In the past few years, several countries in the Asia-Pacific region have gone farther and farther on the road of "anti-China" in order to win the favor of the United States, and South Korea is one of the representatives.
According to South Korean media reports, South Korea is not included in the list of participating countries at the upcoming G7 summit in Italy. This is undoubtedly a bolt from the blue for South Korea.
The G7, also known as the G7, member states include the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other major Western countries, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the core circle of the Western world, the South Korean government has been bent on joining this circle in the past two years, and in order to curry favor with the United States and Japan, the two member states, South Korea has held high the banner of "anti-China" and has done a lot of things of "killing 800 enemies and losing 1000 to itself", the most representative of which is South Korea's semiconductor sanctions against China.
In the context of the deepening game between China and the United States, the first thing Biden did after taking office was to strengthen the sanctions against China during the Trump era, from a simple trade war to a technology war and a financial war. The imposition of sanctions on Chinese semiconductors is one of the most critical measures. However, there is a big flaw in this measure, that is, it is difficult for the United States alone to blockade China's entire industrial chain, because Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands are all important links in the industrial chain.
South Korea obviously discovered this, and regarded this as a political "vote", and responded to the US sanctions on Chinese semiconductors as soon as possible. The final result is that the semiconductor industry, which is one of the pillars of South Korea's economy, has nearly halved its revenue, and its withdrawal from the market gap left by China has stimulated the development and progress of local enterprises in the mainland. It is conservative to say that "800 enemies are killed, 1000 self-losses" are conservative, and the impact of South Korea's semiconductor withdrawal from China is almost minimal, but South Korea has paid a heavy price.
However, this is only one of the evil consequences of South Korea's all-round "anti-China" policy, and the political impact on South Korea caused by the unilateral foreign policy of the United States and Japan is even more fatal. It is said that Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the G7, has invited not only all G7 member countries, but also India, Brazil, Argentina, and even Algeria and other African countries.
In other words, in fact, South Korea has personally lost its biggest bargaining chip, that is, with its own special geographical advantages, it maintains good diplomatic relations with China, and even Pyongyang is about to leave, and poses a wavering posture geographically, so that Western countries led by the United States have to give South Korea a certain degree of autonomy, and even have to take out their own interests to win over South Korea.
In fact, many countries are well aware of this truth and have put it into practice, and Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico are all among the best. Even Japan, which is also doing things under the hands of the United States, will also take advantage of the United States' inattention to show goodwill to China, although we all know that it is pretending, but the Yoon Suk-yeol government, both openly and covertly, regards China as an opponent, and this Japan's approach looks a bit stupid when compared with this.
Many South Koreans understand this, and the South Korean opposition party has also put forward opinions, but it is too late, and at the moment when the game between China and the United States is deepening, the huge inertia brought about by the great power competition has made South Korea lose the opportunity to adjust its policy. South Korea, which was shut out, is actually already a loser.