After nearly two weeks of discussions, the date of the ROK Foreign Minister's visit to China has finally been set, and on the 13th and 14th of this month, ROK Foreign Minister Cho Dui-yeol will visit China and meet with mainland Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
[South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Doi-yeol will visit China]
It is worth mentioning that on the eve of announcing the schedule of Cho Tae-yeol's visit to China, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol apologized to the people at a press conference on the second anniversary of his inauguration for his wife Kim Keon-hee's acceptance of brand-name bags. You must know that since Yoon Suk-yeol came to power, various scandals related to Kim Keon-hee have been exposed one after another, such as paper plagiarism, resume fraud, and manipulation of car stock prices, etc., but Yoon Suk-yeol has never apologized.
Therefore, Yoon Suk-yeol's move was really surprising, and even the South Korean presidential office did not expect it, revealing to the media later that day that this was a speech made by Yoon Suk-yeol on the spot without prior discussion with his staff, and they did not expect the president to apologize, and the word "apology" was not included in the speech prepared in advance, at most it meant "regret".
Before explaining why Yoon Suk-yeol did this, let's summarize the cause and effect of the incident. According to Korean media reports, in September 2022, Kim Jianxi accepted a Dior bag from Choi Jae-young, a Korean pastor in the United States, as a bribe, with a market value of 3 million won, that is, about 16,000 yuan. The South Korean people and opposition parties believed that the matter was suspected of serious corruption and called on the Yoon Suk-yeol government to immediately investigate and give a reasonable explanation, but they have not been able to get a response.
[Kim Jianxi's bribery scandal exposed]
It wasn't until more than two months later that Yoon Suk-yeol responded positively, saying that the matter was a "political trap" carefully planned by the opposition party in order to seek political rights, and because his wife was not "ruthless" enough, she fell into the trap of the other party. Thereafter, the President's special powers were used to prohibit the prosecution from conducting further investigations into the matter.
However, the parliamentary election held some time ago broke the "protective cover" of Yoon Suk-yeol, and the ruling party won fewer parliamentary seats than Lee Jae-myung's opposition party, which means that Yoon Suk-yeol's power will be restricted to a large extent.
Late last month, Yoon Suk-yeol and Lee Jae-myung held their first meeting since becoming president, and the meeting lasted 135 minutes, and the two sides ended on an unhappy note, and shortly after that, news broke that Kim Keon-hee was being investigated by prosecutors. This also means that the opposition party's "political offensive" against Yoon Suk-yeol has made some progress, and at this time, Yoon Suk-yeol took the initiative to apologize, which is equivalent to a kind of "political self-help" behavior.
But just an apology obviously can't save Yoon Suk-yeol's political premise, and under this premise, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tei-yeol's visit to China is undoubtedly with a mission:
[Yoon Suk-yeol apologizes to the South Korean people]
First of all, the first task is to promote the holding of the trilateral summit between China, Japan and the ROK. Recently, the ROK has been vigorously promoting the formation of the US-ROK alliance, pointing the spearhead at China and constantly making a fuss about the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, thus building itself into an "anti-China vanguard", causing China-ROK relations to fall into a trough.
After all, the successful holding of the summit means that the relations between China and South Korea can also improve. In order to seize this opportunity, the ROK must show more sincerity and concrete actions to create a more favorable political and social atmosphere for bilateral dialogues and ensure that the summit achieves its desired goals. The main reason for Zhao Duilie's visit is this.
Second, on supply chain issues, South Korea also needs China's help. At present, South Korea's economy is clearly weak, and the development of important pillars of its economy, such as semiconductors, automobiles and shipbuilding, has lagged. A further problem is that South Korea has followed in the footsteps of the United States and reduced its exports to China, which has made it difficult for many Korean companies to sell their products in the Chinese market, which has undoubtedly added to the problem for South Korean companies.
[Former U.S. Defense Official Says South Korea Needs Self-Defense]
According to South Korean media reports, South Korea plans to invest about $7 billion in the near future to help South Korea's electric vehicle battery supply chain reduce its "dependence" on China. However, with China's current in-depth involvement in the lithium battery supply chain, South Korea's 7 billion is very likely to be lost, and the South Korean Foreign Minister's visit to China does not rule out the hope of reaching cooperation with China in other aspects to avoid being completely kicked out of the Chinese market.
Third, South Korea also urgently needs China's help on the North Korean nuclear issue. The tension of the situation on the peninsula is obvious to all, and it has almost reached a state of imminent eruption, and what worries the South Korean side is that the United States seems to have the intention of backing down, and a former senior official of the US Department of Defense said that on the issue of dealing with the DPRK, the ROK needs to defend itself, and the United States should concentrate on dealing with China, the "heavyweight boxer". The implication is that once the inter-Korean conflict breaks out, don't expect the United States to help. In this case, South Korea turned to China and asked China to help cool down the Korean Peninsula issue and ease tensions between the two Koreas, which is equivalent to leaving a way back for itself.
Geopolitically, China is not resistant to repairing relations with South Korea, because the two countries are neighbors that cannot be moved away, and there is no fundamental conflict of interest, and maintaining friendly relations is beneficial to both sides and can maintain stability and peace in East Asia. However, improving relations is not something that can be achieved by visiting China and paying lip service, and these "tasks" that the ROK wants to accomplish are based on the friendly relations between the two countries. If the foundation is not laid, it is in a hurry to ask China for help, and the Yoon Suk-yeol government's desire to "break the situation and turn over" is obviously a pipe dream.