South Korea caught in the middle as China, US ‘whales’ face off
- Nation has a difficult balancing act as the two superpowers engage in increasingly hostile disputes in its backyard
- Seoul is hoping Xi Jinping’s state visit will improve ties, while questions have been raised over the future relationship with Washington
The country ranks in and around the global top 10 in gross domestic product and defence spending, said Kim Joon-hyung, chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA) in the capital Seoul.
“We are not small and weak, but [we are] surrounded by these four superpowers geopolitically and geographically,” said Kim in a November 20 webinar hosted by the US-based George Washington University Institute of Korean Studies.
Two of the biggest whales – the US and China – are now circling each other in Korea’s backyard in increasingly belligerent disputes over trade, political influence, and what Washington calls a threat to the rules-based world order from China’s Communist Party.
With South Korea home to US military firepower and troops, yet having China as its biggest trading partner, the nation has to find ways to negotiate survival in a world upended by a pandemic, an emboldened Beijing, and a new US administration coming into office. Not to mention the perennial threat from North Korea.