In the face of the INCREASING anti-China offensive of the US government, should South Korea, sandwiched between China and the United States, follow this wave? On February 14, a South Korean professor made his mind clear:
Excessive anti-China sentiment in South Korea will only make South Korea's situation more dangerous.
South Korean people
On February 14, local time, the Korean Nationalities Daily published an article by Jung Jin-ho, a professor at the Center for Unification of Korea at Handong University, which pointed out that only about 10% of the people in Today's South Korean society are willing to maintain friendly feelings toward China, while politicians from all walks of life are desperately adding fuel to this anti-China sentiment, which is of no benefit to South Korea's national interests.
The article pointed out that as a country that has to be sandwiched between China and the United States, the South Korean government should strive to win more opportunities in the contradictions between China and the United States, rather than making its attitude clear early and turning to the United States to attack China. After the COVID-19 pandemic, South Korea's economy is generally sluggish and more dependent on foreign exports, with the highest dependence on the Chinese market at 31.8%. Under such circumstances, the Moon Jae-in government has allowed anti-China sentiment in South Korean society to breed wantonly, and some presidential candidates have even proposed to add the "THAAD" system to further stimulate China, which is "outrageous."
The article further points out that South Korea's premature pro-US and anti-China attitude will also cause problems on the US side -- this is equivalent to allowing South Korea to show its bottom card to the United States prematurely, so that the United States can deliberately intensify the contradictions between China and South Korea, so that South Korea will be at the mercy of the United States.
The article concludes by calling on the Moon jae-in government to act as soon as possible to cool down the current excessively pro-US and anti-China public sentiment in South Korean society and strive to maintain a balance between China and the United States.
Is there excessive pro-AMERICAN and anti-China sentiment in Korean society today? The scene described by Professor Zheng Zhenhao is indeed true:
Just at the end of December last year, the Korea Institute for Unification Published a poll showing that as many as 71.8 percent of respondents believed that China posed the greatest threat to South Korea's national security, followed by Japan, the United States and Russia.
In response to this "biggest threat," as many as 61.8 percent of respondents actually favored allowing the United States to re-deploy nuclear weapons on South Korean territory.
But in stark contrast, in 2020, even in the face of the huge challenges of the new crown epidemic, the total bilateral economic and trade volume between China and South Korea still reached 285.26 billion US dollars, making China the largest trading partner, the largest export market and the largest import source for the 17th consecutive year;
By 2021, in the first ten months alone, bilateral trade between China and South Korea will reach $293.9 billion, completely exceeding the total trade volume in 2020. Among them, South Korea exports $173.19 billion to China, China exports $120.71 billion to South Korea, and South Korea maintains a trade surplus of up to $52.48 billion with China, making it one of the few countries in the world that maintain a surplus with China;
On February 1, the RCEP agreement officially entered into force for South Korea, which means that the zero-tariff products between China and South Korea will reach 86% of all commodity categories traded between the two countries, and the trade exchanges between China and South Korea will only be more warm after 2022.
So the reality is that Today's China is South Korea's largest trading partner, the Chinese market is the most profitable market for Korean goods in the world, and Korean society still believes that China is its biggest "security threat". In the face of such schizophrenic sentiment toward China, it is no wonder that professor Zheng Zhen-ho called on the Moon jae-in government to quickly cool down this anti-China sentiment.
China-South Korea relations
Why do South Koreans hate China so much? This is actually related to the South Korean people's positioning of the country.
China is not only the source of Korean culture, but also the suzerainty of South Korea for hundreds of years, if this situation can continue to this day, the Korean people will naturally not have any resistance to China. However, in the early 1900s, China lost its influence over South Korea due to its own poverty and weakness, and then the United States took advantage of the void in the middle of the last century to enter South Korea as a "liberator of Korea" and established the status of "The de facto suzerainty of South Korea" that continues to this day.
Therefore, from the perspective of value identity, compared with the "old suzerainty" China, which is already too strange, the "new suzerainty" of the United States is obviously the object that Korean society is more willing to be close to; culturally, this situation has also created a rebellious psychology that Korean society hopes to get rid of Chinese-style traditional Asian culture and embrace modern Western culture.
At the same time, after defecting to the United States, South Korea quickly created the "Han River Miracle", became a developed country economically, and even developed better than China for a long time, and this economic strength naturally made South Korea's discrimination and rebellion against China in terms of values and cultural identity more intense, and also made South Korea's rapidly expanding nationalist and patriotic sentiments after the "Han River Miracle" have a specific outlet object. Looking down on China has become, to a considerable extent, one of the important ways for contemporary Koreans to find national pride.
Miracle of the Han River
But the most dramatic plot of the whole thing is this: After entering the 21st century, China's economy has exploded rapidly, and seeing that the country that was once despised by it has actually overtaken it, the patriotism and nationalist sentiment of the South Korean people have been hit hard, and it is natural to have a deeper hatred for China.
The "THAAD" deployment incident that broke out in 2017 is a landmark event that transforms the discrimination against China in Korean society into hatred of China:
From China's point of view, South Korea allows the US military to deploy the THAAD system on its own land, which seriously threatens China's national strategic security at the military level, which will naturally trigger China to punish South Korea in various ways;
However, from South Korea's point of view, whether to allow the US military to deploy weapons systems on its own territory is purely South Korea's internal affairs and sovereign freedom, and China's opposition measures based on economic boycott are completely interfering in South Korea's internal affairs and engaging in "economic coercion";
In addition, the "THAAD" system also has an important function for South Korea to prevent the north Korean missile threat, which is related to the bottom line of South Korea's national security, and China's "threat" to South Korea to abandon the deployment of "THAAD" is equivalent to asking South Korea to exchange its own national security for China's national security.
Knowing this logic of the Koreans, we will understand why contemporary Korean society is so anti-China – hatred of China has become the best expression of Korean patriotism and nationalism.
THAAD incident
There is no doubt that in any country, embracing and touting popular patriotism and nationalist sentiments is the only way for politicians to exchange popular support. Therefore, we have seen that in the past two years, South Korean politicians have competed like a competition to show their anti-China attitude, especially in the near future, South Korea will hold a presidential election, and anti-China has become the core issue for various presidential candidates to win votes in recent times.
However, if such a fanatical and one-sided anti-China sentiment exists for a long time, it will obviously have only negative significance for the normal development of Korean society, and Professor Jung Jin-ho is willing to give such advice when the public is in a frenzy, which can also be regarded as a loyalty and filial piety for the country of South Korea.
But that's the crux of the matter – Professor Jung can only write articles and shout out loud, and the only one who really has the power to change this fanatical anomaly is the Moon Jae-in government, but the Moon Jae-in government has nothing to do about it:
Moon Jae-in's government is a democratically elected government, and if Moon dares to go against the people's sentiments, then only Moon jae-in himself must die;
Just as March 9, south Korea's general election will be held as scheduled, and the Moon Jae-in government has less than four weeks left in power, and there is no need for Moon Jae-in to kill at such a time, and even if he wants to, it is doomed to have no effect – this will only allow opposition candidates to find more upper positions;
South Korea is ultimately a small geopolitical country that must rely on the United States to survive, and the Moon jae-in government is offending the nationalist sentiments of South Korean society at the same time as the U.S. government.
Moon Jae-in government
The moon jae-in government is in such a dilemma today, so we see such a magical scene:
On February 12, two days before Professor Cheng Jin-ho published this article, the Moon Jae-in administration sent Foreign Minister Zheng Yirong to Honolulu, the United States, to hold a tripartite foreign ministers' meeting with US Secretary of State Blinken and Japanese Foreign Secretary Lin Fangzheng to jointly issue a joint Taiwan-related statement and falsely oppose China's armed reunification.
On February 16, Moon himself was interviewed by Xinhua News Agency, declaring that South Korea and China should continue to develop a future-oriented strategic cooperative partnership.
Pretending not to see the anti-China sentiment in South Korean society and walking a tightrope between China and the United States is the best choice that the outgoing Moon Jae-in government can give.
But can we really blame the Moon jae-in administration for its unwillingness to contribute to China-South Korea relations? Moon Jae-in's helplessness between China and the United States is precisely the greatest tragedy of the Korean nation.