The story of South Korea’s post-armistice economic ascendance has been well documented, but its parallel rise as an influential international actor is just beginning to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. Moreover, in the work that has been produced thus far, scholars have assumed that it was its remarkable economic growth that drove South Korea’s rise to international influence. This assumption misses the important fact that South Korea was elevating itself internationally while it was still a poor nation. As we demonstrate in this paper, what is missing in existing work is that it was the diplomatic efforts of South Korean presidents early in the post-armistice period that put the country on the path to its current international influence both directly and indirectly. They did this directly by removing it from the diplomatic isolation it inherited after the Korean War, and they accomplished this indirectly by using the tools of diplomacy to expand South Korea’s trading relations, without which it would not have enjoyed the remarkable economic growth it experienced.

中文翻译：

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外交、贸易和韩国国际影响力的崛起

韩国在停战后经济崛起的故事有据可查，但它作为一个有影响力的国际参与者的平行崛起才刚刚开始受到应有的学术关注。此外，在迄今为止的作品中，学者们假设是其显着的经济增长推动了韩国在国际影响力的上升。这种假设忽略了一个重要的事实，即韩国在它仍然是一个贫穷的国家时就在国际上提升自己。正如我们在本文中展示的那样，现有工作中缺少的是，正是韩国总统在停战后早期的外交努力使该国直接和间接地走上了当前国际影响力的道路。