Seoul and Canberra have long shared close diplomatic relations, with Australia being the second country to send forces to support South Korea during the Korean War. Some experts even go as far as calling Australia South Korea’s “most important strategic partner aside from its alliance with the United States”. Since the Korean War, Australia has played a strong role in South Korean defence, remaining an important member of the United Nations Command, providing an Australian Defence Force contribution to support the inter-Korean peace process through Operation Linesman.
Defence cooperation between both sides has further grown over the years, with the two nations holding the joint anti-submarine warfare military exercise Haedori-Wallaby since 2012 and conducting a biennial 2+2 meeting among foreign and defence ministers since 2013. More recently, Seoul and Canberra upgraded their bilateral relationship to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” in 2021, vowing to continue deepening cooperation and partnership in various areas. Last year, Australia and Korea staged their first ever land forces exercise in October. The high-tech, 11-day-long military drills were held to verify their combat capabilities in the event of war and boost interoperability. The two allies also agreed to regularise bilateral intelligence exchanges and information sharing moving forward, with Canberra reiterating its commitment to participating in exercises in South Korea such as defence command post exercises Ulchi Freedom Shield and Freedom Shield.
The main challenge preventing deeper cooperation between both sides: key differences in strategic priorities.
Given its key role in the UN Command, Australia has also been involved in other activities to counter the growing threat posed by North Korea. Australia continues to actively take part in UN sanctions enforcement operations and supported the new mechanism to monitor North Korean sanctions violations launched by the United States, Japan and South Korea last October. Canberra also deployed a warship, HMAS Sydney, to Japan last September to monitor the illegal shipment of goods to and from North Korea in violation of UN sanctions. This was followed by the deployment of maritime patrol aircraft in November, marking its 14th aerial mission for North Korean sanctions surveillance since 2018 under Operation Argos.
Despite these efforts, Australia has little real influence over North Korea, and experts in Canberra are struggling to find new or more ways in which they can further help deter Pyongyang. This is directly related to the main challenge preventing deeper cooperation between Australia and South Korea: key differences in strategic priorities.
While North Korea has long remained the main threat and priority for South Korea, Australia’s National Defence Strategy places much more importance on the rise of China, the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and instability in the South and East China Seas. As a result, Canberra seeks to cooperate with regional partners, including Seoul, with the main aim of “maintaining regional peace and prosperity”. In other words, Australia has its eyes set on issues other than North Korea that it sees as a bigger and more direct threat to its national security interests. While Pyongyang represents a major threat to Seoul, the same cannot be said for Canberra, since North Korea’s animosity has historically been and continues to be disproportionately aimed at both the United States and South Korea.
As such, deeper cooperation between Australia and South Korea will be more likely in the future if the latter begins placing an increased focus on broader regional security concerns.
A turn in this direction has already been materialising ever since the election of President Yoon Suk-yeol, who prioritised improving ties with Japan and laid out his country’s own Indo-Pacific strategy in 2022. The defence ministers of both countries also discussed this alignment of common interests during last year’s 2+2 talks, acknowledging “that growing strategic alignment supported enhanced defence cooperation both bilaterally and with like-minded partners to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, as well as on the Korean Peninsula.” Similarly, both sides also expressed concern about developments in the South China Sea while agreeing on the need to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
Although this remains in the sphere of verbal agreement, cooperation between both nations could rise to new levels if Seoul increases its participation in military cooperation activities with Australia beyond the Korean Peninsula. A move in this direction, however, would likely have direct negative consequences for Seoul’s relations with Beijing. While the Yoon administration has had little qualms about alienating and even vilifying China, the same cannot be said if a progressive government takes over power. In this case, South Korea would be much less likely to involve itself in military activities that could risk further harming its relationship with China.
Finally, the return of Donald Trump in the United States also brings various questions for the Australia-South Korea partnership. While Joe Biden strongly advocated for multilateral cooperation involving regional allies, the same cannot be said for Trump, who prefers a bilateral approach to diplomacy and is already facing accusations of abandoning some of America’s closest allies. This, paired with continued political turmoil in South Korea, means the road ahead for Canberra and Seoul remains unclear, despite their common interests and potential for a deeper alliance.
