Korea-Taiwan flying close to the
wind By Andrew Petty
SEOUL -
The resumption of direct air links between South Korea
and Taiwan after a 14-year break and reports that former
Korean president Kim Young-sam will visit Taipei - both
presumably offending China - certainly raise a big
question: is this the beginning of a new Seoul-Taipei
friendship?
The timing of these events is
significant. While South Korea is pouting over China's
attempts to rewrite history books and apparently claim
an ancient kingdom on the peninsula as its own, Seoul
also strikes a landmark commercial aviation deal with
what China considers a renegade province, Taiwan, while
many Taiwanese claim a separate or independent identity.
(China, however, has made no territorial claims.)
The aviation pact was signed September 1 by
Hwang Yong-shik, head of the South Korea mission in
Taipei, and Li Tsai-fang, representative of the Taipei
mission in Seoul. Experts say that Beijing will accept,
and to some extent encourage, economic agreements, but
will come down harshly on any political overtures. China
has not commented officially on the Seoul-Taipei
flights.
Flights will resume next month, with 18
flights a week between Incheon and Taipei. Flights
between other cities are to be determined later.
Out of respect for the Beijing's "One China
Policy", direct flights have been banned between Korea
and Taiwan since Seoul normalized relations with Beijing
in 1992. Today, there is still some residual resentment
in Taiwan over Korea cutting off the flights and
high-level diplomatic ties. However, cultural imports
such as Korean movies and pop singers have helped to
improve relations.
Some South Korean analysts
believe the resumption of commercial aviation ties with
Taiwan is partly the result of South Korea's anger over
Beijing's apparent efforts to lay historical claim to
the ancient kingdom of Koguryo, considered by Koreans to
be one of their three founding kingdoms. Officials in
Seoul, however, have not said that the dispute over
Koguryo is a factor, though media reports have indicated
that it may well be part of South Korea's calculus with
regard to Beijing's actions and an attempt to assert
itself.
Before the ban on air links, 420,000
Koreans and Taiwanese visited each other every year. The
level dropped to 200,000 shortly after the ban and it
still hasn't recovered, with last year's figures
totaling 306,000. Only charter flights were allowed
during that time.
Talks about resuming the South
Korea-Taiwan air routes have been ongoing during the
past few years. On the surface, experts say it's just an
economic agreement. The deal will make it much easier
and affordable to travel, giving a boost to tourism and
related businesses. Instead of being forced to fly over
China or The Philippines' airspace on the way to
Southeast Asia, 170 flights leaving Seoul will take a
fraction of the time. Korean airliners will save 33
billion won ($29 million) a year in fuel and airspace
fees.
Restoring the air routes may also open the
door to other exchanges. More commercial relations and
low-level diplomatic visits are likely, analysts
suggest. Korean exports to Taiwan make up about 4-5% of
its market, so the island market is definitely on
Seoul's radar.
Many mutually beneficial
agreements between South Korea and Taiwan, mostly
concerning business, already exist. Beyond that,
however, Taipei will have take whatever it can get, says
professor John Lie, dean of international and area
studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Lie told Asia Times Online that tourism
encourages friendships between the two peoples, perhaps
Koreans will feel more sympathy for the Taiwanese cause
- for many a separate identity, for some independence -
and will pressure their own government in Seoul to take
further actions supporting Taiwan.
There are no
obvious political overtures to this aviation pact, but
experts say the deal is a mixture of calculated tactics.
Koreans are deeply offended by the Chinese
government's decisions to back an academic project that
concludes that the ancient Koguryo kingdom (37 BC to 668
AD), widely considered to be part of Korean history, was
once a Chinese province. Several months ago, China's
foreign ministry deleted all of Korea's history up to
1948 on its website. The kingdom's capital was located
on the northern Korean Peninsula and its empire spread
into modern-day Manchuria.
Millions of ethnic
Koreans live in the northern Chinese provinces and
according to China watchers, the Beijing government
fears the people there will seek greater autonomy,
realization of their Korean ethnic roots - or even
independence - in the future.
Last month the
vice foreign ministers of the two nations reached a
vague verbal agreement that said the kingdom territorial
and sovereignty issue should not be politicized. China
agreed not to change its textbooks in line with its
historical but not territorial claims. Both ruling and
opposition legislative parties in Korea have called the
agreement unsatisfactory and urged the government to
take a tougher line. The debate continues.
Concerning the unresolved Koguryo kingdom issue,
no further talks are scheduled. President Roh Moo-hyun,
however, did deliver a message to Jia Qinglin, a senior
Chinese official, during his Seoul visit on August 27 -
urging Beijing to live up to its verbal agreement. There
is widespread skepticism, however, about how binding
that agreement really is.
"Some, in the
[opposition] Grand National Party (GNP) and within the
foreign ministry, among others, are no doubt motivated
to use relations with Taiwan as a gesture to show
defiance to China," said James Schoff, a senior
researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis,
a think tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Korea
could be headed for a serious backlash from China if
Seoul oversteps its boundaries and forms stronger
diplomatic relations with Taiwan. China could fight back
by interfering with Korean business investments in
China, frustrating the six-party talks aimed at defusing
the North Korean nuclear program - or even supporting
North Korea's military, Schoff told Asia Times Online.
Last May before Taiwan President Chen
Shui-bian's inauguration, the Chinese Embassy in Seoul
sought to discourage Korean legislators from attending
the ceremony. However, a delegation of several GNP
lawmakers and businessmen attended the event. A local
newspaper later quoted the embassy as saying China would
not issue those lawmakers travel visas, if they desired
to travel on the mainland.
News reports have
said former president Kim may well visit Taiwan in the
near future, though there has been no official
announcement. One expert said that if he does visit
Taipei, he is likely to discuss economic ties and
exchanges - officially Beijing doesn't oppose that - but
a security agreement for Taiwan or diplomatic support is
still out of the question, says another expert.
"Like Singapore, Australia, and the Philippines,
South Korea wants good neighborly relations with Taiwan,
but relations with the Chinese mainland are more
important - especially in the context of the ongoing
six-party talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament,"
professor Rick Baum of the University of California at
Los Angeles told Asia Times Online.
If Korea's
aim is to protest China's claim of the Koguryo (our
style) kingdom, there are safer ways to go about it,
Schoff told Atol.
"South Korea can try to use
the Koguryo issue to strengthen ties with the North
Korea and threaten to drive a wedge between Beijing and
Pyongyang," he said. If South Korea really wants to use
the threat of increased friendship with a third country
as a means of pressuring Beijing, he suggests teaming up
even more closely with the United States [Seoul and
Washington already are allies, though their relationship
is strained]. Closer ties with Washington strikes a less
emotional chord with the Chinese but could be equally
unsettling [to] China's foreign policy plans, Schoff
said.
"Supporting the US indirectly supports
Taiwanese democracy," said Schoff.
Andrew
Petty is a freelance writer based in Seoul and
writing about politics and culture.
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