Tokyo fancies trilateral alliance with change of Korean leader

South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol shares three common things with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — conservative leaning, hostility toward North Korea, and a hate-China outlook. This means a possible Fumio-Yoon-Biden security cooperation is already a cause of concern for Beijing.

Not surprisingly, media headlines in China have been calling Yoon South Korea’s “Trump.” We don’t know if Trump will return to the White House in 2024 to haunt the Chinese.

What we do know is the political elite in Beijing is already fearful that the conservative new president-elect of South Korea may take a Trumpian “whole-of-government” anti-China hardline approach toward the “mighty” communist neighbor.

An even bigger concern in Beijing’s strategic affairs community is Japan suddenly looking very hopeful of a “pro-Tokyo” government in Seoul under the new right-wing, conservative president. What threatens to upset Beijing’s game-plan is if Tokyo and Seoul come together and join Washington to form a U.S.-Japan-South Korea security architecture in East Asia.

President Xi Jinping promptly congratulating Yoon, or Yin Xiyue, on becoming South Korea’s new president was a usual diplomatic protocol the People’s Republic of China adheres to. Though Xi was hours behind both U.S. President Joe Biden and Kishida in greeting Yoon.

In contrast, notwithstanding Biden’s unscheduled phone call to Yoon within five hours of the latter being declared elected, what has raised eyebrows in Beijing is a “long” 15-minute telephone conversation the next day between Kishida and the new South Korean leader. According to a recent Chinese commentary, following the announcement of the March 9 South Korean election result, Japan’s newly formed Kishida government has been quite conspicuous in not hiding a big sigh of relief.

“Japan’s approach to the matter is to be cautiously ‘happy.’ ‘Happy’ because President Moon Jae-in, who is “anti-Japanese” in Japanese public opinion, has stepped down, and the candidate of his party has not been elected,” the article stated.

Earlier on, what was observed as rather unusual for Beijing was several “unfriendly” media commentaries popping up within hours of Yoon’s victory. Some of the headlines which “greeted” the 61-year old conservative Korean leader include “South Korea’s new president may take a hardline stance on China.”

“What does one make of the new South Korean leader? How will the situation evolve now in East Asia?” “South Korea elects pro-Washington president — international capital’s one more erroneous step,” and “Campaign rhetoric may not hint South Korea’s future China policy,” etc.

Interestingly, weeks before the South Korean presidential election result was declared, China’s Seoul watchers had started drawing up strategies for Beijing to deal with the conservative People Power Party (PPP) — South Korea’s largest opposition party — and its populist leader, but new to the country’s political arena.

Experts in China also broadly agreed on the following points: one, Yoon, the country’s top graft buster who was appointed prosecutor-general in 2019 by none other than the outgoing president, is clearly a “pro-U.S., anti-China” leader; two, Yoon advocates an aggressive attitude in many China-related issues, for example, throughout his campaign he severely criticized Moon’s promises of the three “No’s,” — no additional THAAD deployments, no participation in U.S.led global missile shields, and no creation of a trilateral military alliance involving Japan; and three, Yoon’s rising popularity during the past twothree years has much to do with him exploiting the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s (DPK) “pro-China” stance and playing to the gallery.

Arguably, it is the cultural factor in particular which is instrumental in the rise in anti-China sentiment, especially among young people in South Korea. According to a recent report, the wrong interpretation of Korean history and condescending approach to their culture by China are what has annoyed them, especially the young Koreans.

As in last October, widely influential Stanford University Korea Studies Program director, professor Gi-Wook Shin, had observed that China’s claim that Korean heritage such as traditional food (kimchi and samgyetang) and traditional Korean dress (hanbok) — all have “their roots in China.”

Also, in the words of Sejong University professor Lee Moonki, “Koreans believe our culture is unique and was never dependent on China, whereas China thinks Korea only has a culture thanks to China.”

Furthermore, what is most irritating to most Koreans is the Chinese claim that the ancient Korean kingdom of Gogureyo was part of Chinese history. Apparently, it is this arrogance and patronizing attitude of China which is pushing people in South Korea to shift away from China toward the United States.

To return to what China’s analysts and leaders think of Yoon, there are three broad noticeable trends in the official, semi-official, and leftist digital news platforms.

First, in the words of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Dong Xiaorong, Yoon was voted into power by a large majority of Korean voters in their 20s. On Yoon’s foreign policy, while the CASS scholar agreed with several others that Yoon “is pro-U.S.,” she did emphasize the president-elect maintained a neutral stance when he said “[I] would never like to be forced to have to choose between China and the United States.”

Second, China’s well-known and reported to be relatively independent, liberal financial daily Caixin did warn about the newly elected presidents’ tough approach toward Beijing.

Third, as was expected, a hardline nationalist, leftist digital news and current affairs platform was least charitable to president-elect Yoon, and said: “Yin Xiyue has just emerged from ‘electoral heat,’ as his first job, he is duty-bound to report to the White House.”

However, referring to the congratulatory message to Yoon by China’s foreign ministry which also mentioned “China and South Korea are neighbors who cannot be moved,” the hardline leftist website in an almost veiled warning said: We hope Yin Xiyue takes a pragmatic view of China-South Korea relations. [But] if he chooses to restart the THAAD system “frozen” by his predecessor, then the consequences are going to be very serious.”

Finally, most analysts and experts in China appear to be willing to give Yoon the benefit of the doubt and expect him not to disturb the Blue House’s current status quo position on China.

The president-elect will assume office in May; in these two months, as some Chinese commentators reckon, the new president will do well to set clear his foreign policy priorities, which may include the following: South Korea will not undermine economic cooperation relations with China; Seoul will not restart the deployment of THAAD; South Korea will not touch China’s red line on Taiwan; and last but not the least, South Korea will not join Quad+ or any anti-China military alliance in the region.

Let me conclude by citing what professor Lu Chao, director of the Institute of the U.S. and East Asian Studies, Liaoning University, wrote in his recent column just before the South Korean presidential election on March 9: “In the 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea, no president has been able to undermine the overall foundation of bilateral relations once taking office. Even if the PPP is in power, it will not make major readjustments in the China-South Korea partnership.”

Hemant Adlakha (haidemeng@gmail.com) is professor of Chinese at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is also vice chairperson and an honorary fellow, the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi. The views expressed in the above article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.