Three legs of a stronger NZ–South Korea partnership
James Koudounis, an engineer who joined the Asia New Zealand Foundation's Korea Track II delegation, argues that a year into New Zealand's Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with South Korea, the design is right, but only one of the three legs has been built. Koudounis is an engineering executive and a member of the Foundation's Leadership Network.
The Asia New Zealand Foundation Track II delegation
In 2016, Kim Jeong-hwan, the Hyundai president who signed the contract for our navy's new tanker, HMNZS Aotearoa, found his own signature on the build plate of the old ship, the HMNZS Endeavor. Nearly 30 years earlier, as a young design engineer, he had worked on the Endeavour, the first naval ship Hyundai ever exported.
To an engineer, that is what a relationship looks like: not a communiqué, but steel, a legacy of design and long-term operations and maintenance. Endeavour served our navy for almost 30 years, and Aotearoa is set to do the same.
Last month, I joined the Foundation's Korea Track II delegation. It was a week of informal diplomacy in Seoul and Ulsan built around the 13th annual dialogue with Korea's Asan Institute. I was the only delegate without a background in international relations. Back home, I'm an engineering executive, and I saw significant opportunity for New Zealand.
The design: three legs
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attending a leaders' dinner prior to APEC 2025 in Gyeongju, South Korea
A year ago, at APEC, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Lee Jae Myung signed off the design: a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with pillars covering strategic and security, prosperity and innovation, and people and planet. It recognises "the critical nexus between security and prosperity", welcomes Korean interest in investing here, commits both countries to explore joint procurement and production of defence equipment, and covers critical minerals, space and quantum research.
In my view, that's the aspiration behind a three-legged design: trade, investment and security.
What three legs look like
Korea already has a relationship built that way with the United States. Its 2025 tariff deal came with a US$350 billion investment package - US$150 billion of it for American shipbuilding. About 28,500 US troops are based in Korea. Investment runs both ways: US firms pledged nearly US$10 billion in Korea last year, and Korean firms put US$25 billion into the United States.
High ranking US Navy personel get an update on maintenance progress aboard cargo ship USNS Amelia Earhart while moored at Yeongdo Shipyard Busan in April 2026 (Photo: Wiki Commons; author: US Navy)
Government and industry move as one team. To deliver the US shipbuilding fund, Korea's state lenders and its three biggest shipbuilders signed on together.
We've seen it ourselves: when Hyundai was bidding for our tanker, Korea's defence procurement agency and navy showed New Zealand officials Korean support ships and promised help during construction and sea trials.
In Pangyo, HD Hyundai has brought research teams from 17 group companies under one roof, working with American partners Palantir and Anduril on smart shipyards and autonomous vessels. Trade, investment and security, in one hull.
While visiting the Pangyo R&D centre and the Ulsan shipyards, I saw how far US–Korean cooperation on AI, data centres and advanced technology investment has gone. That cooperation is a significant competitive advantage, and one New Zealand should recognise as strategically important to our own future.
What we have built so far
Hyundai Heavy Industries' Ulsan shipyard
Our trade leg is strong. Korea is our fifth-largest trading partner. It supplied half our refined fuel last year, its Ulsan yard built two generations of our navy's tankers, and its Earth observation satellites have twice launched from Māhia. New Zealand's agricultural exports, led by dairy, help feed Korea.
The security leg isn't starting from nothing. Up to 12 New Zealand Defence Force personnel serve with the United Nations Command in Korea, and our Korean-built tanker, HMNZS Aotearoa, has helped monitor UN sanctions on North Korea.
New Zealanders rank Korea third, after Japan and Singapore as an Asian security partner in the Foundation's 2026 Perceptions of Asia and Asian Peoples report.
This year tested the design. In March, as the Gulf conflict choked supply, Korea put temporary limits on fuel exports. Our shipments kept coming, but we were relying on goodwill. Australia signed an energy security statement with Seoul in April, and Singapore gave us a world-first commitment on essential supplies in May. We have no such fuel supply security agreement with Korea.
Building the other two legs
We want Korean investment, and the partnership says Korea is interested. We want closer security cooperation, and Korea does too: in Seoul, our counterparts were keen to see cooperation at sea and in the Pacific. The question at the dialogue table was what would motivate Korea to do more than trade with us. We can't offer scale, but we can offer a lot else.
On investment: critical minerals, where the partnership already welcomes our move to join the Minerals Security Partnership; infrastructure, where we are courting foreign capital for our domestic projects; through-life maintenance for the ships we buy; Earth observation data from satellites launched at Māhia; and joint work on AI and autonomy.
On security: a fuel supply agreement like Singapore's, with an NZ commitment to keep food flowing the other way; cooperation on the sea lanes and Pacific waters; protection of maritime infrastructure such as undersea cables and ports; and the defence-industry collaboration the partnership already envisages.
Each fits into one of the three legs the partnership aspires to build.
Three legs, a new diplomatic approach
All of my discussions over the week indicated that traditional diplomacy is changing, and, on paper, our government has signed up to that in its partnership with Korea. MFAT's own strategic assessment describes the same shift, "from economics to security".
That calls for a more radically open foreign policy. Good engineering puts the people who will build, run and maintain a system in the room early, and foreign policy can do the same. Diplomats bring the breadth, experience and relationships to steer outcomes, but they can't be seen to champion a country, company or deal. The rest of us have a part to play too: industry, investors, researchers, and the public agencies that plan, buy and run our infrastructure, working alongside diplomats to think as one New Zealand system. The best conversations of the week came when that experience met technical detail. Our Track II delegation had one engineer, to the Foundation's credit for inviting me. Future diplomatic efforts should widen the net too.
Foreign policy is physical. As I read it, the design has three legs. A year on from the CSP, we've built one leg. Now we need to build the other two. If we can, we'll be better placed for both growth and security.
The Foundation's Track II programme supports informal diplomacy with thinktanks in Asia on issues and challenges facing the region.
