MONTEREY, California - Chinese President Hu Jintao's two-day visit to South
Korea last week served to further consolidate a "strategic cooperative
partnership" that the leaders of the two countries announced during President
Lee Myung-bak's trip to China in May.
Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1992, China-South Korea relations
have experienced tremendous progress in political, security, economic and
social fields and have become today one of the key relationships in the region.
Hu's visit is expected to further promote bilateral ties and develop mechanisms
for managing their differences.
Beijing and Seoul have maintained close contacts through summit
meetings and high-level visits. Hu and Lee have already met four times and
exchanged state visits this year. During Hu's visit, it was announced that the
two sides will soon launch the first high-level strategic dialogue between
their foreign ministries to exchanges views on a host of issues of mutual
interests.
The North Korean nuclear issue is at a critical juncture. Through concerted
efforts by all parties to the six-party talks, much progress has been made in
the past few months toward disablement of North Korea's nuclear program,
including the handover of documents by Pyongyang and the destruction of the
cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear complex. But much more work remains to be
done, especially with regard to full declaration of nuclear activities by North
Korea and verification issues.
The recent suspension of disablement of its nuclear facilities by the North, in
protest against Washington's failure to remove Pyongyang from the US State
Department list of countries sponsoring terrorist activities, points to the
difficulties ahead in the long process of peninsular de-nuclearization.
Clearly, both countries have great stakes in the eventual resolution of the
nuclear issue so that the peace and stability on the peninsula and in the
region can be safeguarded.
Beijing and Seoul have also committed themselves to further developing and
strengthening ties between their militaries. Of all the ties between the two
countries, defense contacts remain the least developed. A proposal for a
military-to-military hotline has been put forward but has yet to be implemented
due to differences on specifics. The summit could inject some momentum to
expand defense ties, which in turn could be a good indicator of the degree of
mutual trust and confidence between the two countries.
Perhaps the most promising area in bilateral relations is the continued growth
in trade and other economic ties. At US$145 billion last year, China-South
Korea trade is already sizable and places China as South Korea's largest
trading partner. The 2010 target of $200 billion in annual bilateral trade
volume is ambitious but obtainable given the dynamics in both the Chinese and
Korean economies.
There are many areas in which the countries could expand and widen economic
cooperation, including nuclear energy, electronics and telecommunication, as
well as manufacturing. China remains the largest source of trade surplus for
South Korea and that may explain why it is the destination of Korean
investments.
People-to-people contacts continue to grow, with over 6 million visitors in
two-way traffic and over 1,000 direct flights weekly connecting many cities
between the countries. Over 65,000 Korean students study in China and 34,000
Chinese students attend Korean universities. The two governments have
designated 2010 and 2012 respectively as a China Visit Year and a South Korea
Visit Year to coincide with the Shanghai World Expo and the Yeosu World Expo.
Despite the generally positive trends in the bilateral relationship in recent
years, there are emerging as well as unresolved issues that require Beijing's
and Seoul's attention. Nationalism, territorial disputes, the North Korean
refugee issue and regional security arrangements could cast a shadow if not
derail bilateral relations.
Nationalism is on the rise in both countries. This is particularly the case
with the young generation and in Internet chat rooms. While history plays a
complicating role, the two countries' similar paths in identity and
nation-building make both sensitive to sovereignty, territorial integrity and
national pride. The controversy over the Koguryo history issue a few years ago
and the recent Olympic torch relay in South Korea have touched off public
uproar and negative media publicity.
China's handling of the North Korean refugee issue, a particularly nagging
situation beyond Beijing's control, specifically with regard to what Seoul
considers as forced repatriation, causes deep resentment in South Korea and
leads to protests.
The countries also harbor differences over long-term regional security
arrangements. Lee has emphasized renewed efforts to repair and strengthen
Seoul-Washington ties by promoting a "US-ROK [Republic of Korea] strategic
alliance in the 21st century". At the same time, a Chinese official's reference
to the alliance as "a historic relic ... left over from the past Cold War era"
understandably is controversial and was not well received in Seoul. Beijing is
concerned with the strengthened US-Japan-Korea alliance; especially should it
translate into greater military interoperability among the three.
The recent visit to Pyongyang by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, a likely
successor to Hu Jintao, suggests Beijing continues to value its ties with North
Korea, notwithstanding the trouble its wayward ally has caused it, for
strategic reasons. However, as much as Beijing values de-nuclearization of the
Korean Peninsular, it is not prepared to achieve such a goal at the cost of
instability and regime collapse in the North.
Indeed, China has become, by default, North Korea's largest trading partner and
source of investments. During Xi's stay in Pyongyang, he met "Dear Leader" Kim
Jong-il and the two countries announced plans to mark the 60th anniversary of
bilateral ties by declaring 2009 as "China-North Korea Friendship Year".
Given China's continued rise as a global power and its growing influence in the
region, a stable Sino-Korean relationship provides opportunities for Seoul to
engage its powerful neighbor on regional security issues as well as benefit
from the latter's economic dynamics. Improving Sino-US and Sino-Japanese ties
have made it possible to implement a strategic cooperative partnership between
China and South Korea not only in promoting areas of mutual interests but also
in effectively managing where they have differences and disputes to avoid and
minimize conflicts.
Dr Jing-dong Yuan is director of East Asia Non-proliferation Program at
the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies and associate professor
of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International
Studies.
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