South Korean President Moon Jae-in should develop a differentiation strategy to compete with Japan and China in the ASEAN market for his New Southern Policy to succeed, according to a Singapore-based expert on ASEAN-Korea relations.

He believes South Korea is not as big as Japan or China but the country has its own strategic strength over the two economic heavyweights and can play an important role in the integration of the regional bloc.

“South Korea might want to position itself as the helpful and benign alternative development partner versus the other two great Asian powers,” said Liang Tuang Nah, a research fellow of the Military Studies Program at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

The institute is a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

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