After entering 2022, South Korea's general election has officially entered a white-hot stage, and the two most vocal presidential candidates, Lee Jae-myung from the ruling party, who is known as Moon Jae-in's successor, and Yoon Seok-yue, who is the largest opposition party, are now doing their best to explain their governing policies to the people.
On the 4th of this month, Lee Jae-ming held a New Year's press conference, and he made it clear that if South Korea holds the idea of "choosing one between the United States and China", it will be very dangerous, because the essence of this idea is precisely the subordinate position of no opinion, Lee Jae-ming believes that only people who lack self-confidence and do not know where to go will have such a thought, and he also made it clear that South Korea must start from its own practical interests and explore a new option, in short, it cannot be a slave of The United States.
South Korean public opinion generally believes that Lee Jae-myung's statement is actually in response to another candidate, Yoon Seok-yue, who criticized the current government's "pro-China" policy. At that time, when the latter participated in the symposium of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Korea, he said that South Korea should adhere to the "United States, South Korea and Japan" tripartite cooperation to carry out diplomacy with China, and also said that South Korea and China have indeed achieved a lot of results in various fields, but the Moon Jae-in government is more inclined to China and tries to act as a mediator between the United States and China, and the final results have backfired.
However, Lee Jae-myung believes that South Korea is not a quad member, nor has it received an invitation from the United States, and South Korea can fully adopt the pragmatic route and become an active choice rather than a passive choice.
In fact, Lee Jae-ming has always had his own views on Sino-US relations, and he once publicly stated in an interview with reporters that the decision not to join the United States to "refuse to send diplomats to participate in the Winter Olympics" is correct, and if the South Korean government blindly looks at the face of the United States, it is likely to make a wrong judgment. It stressed that the United States has never formally asked South Korea to cooperate with the action from beginning to end, and the current government has repeatedly stated that South Korea has special reasons for not cooperating, and the United States has also expressed its understanding of this, and the Moon Jae-in government's approach is entirely based on national interest considerations.
However, Lee Jae-ming also admitted that due to the gradual increase in strategic competition between China and the United States, the room for South Korea to maneuver has become smaller and smaller, but the more such moments, the more it cannot swing left and right, because South Korea will always face pressure to choose sides.
As Moon jae-in has argued, South Korea is capable of making an independent choice, and any decision must be based on national interests, not just on relations between South Korea and the great powers. Compared with Lee Jae-ming's frequent exposure in front of the media and the steady increase in the support rate of the polls, Yin Xiyue as an opponent is a house leak that rains overnight. According to a report released by Yonhap News Agency on the 3rd of this month, because Yoon Seok-yue's various polls lagged behind Lee Jae-myung, on the 3rd, all the core members of his campaign team submitted their resignations to him.
According to the current news, Yin Xiyue has not clearly stated that he accepted the resignation of the campaign team, which means that things still have a chance to turn around. But one fact that cannot be refuted is that Yoon Seok-yue's poll approval rating has declined steadily over the past period of time, so much so that his largest opposition party in South Korea has felt the crisis.
In fact, it is no accident that Yoon Seok-yue is in this backward situation, although he is a prosecutor and his status is extremely detached among the south Korean power class, But Yoon Seok-yue's political views are to some extent contrary to the mainstream public opinion in South Korea. Not to mention that Yoon Seok-yue strongly advocates cooperating with the United States against us, just when he once said that "the Moon Jae-in administration deliberately used the history of World War II to provoke South Korea-Japan relations", he has already touched the national sentiment of the Korean people.
Lee Jae-myung, who is on the opposite side, has always adhered to the "Korean subject" and advocated that Koreans decide their own destiny, which makes Koreans who have been trapped in the greatness of things for hundreds of years very useful. However, returning to the level of reality, whether it is Lee Jae-myung or Yoon Seok-yue's ruling ideas, it is inseparable from the progress of Sino-US relations, Lee Jae-ming hopes that South Korea can play an important role in East Asian affairs, but the reality is that China's voice on the peninsula issue is actually higher than that of the United States.
Yoon Seok-yue pinned his hopes on the U.S.-South Korea-Japan alliance, but in fact, this strategy of using the alliance to put pressure on China has been tested countless times by the United States in the past few years, and the final results have not been successful. It should be noted that South Korea's desire to pursue an independent foreign policy is not only not wrong, but also worthy of appreciation and support, and China also hopes that all countries can follow their own path, so that whether the two sides are cooperation or differences, at least they can ensure that they are not interfered with by external forces and do not always have to guard against the United States from obstructing it.
As a "neighbor that cannot be moved away", South Korea should conduct exchanges with China based on its own practical interests and promote the development of bilateral relations in a more stable, controllable and positive direction. The greatness of events has plagued the peninsula for thousands of years, but the current point in time is the best time for South Korea to shake off this historical burden, and if it can achieve transformation in the great changes that have not occurred in a hundred years, it will certainly be an unprecedented new opportunity for China and South Korea.