China’s hardball tactics drive Seoul further towards Washington

China’s hardball tactics drive Seoul further towards Washington

    Latest rift risks deepening South Korea’s relations with the US and also Japan, which has its own disagreements with Beijing
    Observers said the squabble underscores how far ties have deteriorated under Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration


As China and South Korea continue to squabble over a growing list of diplomatic offences, observers have warned that Beijing’s hardball tactics may drive Seoul further into the arms of Washington.

The latest row – triggered by the Chinese ambassador to Seoul Xing Haiming’s thinly veiled criticism of South Korea’s pivot towards the US – has also soured the mood for a potential trilateral summit between China, South Korea and Japan, analysts said.

Xing caused an uproar early this month when he warned South Korea not to bet against China in its rivalry with the US, during a meeting with the main opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung. Those who bet on China’s defeat would “definitely regret it”, Xing said.

The envoy was summoned over his “provocative” remarks and chided by President Yoon Suk-yeol for his “inappropriate behaviour”. China has so far refused to budge, summoning South Korea’s ambassador to express “grave concern and dissatisfaction”.

Observers said the episode underscored how far China’s ties with South Korea have worsened amid growing distrust and antagonism since Yoon took office last year.

Seong-hyon Lee, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Fairbank Centre for Chinese studies, said that in a geopolitical context Seoul’s strategic tilt towards Washington could be interpreted as a significant setback for China’s diplomatic chess game with the US.

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Lee noted South Korean frustration over China’s inaction on North Korea – for years a primary security concern for Seoul – as a key driver behind the decision to seek closer alignment with Washington and Tokyo.

“South Koreans woke up to the reality that China is, after all, not very influential in containing North Korea’s belligerence” he said.

Beijing has long been North Korea’s top diplomatic backer and economic lifeline, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Along with Russia, China has repeatedly vetoed UN resolutions led by the US and South Korea seeking to slap further sanctions on Pyongyang over its repeated missile launches.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international affairs at Beijing’s Renmin University, said North Korea’s repeated nuclear provocations posed a severe challenge to China’s relations with South Korea.
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Despite a dramatic escalation in North Korea’s nuclear and missile development in the past two years, Beijing has quietly dropped its long-term demand for denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and formed a strategic partnership with Pyongyang, he said.

According to Shi, “that is the biggest obstacle to a better relationship between China and South Korea”.

“North Korea has been the issue that South Korea fears most and it is the defining factor in China’s relations with South Korea,” he said.

“But in the eyes of South Korea and the US, China has not only failed to heed their concerns but also helped cover for North Korea by opposing any new sanctions or resolutions condemning Pyongyang at the UN Security Council, alongside Russia.”
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Lee said South Korea had become a lost opportunity for Chinese diplomacy, because Beijing has failed to grasp the changes of recent years in South Korean politics and public opinion.

“In the past, South Korea was an easy country for China to win over because [former president Moon Jae-in] was a bona fide pro-China politician,” he said.

But when ties soured in 2017 over the South Korean deployment of a US antimissile system, “China was too narrowly focused on revenge … and refused to embrace Moon’s effort to engage China”, Lee said.

Lee that while it might seem opportunistic for Yoon to label Moon’s five-year term as proof that his “appeasement policy towards China” had failed, it was a “fair move” in domestic politics.

Yoon steers South Korea away from China, Russia and towards US, Japan


Recent polls showed more than 80 per cent of the South Korean public held negative views about China, soaring to 90 per cent among young adults in their 20s and 30s.

Lee said China’s assertive “wolf warrior” diplomacy would further alienate South Koreans and push them closer to Washington. It could also help to vindicate the hardening pro-Washington position of Yoon and his advisers, he added.

“The more aggressive and tough China behaves toward South Korea, the more South Korea will lean toward the United States,” Lee said.

“It seems China hasn’t realised that Moon and Yoon are completely different personalities and the Yoon government requires a different diplomatic approach to deal with.”

In May, the director general of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Asian affairs department Liu Jinsong conveyed Beijing’s concerns during a visit to Seoul.

Liu warned there would be no bilateral cooperation and no visits by high-profile Chinese figures – including President Xi Jinping – if Seoul continues its move away from China or intervenes in China’s “core interests”, namely Taiwan, according to The Hankyoreh newspaper.

But as South Korea-China relations deteriorate, it is only natural for Seoul to warm up to Tokyo, despite their differences over history and other issues, Lee said.

“When your neighbour doesn’t like your approach and doesn’t want to do business with you, you naturally seek out another friend. From a larger strategic perspective, this is what Washington hoped to see – South Korea improving ties with Japan,” he said.

Liu Jiangyong, a regional affairs expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said the “severe shocks” in bilateral ties were a result of the Yoon administration’s dramatic changes to foreign policy.

He shares the view that the recent spat over Xing’s comments is part of the downward spiral in relations between Beijing and Seoul.

“China and South Korea will need a steady, long-term development, and hopefully this kind of unpleasant episode will pass soon,” he said.

“But considering the current impasse is directly related to Yoon’s political thinking and diplomatic priorities, it would be unrealistic to expect too much for an early end.”

Renmin University’s Shi said that with Seoul actively joining Washington in the restructuring of supply chains and its hi-tech blockade against Beijing, there were few positive signals pointing to a reset or a long-term easing of bilateral tensions.

“So a prolonged stalemate, or even further deterioration, in relations between the two countries at a low level cannot be ruled out at all,” he said.

Shi noted that both sides have so far played down the renewed US deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, which re-emerged as a focal point during a meeting of the two countries’ foreign ministers in Qingdao last year.

China’s worsening ties with South Korea, on top of fraught Sino-Japanese relations, have also dampened hopes for the resumption of trilateral talks between the three East Asian neighbours.
Young South Koreans change their attitude toward Japan as ties thaw

Beijing and Seoul have reportedly expressed a willingness to hold the summit this year, for the first time since the regular meetings were suspended in 2019 because of the pandemic and strained ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

“What is there to talk about?” Shi said, with China and Japan locked in a strategic confrontation, and the US leading moves to curb hi-tech exports to China and bolster supply chains to reduce dependence on the Asian power.

“However, for political purposes, all parties are expected to play nice in public. Compared with Japan, South Korea is likely to refrain from openly criticising China, even though Sino-Korean relations are almost at an all-time low,” Shi said.

But he warned that “almost nothing substantial can be expected from the trilateral dialogue at the moment”.