South Korean foreign policy signalling: The rise and fall of unreciprocated costly signals between 2013 and 2023
| Published date | 01 February 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241284201 |
| Author | Sunwoo Paek,Dong Sun Lee |
| Date | 01 February 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481241284201
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2025, Vol. 27(1) 91 –108
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/13691481241284201
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
South Korean foreign policy
signalling: The rise and fall of
unreciprocated costly signals
between 2013 and 2023
Sunwoo Paek1 and Dong Sun Lee2
Abstract
Over the past decade, the government of the Republic of Korea showed a puzzling attitude
towards foreign policy signalling. Seoul did not demand costly signals from Beijing and Pyongyang
to ascertain their cooperative intents. Moreover, Seoul showed eagerness to unilaterally send the
rivals costly signals to convey its intention to cooperate. We aim to explain Seoul’s engagement
in unreciprocated costly signalling that diverges from mainstream theoretical expectations. We
argue that the unreciprocated signalling stemmed from Seoul’s belief that Beijing and Pyongyang
might not know its own cooperative intent, whereas the latter two countries’ cooperative intents
were already sufficiently clear to Seoul. Therefore, Seoul reasoned that sending costly signals was
crucial to convince Beijing and Pyongyang of its trustworthiness whereas such signals from the
rivals were unnecessary. To support this argument, we draw on interviews with senior Republic
of Korea officials, along with primary and secondary documents available in Korean and English.
Keywords
China, costly signal, foreign policy, North Korea, reciprocity, South Korea
Introduction
Over the past decade, the governments of the Republic of Korea (ROK) showed a puz-
zling attitude towards ‘costly signaling, in which one side or the other undertakes meas-
ures that entail costly risks to their own national security in order to signal their sincerity
in wanting an improved diplomatic relationship’ (Kydd, 2005). Seoul did not demand
costly signals from Beijing and Pyongyang to ascertain their cooperative intents regard-
ing the projects it pursued. Instead, Seoul often accepted their cheap talk that lacked
costly risks and seemed to blindly believe in Beijing’s and Pyongyang’s good faith.
1Institute for National Security Strategy, Seoul, South Korea
2Department of Political Science and International Relations, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Corresponding author:
Dong Sun Lee, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro,
Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02841, South Korea.
Email: ds0306@korea.ac.kr
1284201BPI0010.1177/13691481241284201The British Journal of Politics and International Relations X(X)Paek and Lee
research-article2024
Special Issue Article
92The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27(1)
President Park Geun-hye (February 2013 to March 2017) demanded few costly signals to
probe whether Beijing intended to support Seoul’s policies of denuclearising and reunify-
ing the Korean Peninsula. President Moon Jae-in (May 2017 to May 2022) did not
demand any costly signals to investigate whether Pyongyang intended to denuclearise.
Moreover, Seoul often showed eagerness to unilaterally send Beijing and Pyongyang
costly signals – which would have been too difficult to do if Seoul had not intended to
cooperate. For instance, Park accepted Chinese President Xi Jinping’s invitation to attend
the Victory Day ceremony and joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in
2015, thereby risking friction with a disapproving Washington. Moon risked disputes
with Washington to ease sanctions against, and reach military-economic agreements with
Pyongyang.
This observed phenomenon of unreciprocated costly signalling diverges from main-
stream theoretical expectations. Realist scholarship posits that states are self-centred –
more tolerant of themselves than others, and ready to behave in ways that work in their
favour (Mearsheimer, 2001; Niebuhr, 1932). The self-centred states demand costly sig-
nals from other countries to reduce the risk of being cheated and dismiss cheap talk as
useless for determining others’ intentions. This tendency is particularly salient between
regional rivals that are distrustful and threatening. From a liberalist perspective, states are
likely to require costly signals from an authoritarian rival whose non-transparency limits
information on its intention. By contrast, self-centred states often shun costly signalling
designed to demonstrate their own trustworthiness to others. They either presume that
their benign intentions are self-evident, or want to save on signalling-related costs.
Democratic states should be particularly reluctant to send costly signals as their transpar-
ency makes their intentions discernible to other countries (Kydd, 1997: 117; Wendt, 1999:
223). We aim to analyse South Korea’s continual deviation from such normal behaviour
and engagement in atypical unreciprocated (costly) signalling. In doing so, we draw on
interviews conducted with explicit consent and conversations in official closed-door set-
tings with current and former senior ROK officials, along with primary and secondary
documents available in Korean and English.
We argue that the unreciprocated signalling came from Seoul’s belief that Beijing and
Pyongyang might not have known its own cooperative intent, whereas Beijing’s and
Pyongyang’s cooperative intents were already clear to Seoul. Based on internal intelli-
gence reports or high-level personal connections, the Park and Moon governments judged
that their rivals’ cooperative intents were largely known. Therefore, Seoul concluded that
costly signals from Beijing and Pyongyang were unnecessary to ascertain their trustwor-
thiness. However, using intelligence activities to communicate Seoul’s intention was
impractical; it was difficult to earn Kim Jong-un’s trust by developing personal connec-
tions. Therefore, Seoul reasoned that sending costly signals was crucial to convince
Beijing and Pyongyang of its trustworthiness. Thus, the deep cause of non-reciprocity in
signalling was Seoul’s emphasis on intelligence operations and personal connections as
tools for assessing foreign intentions.
Our analysis comprises five sections. The first defines concepts and discusses logic
underpinning unreciprocated signalling. The second describes the signalling behaviours
that Park’s and Moon’s governments showed to establish that they engaged in unrecipro-
cated signalling. The third section explains why Park and Moon did so, by substantiating
the proposed argument. The fourth section investigates whether President Yoon Suk-
yeol’s government engages in unreciprocated signalling, as its predecessors did. The final
section draws theoretical implications from our analysis.
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