Despite his strong opposition to many of President Moon’s policies, Yoon is unlikely to make drastic changes to the country’s foreign policy, including its close ties with ASEAN, because he was part of the current government as a prosecutor general from 2019 to early 2021.

For Indonesia, policy continuity is important, as South Korea has been one of the country’s strongest trade and economic partners over the last few years.

One of the most prominent changes the current administration has made is a harsher and bolder approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as well as a tougher attitude vis-à-vis China. Moon intends to foster closer ties with South Korea’s most important ally, the United States, and take a more realistic view of Japan, the country’s former colonial master.

It will not be easy for Yoon to convince the Korean public about the strategic importance of building a strong relationship with Japan, because many remain unable to forgive Japan’s brutal wartime occupation. The two nations, however, need to work together in facing the unpredictable North Korean leader.

History shows that it almost does not matter for the North whether the South uses a soft or hard approach. It will continue to develop its nuclear weapon capacity, as this is the only way for it to survive, given that it cannot match the South on almost all fronts.

Getting tough on China is also unrealistic for South Korea under Yoon, because the world’s second largest economy is South Korea’s most important trading partner and the main supporter of North Korea’s communist regime.

For better or worse, Moon’s reconciliatory attitude toward the North has contributed to security and stability on the Korean Peninsula, although Kim never stopped his nuclear weapons program. Acrimony between the two Koreas has been reduced to simple exchanges of verbal attacks while North Korea’s saber-rattling at the US has become less noisy.

Yoon did promise policy changes toward the North during his presidential rallies, but this just might have been a campaign gimmick to win votes.

President Joko Widodo congratulated Yoon after he was declared the president-elect last week. Indonesia has always viewed South Korea as an important partner, with trade between the two countries constantly giving Indonesia an annual surplus of up to US$2 billion. Indonesia mainly exports commodities such as coal and minerals to South Korea, but in the last three years it has also shipped plywood, iron, steel and processed foods and beverages to Korea.

Apart from the traditional manufacturing sector, foreign direct investment (FDI) from South Korea has begun to shift to the renewable energy, semiconductor, petrochemicals, lithium battery and electric vehicle industries.

In 2021, South Korean investments in Indonesian reached $1.64 billion to become the sixth largest foreign investor after Singapore, Japan, China, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. In the last five years, Indonesia has been the fourth most attractive destination country for South Korean FDIs after Vietnam, China and the United States.

Indonesia and South Korea need each other, as proven by their steady, decades-long ties. Indonesia and the world wish South Korea continued prosperity and growth.

Congratulations, president-elect Yoon.