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Chinese President Xi Jinping
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Favorable relations with Tokyo would be advantage in Beijing’s hegemonic struggle with Washington
The dispute that has created upheaval in South Korea-Japan relations serves the strategic interests of China, numerous experts say. The dispute opens up a fissure in the American strategy of containing China through trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan. “Since stronger security cooperation among South Korea, the US, and Japan is a strategic blow to China, China regards the recent spat between South Korea and Japan as a positive development. The reason that China has strengthened military cooperation with Russia and joined Russia on an incursion into South Korean air space over the island of Dokdo, a sensitive area for both South Korea and Japan, is in order to maximize its interests amid deteriorating relations between South Korea and Japan,” said Kim Han-kwon, a professor at the Korean National Diplomatic Academy. South Korea and China once worked together in every historical dispute over Japan’s colonial rule and wars of aggression, but there is no evidence of such cooperation this time around. Considering that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has hit South Korea with methods developed by US President Donald Trump in his attack on China, including tariff hikes and export controls targeted at Huawei, South Korea and China could plausibly stand together under the slogan of defending free trade, but there are few indications that they will. China concentrating on conflict with US, and don’t want another front “Because China is concentrating on its conflict with the US, it doesn’t want to open up a new front. China has concluded that Japan’s attack on Korea isn’t unilateral but has some degree of tacit approval from the US. If the US is behind Japan’s action, China fears, getting involved might aggravate its dispute with the US,” said Yang Gap-yong, head of research at the Institute for National Security Strategy. While the US might appear to have gained the advantage against China on a global level by pressuring it on all fronts, not only in the trade war but also with its financial and technological hegemony, China has been steadily accruing influence in East Asia. It has been cobbling together a motley coalition amid its escalating conflict with the US, moving to improve relations with Japan; cooperating with Russia, a potential strategic ally; and even strengthening relations with North Korea. In these circumstances, the Chinese government is pushing to arrange a trilateral meeting with the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan on Aug. 21 as a way to show off its mediating chops as a regional power in the South Korea-Japan dispute. In reality, though, it doesn’t seem that motivated in pushing for their reconciliation. During a visit to Tokyo on Aug. 9, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Yucheng met Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono. “As the world’s second and third largest economies, China and Japan must strengthen their cooperation and make a joint response to challenges,” Le said in a meeting that stressed bilateral cooperation. China appears to have concluded that improving relations with Japan best serves its interests during a showdown with the US. China currently focusing on Hong Kong protests As the hegemonic struggle between the US and China expands in all directions, China is focusing its response on the Hong Kong protests, which it regards as the front line of that struggle. Chinese authorities and the state-run press have launched a massive propaganda campaign that portrays the Hong Kong protesters as violent rioters and hammers home China’s allegation that the US instigated the protests. The apparent view in the US is that the prolongation and intensification of the Hong Kong protests will boost support for Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who tends to oppose closer ties with Beijing. That could work against China in Taiwan’s next presidential election, which is scheduled for January 2020. South Korea’s relations with China have yet to recover from their dispute over the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system, and they’re likely to be damaged even further if South Korea agrees to join freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, participate in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, or host US intermediate-range missiles -- all things that the US is currently requesting or is likely to request in the future. On top of that, the Hong Kong protests and the internment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang could become contentious points in South Korea-China relations. By Park Min-hee, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr] Caption: Chinese President Xi Jinping
