carnegie

Fyodor Tertitsky

The U.S.-Russia standoff has escalated so much in recent years that other countries find it almost impossible to maintain good relations with both Washington and Moscow. Those who manage to tread that line successfully include South Korea. 
In the three decades since Russia and South Korea established diplomatic relations, their friendship has survived all of the political changes in both countries, despite Seoul’s close military alliance with Washington.
South Korea’s partnership with the United States is fundamental to its foreign policy. Nevertheless, Seoul adroitly fulfills its obligations to Washington without undermining its relations with Moscow.
South Korea has taken a softer position vis-à-vis Russia on a number of issues. Following Georgia’s bombardment of its breakaway republic of South Ossetia in August 2008, South Korea was one of the few countries to denounce Georgian aggression and support Moscow, which backs the self-proclaimed republic. Following the Ukraine crisis, South Korea was also the only U.S. ally not to revoke its visa-free regime with Russia (currently suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic). Nor did Seoul impose its own sanctions against Moscow in response to the annexation of Crimea, although it does comply with the sanctions of the United States and its other allies, and does not recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
There are several reasons for this successful balance. First of all, Russia and South Korea don’t have major trigger points for conflict: Moscow focuses above all on the post-Soviet space, while Seoul is most concerned with developments in East Asia. Second, there are no major historical or ideological irritants in their bilateral relations, such as those both Moscow and Seoul separately have with Tokyo. Third, the two countries maintain a positive image of each other.
This doesn’t mean that relations between Russia and South Korea are completely trouble-free. For example, the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program both unites and divides Moscow and Seoul, and South Korea’s investments in Russia fuel not only amicability but also frustration over inflated expectations. However, there is no public demand for bilateral confrontation in either country.
For Russia, the key aspects of its relationship with South Korea are tourism and trade. The lack of visa requirements makes South Korea a very attractive destination for tourists from the Russian Far East.
Trade is conducted almost exclusively by sea. Hence the interest in one of the oldest yet still unfulfilled projects: the construction of the Trans-Korean Railway, which would cross North Korea and terminate in South Korea. There were also plans to build a gas pipeline along the same route, which would substantially increase the volume of trade between Russia and South Korea, with North Korea receiving transit fees.
The project should be attractive to all parties, but plans have been at a standstill for decades, and are unlikely to move forward unless there is a change of regime in Pyongyang. The two main stumbling blocks are the harsh sanctions against North Korea, which cannot be lifted without U.S. agreement, and Pyongyang’s unreliable reputation as a business partner: far too often it has nationalized projects that became profitable, and there is no guarantee that a railway and pipeline would not suffer the same fate.
For the time being, Russia is South Korea’s twelfth biggest trading partner, while South Korea is Russia’s sixth in terms of imports, and eighth in terms of exports.
For Seoul, in addition to tourism and trade, relations with Moscow include a diplomatic aspiration: Seoul hopes that Moscow can apply pressure on Pyongyang to set it on a path toward nuclear disarmament. For Moscow, too, participating in resolving the North Korean crisis presents an important opportunity to try to reduce the potential for conflict, curb the expansion of U.S. military infrastructure in the region, and increase its own international prestige. 
Objectively speaking, Moscow has very little influence over Pyongyang: de facto, the Kremlin recognizes North Korea as being within China’s sphere of interest, and it has few levers of control outside of its geographic prox