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South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has given China an idea of what the US pivot may look like. Photo: Reuters
Opinion
As I see it
by Shi Jiangtao
As I see it
by Shi Jiangtao

Gap between China, South Korea is widening as Seoul pivots to Washington

  • It couldn’t come at a worse time for Beijing, as it prepares for a major leadership reshuffle amid an economic slowdown and global pushback
  • Recent surveys have revealed the trust deficit between the two nations and suggest there could be difficult times ahead for the bilateral relationship
Eight weeks into the job, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has given Beijing an idea of what Seoul’s pivot to Washington may look like.
He has promised to join the United States to help preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and to step up a military alliance with the US and Japan. Last week he became the first South Korean leader to attend a Nato summit.
It could not come at a worse time for Beijing, as the leadership prepares for a major reshuffle while facing the worst economic slowdown in decades caused by its zero-Covid rules and global pushback against its pro-Russia stance and assertive foreign policy.
Recent surveys have meanwhile revealed the trust deficit between the two Asian neighbours and suggest there could be a rough patch ahead under Yoon, who narrowly won the March election riding a wave of rising anti-Chinese sentiment.
A poll by the US-based Pew Research Centre released last week found that favourable views of China had sunk to a record low in South Korea, one of the biggest declines across 19 countries surveyed. Just 19 per cent of respondents had a positive opinion of China when polled between February and June, compared to 38 per cent in a 2018 poll.

That was in line with the results of other recent surveys, including one by Korean magazine SisaIN and Hankook Research last year that found South Koreans viewed China more negatively than Japan for the first time in decades. The 1,000 South Koreans surveyed also overwhelmingly favoured Washington over Beijing.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (left) meets US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during the Nato summit in Madrid last week. Photo: AP

Academics have also been polled on their views of the relationship. Those in South Korea tended to have a more pessimistic outlook than those in China, according to a survey early this year by Sungkyunkwan University’s Sungkyun Institute of China Studies in Seoul.

Some 200 academics were asked to rate bilateral ties on a scale of 0 to 10 – the South Koreans put them at 4.66, while the Chinese score was 6.24, the Hankyoreh newspaper reported. Asked about the outlook for the next five years, the Chinese observers gave a more optimistic score of 7.02 compared to the South Koreans’ 4.92.

There was also a divergence of views on what has caused the decline in relations. The Chinese academics, largely toeing the official line, blamed “external factors, including international politics”, while the South Koreans pointed to “differences in historical and cultural perceptions” and “nationalistic conflict”.

Chinese envoy prods South Korea to rethink pro-US pivot

One Chinese expert who took part told me the results were not surprising in the wake of Beijing’s economic sanctions over Seoul’s deployment of the THAAD US anti-missile system in 2017. He said the gap between the two countries had widened even under Yoon’s China-friendly predecessor Moon Jae-in.

South Korean experts told me that Beijing’s aggressive diplomacy and its handling of Hong Kong have dealt perhaps the biggest blow to the country’s image in South Korea, especially among younger people who are most negative about China in the polls.

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