A High Point in UK-South Korea Relations?

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Introduction

From 21 to 23 November, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol conducted a State Visit to the United Kingdom. This was the UK’s first State Visit since the coronation of His Majesty The King, and the first South Korea-UK State Visit in 10 years. It coincided with the celebration of 140 years of diplomatic relations – the UK was the second Western power to enter diplomatic ties with South Korea when the two countries signed the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation on November 26, 1883.  

This visit represents a once-in-a-decade opportunity to influence and promote bilateral cooperation, particularly on technology, economic security and international security. Throughout this year, numerous bilateral agreements, frameworks and partnerships have been readied, culminating in the signing of The Downing Street Accord on November 22 – setting out both countries’ shared intention to strengthen and deepen bilateral collaboration across several critical sectors, including technology and security.  

The timing of the visit is important for another reason. Earlier in November, the UK hosted the first Global AI Safety Summit, with prominent representation from South Korean government and industry, and confirmed that the next (virtual) iteration of the Summit in 6 months’ time will be co-hosted by South Korea and the UK. Given the global momentum generated by November’s Summit and the Bletchley Declaration, the close cooperation on the next Summit epitomises the positive trajectory of UK-South Korea relations. The key challenge will therefore be to ensure that this renewed momentum is not short-lived, but a foundation upon which the governments, universities and companies of both countries can build over the years ahead.  

This article is not only informed by external commentary. In October, three members of The Alan Turing Institute’s Defence and Security Programme spent a week in South Korea attending conferences and meeting with senior members of the South Korean government, leading universities and private sector companies. The appetite to work with the UK across the spectrum was apparent throughout, and we are now in the process of establishing formal collaboration agreements with several key South Korean partners, to work together on shared AI research challenges in the months and years ahead.

Key Outcomes from the UK-South Korea State Visit    

By all accounts, November’s State Visit was a success. While the diplomatic value of King Charles sampling kimchi and touring Koreatown in south-west London was noted in much of the media coverage of the State Visit, policy announcements in The Downing Street Accord were significant and merit further examination. Prior to its signing, President Yoon was quoted as saying: 

“Tomorrow, Prime Minister Sunak and I will sign ‘the Downing Street Accord.’ Our bilateral relations will be reborn as true ‘Global Strategic Partners.’ Together, we will build a free and open international order. Together, we will cultivate sustainable growth and prosperity for all of humanity. We will broaden our cooperation to digital, AI, cyber security, nuclear energy, and defence industry (…) The ROK and the UK are authors of dynamic and creative histories. We must stand in solidarity and respond to many of the world’s challenges. One country alone cannot defend peace.” 

The Downing Street Accord sets out both countries’ intention to strengthen and deepen collaboration across security and defence, science and technology, prosperity and trade, and energy security. It emphasises shared democratic principles and the importance of cooperating as close partners in multilateral fora like the G20 and UN Security Council, given South Korea’s membership from 2024-25. The Accord both consolidates existing bilateral mechanisms and establishes new ones, such as a Republic of Korea (ROK)-UK Foreign and Defence Ministerial 2+2 Meeting to enhance cooperation in addressing global challenges. Numerous announcements are of specific relevance for future technology and security cooperation.  

New UK-ROK Strategic Cyber Partnership

This partnership centres around three main pillars: strengthening cyber ecosystems and resilience; advancing shared international interests; and detecting, disrupting, and deterring malicious cyber threats. Certain tangible commitments are made to this end, including enrolling South Korean companies in the National Cyber Security Centre Industry100 programme; actively participating in cyber exercises hosted by South Korea and the UK to enhance cybersecurity capabilities, including Exercise Defence Cyber Marvel 3 to be organised by the British Army Cyber Association in February 2024; and cooperation in R&D of core technology to protect critical national infrastructure.  

Revitalise 1985 UK-ROK Treaty on Science and Technology; Launch ROK-UK Digital Partnership

This is an example of simultaneously mobilising pre-existing vehicles for UK-South Korea cooperation and creating new ones. While the Treaty on Science and Technology aims to create a high-level framework to promote collaborative R&D, innovation and commercialisation and industrial cooperation in critical technologies, the Digital Partnership focuses more specifically on collaboration across semiconductors, AI and cybersecurity. It will serve as the platform for AI partnerships through joint research, policy sharing and international AI governance initiatives such as the co-hosting of the next AI Safety Summit in the Spring. During his speech to Parliament, President Yoon signalled his government’s commitment “to leading international dialogue and cooperation on shaping new digital AI norms [working with] the UK’s AI Safety Network” in the process.

UK-ROK Framework for Semiconductor Cooperation; Establish UK-ROK Supply Chains Dialogue

Improving the resilience of semiconductor supply chains is a high priority for both countries. The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) have codified this in a Framework for Semiconductor Cooperation, which enables greater skills cooperation, deeper cross-country links between industry and academia, and advanced R&D partnerships which leverage the unique advantages that both countries possess in the semiconductor sector (discussed later).  

Non-government Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs)

Given the strong theme of both governments functioning as enablers of third-party collaboration, it is worth noting some non-government announcements on the fringes of The Downing Street Accord. An MoU was signed between Innovate UK and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology for closer collaboration between industry and researchers in key areas such as semiconductors, while there will also be a new joint synthetic biology research centre, shared by SynbiCITE (hosted at Imperial College London) and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.  

Why the Fanfare? Current UK-South Korea Complementarities  

Although bilateral relations with South Korea date back 140 years, more recent shifts in the UK’s strategic and diplomatic positioning may explain the prioritisation of this partnership. The Integrated Review (IR) in 2021 described the need to embark upon an ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’, something which the IR Refresh in 2023 said had been delivered in the short term but had to be placed on a longer-term strategic footing. The messaging in these documents was that developments in the Indo-Pacific will have disproportionate influence on the global economy, supply chains, strategic stability and norms of state behaviour.  

It is no coincidence that The Downing Street Accord follows the signing of similar partnerships with Singapore and Japan earlier this year. But the prospect of closer partnership with South Korea possesses certain characteristics which should mark it out as a priority in the Indo-Pacific. In the view of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, “As two nations focused on innovation, harnessing new technologies and defending the international rules-based order, the UK and ROK are natural partners” – the intersection of technology and global security is a good place to start to understand the value proposition.  

Over the last year, both countries’ administrations have made technology innovation and policy a high priority. Within South Korea, the UK is seen as a leader in this regard, particularly considering the UK’s enhanced focus on AI safety leadership and the diplomatic feat of bringing together 28 countries to sign the Bletchley Declaration, affirming a joint commitment to safe and responsible development of frontier AI systems. The South Korean government wishes to work closely with the UK over the coming months and years on these issues, and the next Global AI Safety Summit is the perfect vehicle to showcase the fruits of this labour.

Meanwhile, South Korea is an established player in the semiconductor sector – including in areas where the UK has little-to-no footprint like chip manufacturing – recently passing their own version of the US Chips and Science Act (the K-Chips Act). The UK’s National Semiconductor Strategy published earlier this year emphasised UK strengths at either end of the semiconductor supply chain, such as in chip design and advanced packaging, while stressing the importance of international partnerships with countries like South Korea that have the scale required to produce the chips which underpin the global economy.

Friend-Shoring and the Global Semiconductor Supply Chain

That countries benefit from trade by focusing on making or doing the things that they are best at is a theory dating back to David Ricardo’s work in the early 19th century. However, in a highly specialised domain like the semiconductor supply chain, robust and dependable global partnerships are pivotal to delivering governments’ economic and national security objectives. While care is needed to ensure that the few unique advantages that the UK does possess in semiconductors do not flow out to other countries through a well-intentioned desire to expand collaboration, there is likely to be a variety of opportunities for UK industry to benefit from the costly business of “friend-shoring” in the semiconductor supply chain.  

Moreover, the multi-billion-dollar investments in the South Korean semiconductor industry will be crucial to the country’s ambitions in AI, given the growing demands on compute created by frontier AI models. The UK faces its own dilemmas in this regard: the AI Safety Institute (AISI) was established to be a global leader in the evaluation of advanced AI systems and drive foundational AI safety research, but risks being undermined without timely and sufficient access to compute. Advanced economies like the UK and South Korea have high ambitions in more than one technology area – this was demonstrated through agreements in The Downing Street Accord on areas like space cooperation and critical minerals. This means that it pays to focus on technology areas like AI and semiconductors, which are mutually reinforcing and where the benefits of exchange and collaboration cascade through to other critical technologies, and therefore the rest of the economy. Achieving a better understanding of the interlinkages between both countries’ AI and semiconductor ecosystems is the subject of an ongoing collaborative project between CETaS and Chung-Ang University in Seoul, which will report on its findings in Spring 2024.  

A final area of complementarity to consider is both countries’ increasing concerns over China’s foreign policy ambitions, discussed further in a previous CETaS Expert Analysis article. South Korea’s focus on reducing structural vulnerabilities emerging from US-China technology decoupling is driving efforts to reconcile economic and security relations with Japan, and be part of agreements such as the Chip 4 alliance with the US, Japan and Taiwan, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and Minerals Security Partnership. South Korea has perhaps been subject to a more diverse range of informal economic coercion from China than any other country – tactics range from informal blacklisting of South Korean companies in China to actively mobilising public resistance against them by claiming they are working against China’s interests.

Similarly, in the UK, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s China Report also explored the means through which the Chinese state may informally coerce UK institutions. The conclusions of that report – that China “crosses the line into interference in the pursuit of its interests and values at the expense of those of the UK” – will resonate with many South Korean scholars and officials who study this issue closely. There is a clear opportunity for the UK and South Korea to more closely share experiences and lessons learned as a basis for a more aligned and complementary long-term position on China – particularly in the context of AI and semiconductors.

The Year Ahead

Great strides in the UK-South Korea bilateral relationship have been made this year. A State Visit is the crowning moment for any diplomatic mission, not only because of its ceremonial aspects but because of the plethora of formal agreements, partnerships and collaborations that are brought to the fore. However, both countries must avoid the complacency of thinking the relationship will now take care of itself. Efforts of this nature need sustained nurturing and bi-partisan support. Some of the agreements announced in The Downing Street Accord are effectively immediate, but some are, for now, pledges or statements of intent. Formalising those statements into tangible actions  is of utmost importance in the year ahead to maintain the positive momentum generated by the State Visit.  

Furthermore, South Korea is set to host two of the most significant events in the international calendar next year. A virtual edition of the Global AI Safety Summit will be held in collaboration with the UK, and the next 6 months must be utilised effectively to build on the progress already made at Bletchley Park. Continued bi-directional exchange of expertise is a good place to start – with the new AI Safety Institute being well placed to lead on UK–South Korean knowledge exchange activities. South Korea is also hosting next year’s Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summit, placing additional importance on achieving closer alignment on AI safety standards and delivering on the pledge to sign a joint Defence MoU following the State Visit.

This may well be a high point in modern-day UK-South Korea relations. But given the pace of change in the global technology and security landscape, the work of maintaining those high standards starts now. We look forward to working closely with our Korean partners and collaborators on these shared endeavours over the coming years and beyond.