'Seductive' China to strain Seoul's
US ties By Sunny Lee
BEIJING - The United States has bristled
at the notion that South Korea, its close,
reliable East Asian security partner, could one
day turn its back on the US and draw closer to
China.
Discussions on maintaining the
US-South Korean alliance in Seoul this week became
heated when Chang Dal-joong, professor at Seoul
National University said that South Korean public
sentiment "is divided as to whether we should team
up with the US or China".
Chang was
speaking at a forum hosted by South Korean daily
JoongAng Ilbo and US think-tank the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. It featured
heavyweights such as Richard Armitage, former US
deputy secretary of state under president George W
Bush and included a visit to the presidential Blue
House to meet with Lee
Myung-bak and his national security advisors.
"This is a major decision South Korea may
have to face in the future, although this is
something that could receive criticism," said
Chang.
Chang was right. His remarks drew
an immediate and sharp response from Michael
Green, former director for Asian Affairs at the US
National Security Council. He said that choosing
sides before has resulted in "tragedy."
"Absolute consistency with the US alliance
is better," Green counseled the Korean audience
watching the debate.
The US-South Korean
relationship is thought to have been strengthened
in the wake of last year's attacks on South Korea,
the sinking of a naval corvette and shelling of an
island. In response, the US sent an aircraft
carrier to Korean waters to participate in joint
military exercises.
James Jones, former US
White House national security adviser, didn't
conceal his alarm over the idea. He was "struck by
the comment that South Korea has to choose sides",
advising the Koreans that such a decision was
"unnecessary", JoongAng reported.
Though
it was shocking for US officials, Chang actually
raised a common topic in South Korea: how China's
rise could increasingly reconfigure Seoul's
traditionally staunch alliance relationship with
Washington.
"Those in the current Lee
Myung-bak administration still favor an alliance
with Washington," said Moon Chung-in, a professor
of political science at Yonsei University in
Seoul. "They still view China as a country to
guard against because it is a communist nation.
They fear China. But a view that the current South
Korea-Washington relationship is too tilted to one
side is increasingly gaining an audience."
Though the controversy at the forum
focused on China, there were no Chinese
participants. There, Armitage characterized
China's rise as "messy", adding, "China has
embarked on a significant financial expansion, but
until she can stand for something larger than
herself, she can't truly be great on the global
stage."
Despite its absence from the
forum, China likely paid attention to it as it
senses "South Korea is at a crossroads," said Yang
Xiyu, former director of Office for Korean
Peninsula Issues at the Chinese foreign ministry.
"In fact, many foreign observers have been
watching the debate in South Korea. South Korea is
at crossroads. The conclusion of the debate will
not only decide South Korea's future fate, but it
will also produce a profound impact on the
political landscape in East Asia, which also
includes China and Japan."
South Korea's
diplomatic soul-searching vis-a-vis its
relationship with the world's superpower isn't
new. Its immediate neighbor, Japan, tried and felt
the pinch. Former Japanese prime minister Yukio
Hatoyama called in 2009 for an "East Asian
Community", a regional cooperation community
inclusive of China and South Korea but exclusive
of the United States. The US frowned upon the bold
initiative, and Washington's refusal to relocate a
military base in Japan brought about Hatoyama's
downfall.
Since then, the US has used the
sinking of the Cheonan as an opportunity to
return to East Asia and strengthen alliances with
Japan and South Korea on its traditional turf,
pushing back the trend among Asian countries to
form their own alliances.
Sensing that
Tokyo and Seoul's good faith to Washington was
being tested by a seductive Beijing that is
increasingly influential and affluent, the US in
December staged a telling photo-op with foreign
ministers of South Korea and Japan, not inviting
their Chinese counterpart, under the diplomatic
cover of displaying solidarity against North
Korea's provocations.
The Korean Peninsula
is a strategic venue where China and Washington
compete for leadership. South Korea, as the
world's 14th largest economy, is likely to play a
more important role as Japan, formerly the world's
second- and now third-largest economy, loses its
economic steam. This could see China forge a
deeper economic and strategic partnership with
Seoul, and Beijing has already been wooing the
South with a comprehensive free-trade agreement
that has political as well as economic aspects.
But under the Lee Myung-bak
administration, Seoul has been conspicuously
leaning closer toward Washington. China also has
developed some suspicions over Seoul's closeness
to Washington.
"Right now, we have a
situation in which China perceives the policy of
South Korean administration as adverse to China's
interests. China seems to be suspicious about the
Lee Myung-bak administration's interests and
intent," said Scott Snyder, director of the Center
for US-Korea Policy of the Asia Foundation.
"It's also true that under the current Lee
administration, the alliance with the United
States has come to be perceived by China as a
zero-sum game. It's not in South Korea's interest
to allow that kind of perception to grow, because
South Korea's interest is not having to choose
between the US and China. That does not
necessarily forge South Korea's foreign policy
objectives."
China's most important
national goal is to achieve a comprehensive
economic and military modernization of the country
by 2050, said Hwang Jae-ho, an expert on China at
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. "In
the process, it is paying close attention to what
stance is taken by neighboring countries." Hwang
doesn't believe China's goal is to pull Seoul away
from Washington's gravitational pull.
Yang, the former Chinese Foreign Ministry
official, agreed: "China hopes the US-South Korean
alliance will remain a pure bilateral military
arrangement that serves only for South Korea's
national security." Yang said that China would
respond "very severely" if the US-South Korea
alliance plays a bigger regional function.
"If this were to happen, South Korean
territory will become a US military operational
field. Frankly speaking, if there were military
conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, and if the US
decided to jump into the Taiwan conflict, then it
is highly possible that some kind of US military
forces will be sent from military bases in South
Korea. Then, South Korea will be fooled into a
conflict even though it doesn't have any interest
in involving in it. That poses a potential risk
for South Korean security," Yang said.
Moon at Yonsei University also said Seoul
should not opt for a "zero-sum" choice. "Seoul
should resist the voice that demands it align with
Washington completely because the US is strong.
Seoul should also resist completely siding with
Beijing, either, because China is rising. Both are
all self-defeating measures. Getting on the
bandwagon completely either on China or on the US
exclusively will endanger South Korea's security
environment," said Moon.
Moon argues that
Seoul should continue the current alliance with
Washington while forming a multilateral security
cooperative regime in East Asia with China and
other regional powers.
But some analysts
believe that's easier said than done, pointing out
the deep suspicions between China and the United
States, the internal divide in South Korean
domestic politics that often displays a tendency
of all-out favoritism to either Washington or
Beijing, and the issue of North Korea that has
many times in the past divided the countries
participating in the six-party talks on the
North's nuclear program.
"I think South
Korea is already stuck in this strategic dilemma,"
said Shin Gi-wook, director of the Walter H
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at
Stanford University. He foresees that the
challenge Seoul faces in the coming years will
remain the same: how to balance the two major
stakeholders in East Asia.
Sunny
Lee (sleethenational@gmail.com) is a
Seoul-born columnist and journalist; he has
degrees from the US and China.
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