China wins its war against South Korea’s US THAAD missile shield – without firing a shot
Seoul signs up to military constraints in return for Beijing lifting economic sanctions, setting a worrying precedent for China’s regional rivals
Beyond THAAD: the real reason why China is angry with South Korea
Beijing, which claims the system’s radar can be used by the United States to spy on China, retaliated against the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system with unofficial sanctions against the South. Seoul has now agreed to accept military constraints in return for the lifting of those sanctions, creating a worrying precedent for Beijing’s rivals in the region.
Economically, after being suffocated for 16 months by China’s “doghouse diplomacy”, many South Korean businesses were left gasping for air. Hyundai’s sales in China dropped 64 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 from a year before, Lotte’s supermarket sales in China fell 95 per cent over the same period and Chinese tour groups to South Korea were banned outright, which alone led to an estimated revenue loss of US$15.6 billion this year, according to Hyundai Research Institute.
Seoul wants THAAD, but do Koreans?
Politically, a better strategy might have been playing both ends against the middle by fostering better ties with Japan and the US but this would have alienated Moon from his base and may not even be something he wants at the moment.
“Moon Jae-in is on the political left, which tends to believe ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, so they dislike Japan and feel closer to China for historical and political reasons,” said Joseph E. Yi, associate professor of political science and international studies at Hanyang University. “The left-wing in Korea is very anti-Japan and has a post-colonial outlook, seeing China and Korea as opponents of Japanese colonialism.”
WATCH: South Korea’s Moon takes presidency of divided country
It all depends, Yi said, on how one views the past. If Koreans view themselves and Chinese as victims of Japanese oppression, they will be more likely to sympathise with China. But, he noted, the problem with this perspective is that Japan today is not the country it was 60 or 70 years ago – neither is China.
As such, Korea and Japan are arguably better allies, according to the political philosophy of liberalism, which suggests liberal democracies should ally against non-liberal states because whatever their differences, their goals ultimately overlap.
China’s economic retaliation is an example of this, since it constitutes a violation of its free trade agreement with Korea, whereas Japan, which also has a free trade agreement with Korea, has honoured its part of the deal.
But liberalism is the philosophy of Korea’s political right, while its political left is defined by social constructivism, or the theory that decisions and knowledge are based not on liberal like-mindedness or realpolitik, but on certain narratives.
Comfort women is the euphemism given to the tens of thousands of Korean women forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese brothels during the second world war; Dokdo shrimp are caught in waters around islets at the centre of a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan – Tokyo lodged a protest about both issues after the Trump visit.
Dear Trump, North Korea tortured me but please don’t attack it
“[Moon is] focused on redemption against the past,” Yi said. “He wants the Japanese prime minister to apologise, and I think this kind of focus on the past shapes politics in an unhealthy way.
“The ‘three nos’ creates a precedent that links economics to political and national security. Korea would never do that if it was any other country, like Vietnam or Japan, but they’re doing it for China because the only other way is to ally with Japan and that’s not an option for the left.”
Xi opened the congress with a speech that lasted more than three hours, in which he said China had entered a “new period” and must now “take centre-stage in the world”. Emmerson said this language suggested that while Beijing’s expansionist ambitions might not extend to Europe, “China wants dominance in its immediate periphery”.
“China was furious,” Emmerson said. “They denounced the Philippines and punished it economically, kind of an equivalent to what happened to Lotte in [China] after the THAAD incident in South Korea. The idea is to do economic damage until the state in question behaves properly, according to Beijing.” ■