Jeju Forum Opens to Discuss Global Cooperation Amid Geopolitical Challenges

By Woo Jae-yeon

JEJU, South Korea, June 24 (Yonhap) -- An annual international peace forum was set to open Wednesday on the southern resort island of Jeju for a three-day run to explore ways to enhance global cooperation amid intensified geopolitical challenges.

The 21st Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity, being held with the theme "Reinventing Cooperation in a Fragmented World," will span some 70 sessions featuring former and current senior officials, alongside global security and policy experts, from around the globe, according to organizers.

Among the highlights is a session in which nearly all candidates vying to succeed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will gather on one stage to lay out their visions for leading the world body and the international community through an era of deepening uncertainty.

Five candidates are in the running -- Michelle Bachelet, former Chilean president; Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development; Macky Sall, former Senegal president; and Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, Ecuador's former foreign minister. Bachelet will join virtually, the organizers said.

The forum's agenda spans five broad themes, including peace and security amid strategic competition among major powers, economic and climate transitions, digital governance and governance challenges posed by the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI).

In a session titled "Collective Defense or Collective Security," Harry Harris, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea; Suh Wook, former South Korean defense minister; and Shigeru Kitamura, former secretary-general of Japan's National Security Secretariat, will discuss the shape of a new security order in East Asia. Robert Hill, former Australian defense minister, will moderate.

The World Leaders' Session will bring together former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and former Mongolian Prime Minister Gombojav Zandanshatar to reflect on the forum's central theme.

This year's forum is co-hosted for the first time by the Jeju provincial government and South Korea's foreign ministry, a shift the organizers say reflects an ambition to raise the forum's international profile.