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South Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic relations only twenty years ago. Today these former adversaries enjoy unexpectedly cordial and rapidly expanding bilateral ties. Leaders of the two nations-perceiving broadly shared interests and no fundamental conflicts-seek to leverage their subregional influence on behalf of common or complementary policy goals. Today they often profess a "middle power" identity as they explain their foreign policy in terms of such classical middle power goals as regional peace, integration, and common goods.
Broadly similar in many respects, South Korea and Vietnam are nonetheless sufficiently different that a comparison can yield interesting insights-yet there is a dearth of systematic comparative work on the two. While holding a range of views on the contentious concepts of middle power and national identity, the contributors to Asia's Middle Powers? help readers, both academic and policy practitioners, to gain an enhanced appreciation of South Korea and Vietnam's regional behavior and international strategies.
Joon-woo Park is a former senior diplomat from Korea with over 30 years of foreign policy experience. He previously served as South Korean ambassador to the European Union. In 2011-12 he was a Koret Fellow with the Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.
Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in Sociology; senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center since 2005; and the founding director of the Korea Program, all at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, and international relations.
Donald W. Keyser retired from the United States Department of State in September 2004 after a 32-year career. He had been a member of the Senior Foreign Service since 1990, and held Washington-based ambassadorial-level assignments 1998-2004. Throughout his career he focused on U.S. policy toward East Asia, particularly China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
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