The National Economic Advisory Council held a public forum titled "K-economic security, strategy and key tasks" on the afternoon of the 25th at Centropolis in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The forum was the first public event of the first National Economic Advisory Council under the Lee Jae-myung administration, which officially launched earlier this month.
Kim Sung-sik, vice chair of the National Economic Advisory Council, which hosted the forum, said, "When we negotiate with other countries, we urgently need a strategy to build fundamental capabilities that allow us to steer talks in our favor—in other words, to secure Korea's irreplaceable competitiveness."
Experts at the forum stressed that the economic security strategy should shift from a defensive stance to an offensive one that leverages Korea's strengths to gain an upper hand in negotiations.
Cho Byung-je, a distinguished visiting chair professor at Kyungnam University, noted, "The current international order is where territory-centered geopolitics and technology/supply chain-centered geoeconomics intersect, so Korea must move beyond temporary crisis resilience to secure a structural edge going forward." On the forum's central theme of "strategy state Korea," Cho described it as "a country that amasses hard-to-substitute capabilities in an international order where interdependence is weaponized, thereby securing bargaining power and autonomy," adding, "In particular, Korea's core strategic industries—such as semiconductors, defense, shipbuilding and nuclear power—must preempt irreplaceability within global supply chains."
Cho proposed that "with the United States, we should deepen interdependence to raise the expense of excluding us; with China, we should manage vulnerabilities to reduce the efficiency of pressure on us; and with the Global South, we should expand networks to broaden the scope of strategic buffering—these should be the goals of our economic security."
Kim Yang-hee, a professor at Daegu University, also characterized the current international landscape, where countries weaponize supply chains for their own interests, as an era of "protectionist bloc-formation," and advised that Korea move beyond a defensive posture to pursue proactive "economic statecraft."
Kim said, "We should clarify non-negotiable core national interests, position and contribute Korea as an essential partner in the rebuilding of U.S. manufacturing, and strengthen our standing as a strategic node in advanced, critical manufacturing value chains," adding, "There is a need to promptly begin domestic procedures to join the CPTPP."
Lee Jun, head of the Strategic Industry Research Center at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade (KIET), said, "The technological capabilities of each country's manufacturing sector have been elevated to a powerful security asset that decides competition among nations," and argued, "Korea is the only country that possesses all leading-edge production bases in the four strategic industries, so it should actively leverage this." Lee emphasized, "Maintaining a one-generation lead is the only path to survival," adding, "In the era of economic security, the contest to secure strategic domains is already unfolding as a total-war dynamic among countries."
In the subsequent discussion, participants examined concrete strategies for Korea to capitalize on its strengths in the era of economic security. Park Jong-hee, a professor at Seoul National University, proposed using defense as a core leverage in resource diplomacy negotiations, considering the linkage structure of procuring oil and critical minerals from defense partners such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Kwon Seok-jun, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, suggested elevating Korean corporations' foundries into a neutral AI chip manufacturing hub and forming an "AI middle-power coalition" with neighboring countries that possess technological capabilities.