SEOUL — Even for a high-profile interview in a widely-read media, it was a high-stakes question.
In a rare exchange, Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of the Joongang Ilbo, South Korea’s second-largest newspaper, waited till the end of an exclusive interview before posing it to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, host of the three-day Group of Seven industrial nations summit that kicks off formally in Hiroshima on Friday.
“In Korea, there is a view that the United States agrees with [South Korean] membership in the G-7, and the effective creation of a new G-8, but that this is opposed by Japan,” the Korean magnate said to the Japanese premier. “What can you say about this perception?”
“The G-7 has never discussed membership expansion,” Mr. Kishida responded. “It is not true that the United States is in favor of Korea joining, or that Japan opposes it.”
The G-7 — the U.S., Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Japan — is widely considered one of the world’s more exclusive political clubs, and the possibility of South Korea getting a seat at the table is prompting urgent but hushed debate in Seoul coffee shops – and beyond.
Supporters say there are compelling arguments for Seoul’s inclusion, which would be the first change in the G-7’s lineup since Russia was expelled from the then-G-8 following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014. In terms of its democratic stability, economic clout, technological acumen, superb infrastructure and well-educated citizenry, South Korea ticks every box.
Moreover, South Korea, which its foreign minister dubs a “global pivotal state,” or GPS, is central to global supply chains in advanced semiconductors, computers displays, devices, auto parts and increasingly, NATO-standard weaponry.
South Korean soil provides American GIs a foothold on continental Asia, and a forward defense bulwark for Japan, U.S. Pacific territories and continental America.
It is also a diplomatic “GPS.” Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau visited Seoul this week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will visit after the summit concludes.
Seeking balance
Increased Asian presence on the G-7 looks desirable as democracies on Eurasia’s western and eastern flanks seek to present a united front against continental powers China and Russia.
Today’s G-7 is Atlantic-heavy, Indo-Pacific-light, and optically old-school. Its only non-Western, non-Christian-majority member is Japan.
Competing blocs look more inclusive than the G-7. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (which includes Pakistan, China, Russia and various Central Asian states, plus observer nations including Iran) offer far more racial and religious diversity.
The G-7, founded in 1973 has no headquarters, secretariat or formal mission. Since expelling Russia in 2014, it has become a grouping of prosperous, liberal democracies.
South Korea was invited as an observer at the last G-7 leaders’ summit in Cornwall, UK in 2021, and it will be again in Hiroshima. South Korea is already a member of a slew of official global bodies and groupings, including APEC, OECD, the World Health Organization and the Word Trade Organization.
But on the principle that one waits to be asked to join the most exclusive clubs, Seoul officialdom is keeping mum.
“We are not actively pushing this agenda officially, but many in government think Korea is ready, if it is called by the members,” said Park Cheol-hee, chancellor of the Korean Diplomatic Academy. “We are not promoting the idea, just supporting the idea.”
“I have been in discussions with some government people with reasonably informed thoughts, and it is really, really sensitive,” added Mason Richey, who teaches international relations at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “In the lead-up to the summit, they are extremely cautious.”
But some non-official proponents have not been so shy in the run-up to Hiroshima.
Jongsoo Lee, a Pacific Forum fellow, in February penned a piece in The National Interest entitled, “The Case for South Korean membership in the G-7,” arguing that Seoul is “the logical new G-8 member from the Indo-Pacific because, next to Japan, it is the largest and wealthiest free-market democracy in Asia.”
On March 13, Voice of America’s Korean-language service canvassed former U.S. ambassadors to South Korea. Unsurprisingly, all were in favor.
Questioning expansion
But while South Koreans, Korean-Americans and Korea-friendly diplomats bang the gong, independent analysts say there are drawbacks to South Korea’s application. Ironically, the G-7’s only Asian member — Japan — may be disinclined to welcome a fellow Asian in.
As the Joongang interview laid bare, it is widely alleged in South Korean media that Tokyo wants to keep Seoul at bay, given the dire relations that prevailed between the late conservative Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe and Korea’s former liberal President Moon Jae-in.
Conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol succeeded Mr. Moon in 2022 and has bent over backwards to rebuild ties with Tokyo. But some believe Japan remains cautious, given how sharply bilateral relations have fluctuated under different Seoul administrations.
“Japan won’t squander this – Kishida has spoken out on a new era for bilateral relations,” said Haruko Satoh, an international relations expert at Osaka University. “But I think he is apprehensive, I think the Japanese want to wait it out a bit.”
Welcoming South Korea with G-7 membership makes more sense for Washington, analysts say. It would empower Mr. Yoon, who has courted local unpopularity in order to boost ties with old enemy Japan and breathe new energy into South Korea-Japan-U.S. trilateral cooperation.
“It’d be nice to give some clap back to the Yoon administration,” said Robert Kelly, a political scientist at Pusan National University. “I’ve heard that Biden’s people think the Japanese have not really come round.”
Mr. Richey agrees.
“If you wrap Yoon’s personal courage into the larger bow of Korea being an important country with growing economic and military weight, this potential can be harnessed by giving it a bigger platform,” he said. “That would be a legacy-making move and I think that would instantly turn around [South Korean] public opinion on the Japan deal.”
But it is widely understood that the more the G-7 expands, the more unwieldy it gets. “If you let in every Tom, Dick and Harry you dilute some of your prestige, and it becomes hard to make decisions,” said Mr. Richey. “That is just a fact of geopolitics.”
Mr. Kelly notes that the number of permanent, veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council has remained at five more than seven decades after the world body was founded.
“It has always been frozen because once you open that door, you get all kinds of claimants with all kinds of compelling arguments,” he said.
Other nations with potential G-7 claims include Australia, Brazil, India and Indonesia, experts say. Regardless, any talk about expansion will be behind closed doors.
“It is not an open discussion, or a recruiting decision,” said Mr. Park. “They will have to have an internal debate.”
