China and South Korea Are Growing Cozier. Should the U.S. Be Worried?

[LeveragedBuyout]

I debated whether to post this in the China & Far East section or here, but since this is written from a US perspective, might as well post it here. I'll say upfront that this is clever foreign-policy maneuvering by China, and will see China advance its aims. Threatening its neighbors will only see harder push-back.

China and South Korea Are Growing Cozier. Should the U.S. Be Worried? - China Real Time Report - WSJ

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• July 9, 2014, 4:24 PM HKT

China and South Korea Are Growing Cozier. Should the U.S. Be Worried?

Presidents Park Geun-hye, left, and Xi Jinping met in Seoul last week.
Associated Press
If you were China’s president and wanted to weaken America’s dominance in Asia, what would you do? You might start by disrupting its network of allies — as many foreign policy analysts believe Beijing is now doing, particularly in Seoul. As the WSJ’s Andrew Browne reports:

President Xi Jinping has hit it off remarkably well with his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye, perhaps better than with any other regional leader. They’ve met five times since Mr. Xi took office early last year, most recently in Seoul last week.

The warmth in their personal relationship—Ms. Park chats fluently in Chinese—reflects much broader popular enthusiasm. South Korean historical TV dramas play to huge audiences in China. Among the fans is the country’s top anticorruption official, Wang Qishan, who believes the shows promote the kind of social virtues needed in China today. “He thinks Korea has done a much better job than China at integrating its traditional culture into modern society,” says one top-ranking Chinese official.

Increasingly, the two countries are joined by common interests. Both governments despise Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and what they see as his efforts to whitewash Japan’s World War II aggression.

Their economies are deeply entwined through trade and investment. South Korean students flock to Chinese language colleges. Samsung makes the hottest selling smartphones in China. Yet, when it comes to vital questions of security, particularly how to handle North Korea’s nuclear threat, their burgeoning friendship soon hits a buffer.

…

Despite the magnetic appeal of its economy, China has very few strategic partners in the region. North Korea is one of them.

That’s partly because Beijing’s growing military power and intentions trigger widespread distrust, even among South Koreans.

 

[Edison Chen]

Yes, have to admit, China is being marginalized by surrounding countries, like Vietnam, Japan or Phillipines, in the future, they will probably come together to counter China's growing outreach. So, around this time, China should capitalize on the trade and culture relations with South Korea. In the past, China's diplomatic policy is based on "communist" ideologies, so we made allies with North Korea. But now, people are not that obstinate any more, common interest is the most solid or firm way to tie people together, ideology can't maintain a longer relation, but interest can.

In my current city Shenzhen, there are more than 3,000 Korean companies and 20,000 Korean permanent residents, this is only a city in South China, a very small number. In North China cities, like Qingdao and Dalian, there are more than 100,000 South Koreans in each city. In Beijing or Shanghai, more than 300,000 Koreans live there permanently. The total number of Koreans in China is 2.3 million. I'm afraid most of them don't want any war between both countries.

But we still have distrust, of course we do, mostly due to the US's military presence and deep worry about China's economy invasion. But China is working on it, trying to dilute the the possibilities of the form of anti China alliance. I see many comments online, many people, not only Europeans and Americans, but also South East Asians, are not happy to see China and South Korea to get closer.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Personally, I'm not concerned. I like China. I like Japan. I don't like South Korea very much, primarily due to repeated bad personal experience with Koreans but also sheer fatigue due to their anti-American attitude over the last 15 years. I would be happy for China to take over that headache.

A side question: why doesn't China spend more resources on lobbying in the US? Other countries advertise on TV, in the newspapers, and sign deals to promote their culture in our movies and TV shows. Many countries also have dedicated lobbying organizations to explain their viewpoint to our legislators, thus bypassing the State Department. I think China could achieve a lot of success over a decade of sustained lobbying in swaying the American public, but it has shown no interest in doing so. Why do you think that is?

We would do it in China, I'm sure, but given the state restriction of media and NGOs in China, there is no equivalent for us to take advantage of.

 

[Edison Chen]

Personally, I'm not concerned. I like China. I like Japan. I don't like South Korea very much, primarily due to repeated bad personal experience with Koreans but also sheer fatigue due to their anti-American attitude over the last 15 years. I would be happy for China to take over that headache.

A side question: why doesn't China spend more resources on lobbying in the US? Other countries advertise on TV, in the newspapers, and sign deals to promote their culture in our movies and TV shows. Many countries also have dedicated lobbying organizations to explain their viewpoint to our legislators, thus bypassing the State Department. I think China could achieve a lot of success over a decade of sustained lobbying in swaying the American public, but it has shown no interest in doing so. Why do you think that is?

We would do it in China, I'm sure, but given the state restriction of media and NGOs in China, there is no equivalent for us to take advantage of.

I appreciate your kindness. As for the Korean's attitude, I think the are more pro US, just like Japan. They hate Japanese more than Chinese, but they never hate the US, maybe a little bit dislike, and maybe some nationalist Koreans do. Although South Korea is a country with small territory and scarce resources, the people have very high self-esteem but sometimes they even feel self-abasement, seems like a very paradoxical mentality. Through the long history, they were sandwiched by big countries, like China, Japan and even the Russia. Korea had been China's vassal state for hundreds of years. Japan invaded Korea in 16th century, China and Korea together defeated Japan. In early 20th century, Japan again invaded Korea and this time, Korea was stomped totally and even lost their sovereignty to Japan. So, if Korea wants to survive, it has to play balance game between big countries, they can never rely on one side too much, they turn standpoint very fast. They rely on China for huge trade surplus, and meanwhile, they beg the US for security.

Last time I went to the NYC, I saw China's advertisement on big screens of Times Square. Of course, this is good chance and best place to show China's image and culture. Maybe every year, we made such short films on times square, because I saw different version of it. It takes time for China's image to look better, lobbying is just one measure. If China produce Hollywood level movie and Japanese level cartoon, we don't even need lobbying. The point is, China's economy is growing, the soft power is under developed.

This is China's national image publicity film.