International Multilingual Journal of Contemporary Research

South Korea’s Eurasian Initiative: Balancer vs Follower
Day, Dong-Ching

Résumé
The ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye proposed “Eurasian initiative”in 2013, which is regarded as an ambitious plan to shape the fundamentals of the global economy, diplomacy and the geography of national security. The aim of the paper is to answer the question whether South Korea is able to put the initiative into the practice as well as to be a balancer or a follower. South Korean international status has risen and been a middle power in recent year with no doubt. However, it is still unable to overcome the challenges from North Korea, China and Russia to realize the initiative by its own capability. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that South Korean role is somewhere between a balancer and a follower in the region and more or less is leaning to the side of a balancer due to itsmiddle power base.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/imjcr.v5n1a3