Economic Security

A policy concept in which a state seeks to protect economic assets—such as supply chains, critical technologies, resources, and data—from external threats and to secure strategic autonomy.

Economic Security

Overview

Economic security (경제 안보) refers to a state's capacity to protect the economic assets, functions, and networks essential to its survival and prosperity from external threats, coercion, and disruption, and to maintain core economic functions even in times of crisis. Whereas traditional security was defined around military power and territory, economic security draws economic choke points—semiconductors, batteries, rare earths, energy, food, data, and critical infrastructure—into the domain of security. In the late 2010s, through the U.S.–China strategic rivalry, the COVID-19 supply chain shock, and the Russia–Ukraine war, countries around the world entered a trend of the “securitization” of economic security, reinterpreting economic issues through the logic of security.

Key Elements

Components of the Concept

Economic security is composed of four main axes. First is supply chain security, which means reducing excessive dependence on any single country and diversifying sources of supply. Second is critical technology security, which includes leadership in strategic technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, and advanced materials, as well as the prevention of technology leakage. Third is resource and energy security, which deals with the stable procurement of crude oil, natural gas, rare earths, and critical minerals. Fourth is data and infrastructure security, meaning the reliability and control of digital infrastructure such as telecommunications networks, cloud services, and financial settlement networks.

Policy Instruments

Representative instruments include export controls, investment screening (foreign direct investment screening), tariffs and subsidies, industrial promotion policies, supply chain due diligence, economic sanctions, and supply chain alliances among like-minded countries (friend-shoring). Notable examples include the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), the EU's economic security strategy, and China's export controls on rare earths, gallium, and germanium. At the corporate level, the practice of establishing geopolitical risk management organizations and building supply chain dual-sourcing, inventory buffers, and country-of-origin tracing systems has spread.

Dilemmas and Costs

Strengthening economic security conflicts with efficiency. The low-cost, just-in-time (JIT) system of the globalization era maximized cost efficiency but was vulnerable to shocks. Reorganizing supply chains along security logic can raise production costs, create inflationary pressure, and contract trade. Moreover, if export controls and sanctions and reciprocal countermeasures expand, “decoupling” or “de-risking” may deepen, risking the bloc-ification of the world economy. For small states, this creates a dual task: the burden of choosing sides and the need to secure strategic autonomy.

Korea's Context

Korea is a manufacturing powerhouse in semiconductors, batteries, shipbuilding, and displays, while also having a high degree of external dependence for raw materials and energy, giving it a typically vulnerable structure in economic security. Amid the U.S.–China competition for technology hegemony, it is simultaneously exposed to export control, subsidy, and tariff policies, and securing critical minerals, diversifying supply chains, fostering advanced industries, and operating economic security dialogue channels have emerged as major tasks.

Latest Trends

In 2024–2025, economic security is summarized as “reorganization” and “redesign of connections” rather than “de-globalization.” The United States has continued to strengthen export controls on advanced technologies such as semiconductors and AI and expanded restrictions on investment in China, while the EU has embarked on outbound investment screening and management of critical technology lists based on its economic security strategy. On the supply chain front, competition to secure critical minerals has intensified, increasing cooperation with resource-rich countries and investment in recycling and substitute materials. China is responding by using export controls on rare earths, gallium, and germanium as leverage. As AI semiconductors and data centers emerge as new security assets, securing compute has been placed on the national security agenda, and corporate organizations responding to cyber and economic espionage have become a permanent fixture. The trend of using tariffs as an instrument of security and industrial policy continues, and countries are focusing on building supply chain early warning systems and emergency response frameworks.