[5] South Korea sent military personnel in the Political Warfare training in Fu Hsing Kang College.

[6][7] The division of Korea, which ended 35 years of Japanese control, was followed by a period of trusteeship by American occupation in the south.

The Republic of China (ROC) was the first government to convey its intent to establish diplomatic relations with the ROK, doing so on 13 August 1948.

[8]: 163 The People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War and the ROK maintained relations with the ROC, whose government relocated to Taiwan, formerly a Qing prefecture that was under 50 years of Japanese colonial occupation from 1895 to 1945.

[8]: 163 Influenced by the 1949 founding of NATO and their shared anti-communist stances, the ROK and ROC, along with the Philippines, formed the Pacific Pact.

During the Korean War, the ROC supplied material aid to ROK,[9] while the PRC gave North Korea combatants to support the People's Volunteer Army.

President Roh Tae-woo's next political ambition was to begin implementing Realpolitik with the neighboring countries in Northeast Asia.

[8]: 166 The ROC responded also by severing a civil aviation agreement, ending preferential treatment for ROK goods, and filing anti-dumping proceedings against South Korea.

During this visit, he met President of ROC (Taiwan) Chen Shui-bian at a lunch banquet, but the two were unable to come to an agreement over the wording of a joint written statement urging the resumption of direct air travel.

He delivered a speech at National Chengchi University and toured port facilities in Kaohsiung, the sister city of Republic of Korea's Busan.

As of April 2016, the total amount of mutual investments between the two sides reached around US$2.4 billion in areas such as communication, consumer products, finance, information technology, iron, medicine, metal, securities and semiconductor.

Analysts estimated this would save Republic of Korean airline companies ₩33 billion (US$29 million at 2004 exchange rates) in fuel costs and other fees.

[23] The ROK government acted as the interlocutor[24][25][26][27][28] and supported Taipei's admission into Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 1991.

[29][30][31] Taipei can also host non-ministerial APEC consortiums and workshops concerning topics in which Taiwan has specific strengths, such as technology and small and medium enterprise.

These consortia and workshops are intended to address only success on economics and business-related issues with other APEC Member Economies.