today’s international environment is becoming more multipolar and less Western-centric compared to the post-Cold War years. This gives a greater voice to middle powers such as South Korea. Or to pivotal states, to use a term that is gaining traction—and which Yoon himself utilizes.

Participation in G7 summits and, more generally, a greater role in international affairs has broader foreign policy implications for South Korea though.

To begin with, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Seoul to argue that it seeks a middle position between the US and China. Not that South Korea ever truly had that position. The 70-year-old ROK-US alliance, shared values with the US, and security disputes with China mean that it has always been difficult for South Korea to warm to Beijing in the same way that it does to Washington. Notwithstanding strong trade and investment links, China is nowhere near to having the type of security, diplomatic, and cultural relationship that South Korea and the US enjoy.

In fact, in recent years South Korea has become more willing to stand up to China. Both the current government and, towards its end, the previous one took the position that Sino-South Korean economic relations are marked by economic interdependence, rather than South Korea’s dependence on its neighbor. Once Seoul has taken this position, it opens the door for a different type of relationship with Beijing. Certainly, China’s unofficial economic sanctions after South Korea’s decision to deploy the US’s THAAD anti-missile system in 2016 inform this position. But so do South Korea’s aforementioned stronger capabilities, which explains why South Korea finds it natural to join G7 summits and is enabled by them.

In addition, participation in G7 meetings calls for a more vocal foreign policy from South Korea. As a case in point, Seoul signed the Open Societies Statement issued by the G7 and other partners during the 2021 summit. The statement was a thinly veiled reference to China and Russia. Similarly, Yoon had the opportunity to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the recent summit in Hiroshima. This came only days after Yoon met with Ukrainian First Lady and Special Envoy Olena Zelenska in Seoul. In this respect, South Korea, which had already taken an unequivocal position in support of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, has reinforced its strong criticism of Moscow. G7 participation requires this type of assertiveness.

In this respect, South Korea should expect to be called upon to more forcefully confront what the G7 sees as China’s aggressive behavior as well. Certainly, Seoul’s position on peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, or cyberattacks from Beijing aligns the Yoon government with G7 members. Seoul should brace for further demands to condemn China’s actions. This does not mean breaking diplomatic and political exchanges with Beijing or economic decoupling, which no G7 member wants—not even the US. But it does mean that Seoul should brace for further friction with the Chinese government.

One last point to emphasize is that participation in the G7 and, more generally, South Korea’s more active role in global affairs will also demand Seoul to provide more public goods. For example, South Korea is towards the bottom of the OECD in terms of the provision of aid as a percentage of GDP. Meanwhile, South Korea has been a laggard in incorporating renewable sources into its energy mix to fight against climate change. With the greater visibility that comes from attending G7 summits and South Korea’s overall position in global politics, these are issues that Seoul will be called upon to act on.

Overall, Yoon’s attending the recent G7 summit hosted by Japan can be seen as a recognition that South Korea is not only more powerful and active than in the past but also that the country is here to stay. This suggests that in the future South Korea will continue to be called to join G7 and NATO summits, engage in trilateral cooperation with the US and Japan, join initiatives such as Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), or cooperate with groups such as the Quad. It also explains why the EU, Canada, Germany, and WTO leaders have visited South Korea in recent weeks.

South Korea, therefore, needs to decide the extent to which it will abandon its comfort zone and take decisions that will enhance its global profile while also creating friction with third parties. Recent criticisms of China and a robust response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suggest that Seoul has already taken this decision. It now remains to see whether it will be sustained over time