South Korea

Yonhap | English | News | Jan. 23, 2026 | Shifting Geopolitical Alliances

Victor Cha, a U.S. expert and president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at CSIS, proposed the creation of a "collective economic deterrence" pact involving South Korea, the United States, Japan, and other countries to counter China's economic pressure. This proposal comes amid concerns of possible Chinese retaliation toward South Korea following its nuclear-powered submarine project, which the U.S. has approved. The pact aims to collectively respond to any economic coercion by China, similar to the collective security principle of NATO’s Article 5, thereby deterring Chinese economic aggression rather than initiating a trade war.

Cha described China as an unreliable partner for South Korea, accusing Beijing of failing to curb North Korea's nuclear activities and ignoring UN sanctions. He emphasized that no single country in the region can effectively counter China alone, but collectively the countries possess enough leverage. The pact would treat coercion against one member as coercion against all, triggering automatic retaliation, which could impose real costs on Beijing and make it reconsider its pressure tactics.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has sought balanced relations with both China and the U.S., exemplified by his recent summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, Cha believes this amicable approach is unlikely to withstand the fallout from the submarine deal, as China has historically retaliated against South Korea economically in response to geopolitical disputes. He called for stronger trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, highlighting their substantial trade with China and leverage over key Chinese imports worth over $23 billion.

Cha urged the Trump administration, which holds the G7 presidency in 2027, to lead efforts in forming this economic deterrence pact and to avoid measures like tariffs on allies. He recommended that Trump explicitly oppose China's economic pressure tactics during his upcoming visit to Beijing in April to deter further coercion against allies, particularly South Korea, following the submarine project agreement.

Korea Herald | English | News | Jan. 23, 2026 | Shifting Geopolitical Alliances

President Lee Jae Myung outlined a foreign policy focused on "strategic autonomy" and "pragmatic diplomacy centered on the national interest" amid a volatile global environment. He stressed the importance of self-reliant national defense as essential to navigating growing economic slowdowns that could intensify interstate rivalries and military conflicts. South Korea, already the world's fifth-largest military power, must continue to strengthen its defense industry to avoid risks of entrapment or abandonment in international alliances.

Regarding relations with China, Lee described his recent state visit as a turning point, emphasizing room for cooperation beyond trade, including diplomatic and security coordination and cultural exchanges. On North Korea, Lee advocated a pragmatic, phased approach to denuclearization focused on peaceful coexistence and deterrence. He acknowledged the current difficulties in achieving unification and called for prioritizing avoidance of war, urging dialogue and mutual respect while recognizing the continued reality of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Domestically, Lee dismissed calls for a direct meeting with opposition leader Rep. Song Eon-seog, urging initial dialogue to occur party-to-party before any presidential involvement. This stance comes amid controversy over dual special prosecutor investigations into Democratic Party lawmakers and the opposition’s ongoing hunger strike demanding these probes. Lee also addressed the contentious nomination of Lee Hye-hoon to head the Ministry of Planning and Budget, noting he has not made a final decision and advocated proceeding with a confirmation hearing despite opposition boycott, emphasizing the nominee deserves a chance to respond to allegations.

SKT 'A.X K1', 옴니모달로 진화…“소버린 AI 마중물 될 것”

ET News | Local Language | News | Jan. 23, 2026 | UndeterminedTech Development/Adoption

SK Telecom's ultra-large AI model, A.Dot X (A.X) K1, is advancing into an omnimodal model as part of the second phase of its independent AI foundation model project. This upgrade will enable the model to understand and process speech in real time alongside text and images, aiming to establish leadership in sovereign AI. The A.X K1, already a model with approximately 500 billion parameters, will sequentially incorporate multimodal functions, including voice and image recognition.

Professor Kim Geon-hee of Seoul National University highlighted the transition from multimodal models, which integrate text, photos, and videos, to omnimodal models that also include speech understanding. He emphasized the technical difficulty of implementing real-time voice conversations due to their bidirectional and simultaneous nature, requiring the model to handle interruptions, brief feedback, and emotional nuances. Past approaches using separate speech-to-text and text-to-speech systems faced delays and lost key information, such as breathing and emotional signals.

To address these challenges, recent developments focus on integrated language models capable of processing voice information directly. The core strategy involves fine-tuning a powerful pretrained language model using diverse data, including voice, to achieve comprehensive omnimodal capabilities. SK Telecom aims to deploy these advancements across various services like A.Dot, T map, and B tv, and expects the technology to play a central role in enhancing AI applications in gaming and mobility through partners Krafton and 42dot.

Professor Kim stressed that the success of sovereign AI depends heavily on effective use of national core data sovereignty, which includes largely unstructured data in multiple formats. An omnimodal model allows for direct training and operation of such data without relying on external platforms, thus reinforcing both digital sovereignty and sovereignty over physical infrastructure.