Stop reading China and Russia’s face

We could find ourselves isolated if we sit on the fence or play solo.

Chang Duk-jin

The author is a professor of sociology at Seoul National University and a steering committee member of the JoongAng Ilbo’s Reset Korea Campaign.

The khan, or emperor, asked his commander what the spectacle was all about. It was the king of Joseon (Korea) bowing towards the Ming court when the rising Qing invaded Joseon in 1636. With all his army around him, the khan looked down from a mountaintop at the Namhan Mountain Fortress in which the Joseon king and his vassals held a ritual to pay respects to the falling Ming Dynasty even while they were taking refuge in the enclosed fortress to defend against the Qing invaders. The commander asked the khan if they should kill them by firing the canons. “Let them be, I want to meet them alive,” said the khan. He waited until the ritual ended. As the Joseon king bowed towards Beijing one last time, members of his court bowed after him (excerpt from Kim Hoon’s novel “Namhan Mountain Fortress”).

King Injo’s humiliation 400 years ago Even encircled by the Qing army, King Injo of Joseon hiding behind the fortress in southern Seoul paid his respect to the declining Ming Dynasty. He was not aware that the Qing ruler showed mercy and kept him alive. His ignorance cost the humiliation of having to bow with his head on the ground nine times in a show of servitude to the khan and build a monument to honor the virtues of the Manchu emperor at Samjeondo in Seoul after he surrendered a few days later.

In 1987, more than three centuries after the Qing Invasion of 1636, University of Chicago history professor Bruce Cummings wrote in his paper “The Northeast Asian Political Economy Under Two Hegemonies” that Korea, Taiwan, and some other states in Northeast Asia were able to rapidly ascend in the global economy by riding on “the commodity cycle” of the two hegemony system — Japan-led colonialism until 1945 and the U.S. hegemony afterwards.

In this context, Korea cannot take credit for the Han River Miracle, as Korea’s successful industrialization and modernization owed much to Japanese imperialism and U.S. hegemony.

Leaders of NATO members and partners and their spouses pose before the summit at the presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 11. [PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE]

Korea, the weakest link among democracies Thirty-five years later in 2022, Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, offered sober advice to Seoul.

He pointed out that South Korea is the tenth largest economy in the world and tenth largest in defense spending. It wields significant industrial power with global corporate brands like Samsung and Hyundai and strong soft power with cultural icons like K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink, as well as award-winning dramas like Squid Game and Parasite. “Yet despite South Korea’s sizeable cache of hard and soft power combined with global ambitions, its neighbors have viewed the country as missing in action in the Indo-Pacific.” He noted that several analysts described Korea as the “weakest link” among democratic partners, and in danger of becoming a “second-tier ally” should it continue to distance itself from the Indo-Pacific initiative. He argues that Korea must overcome its strategic ambiguity if it really wants to become a major player in Indo-Pacific.

Korea has been confined to the Korean Peninsula, or at most East Asia, for 400 years since the Qing invasion. The history of timidity might actually go back many more centuries. Is it due to the country’s geopolitical feature of being squeezed among global powers or to the division with North Korea? Confinement to Northeast Asia makes Korea a dependent variable in international politics.

Japan presents the Indo-Pacific Initiative The international political landscape is swept up in another seismic change. The new Cold War does not just concern the U.S. and China. The contest is not restricted to the security and military realm, either. Russia, China, and North Korea are cozying up more than before, and the U.S. is mustering allies across the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic regions. The Cold War is repeating all over again. The battlegrounds have spread beyond the security realm to build economic and technology blocs.

Do we wish to remain as a dependent variable during the period when a new global order is being redrawn? We must stop blaming our conundrum to our geopolitical fate and national division. Japan, which once had not been rightfully recognized on the international stage, is now regarded as the sole Asian country equal to Western countries after 30 years of rigorous efforts. It was former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe who created — and proposed to the U.S. — the very concept of the Indo-Pacific networking, now commonly used internationally. But South Korea is yet to be seen as a major player on the Indo-Pacific stage.

Our approach to international affairs has been revealed when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a virtual address to the Korean legislature in April last year. The online address was attended by just 60 out of 300 lawmakers as if it had been of little importance to them. Zelensky had given his virtual address to 23 countries, and received standing ovations from their lawmakers fully occupying their legislature in appreciation of his courage to fight against Goliath Russia. Could a country indifferent to the misfortunes of another be accepted as a major player on the international stage? Korea must associate with the war in Ukraine more than other countries, as many experts expect Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula to be the next epicenters of a military conflict.

NATO emerges more powerful amid the Ukraine war The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit earlier this month in Lithuania underscored the link between traditional West-led NATO members and Asia-Pacific partners called AP4 — Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea — as a linchpin to global and regional security to address the immediate crisis from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the longer-term challenges of containing China and North Korea. The waning identity and role of NATO was empowered by the war in Ukraine. The U.S. plays the central role of connecting the three continents — North America, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific. Even as its rank as the sole superpower has been watered down, it has become critical for like-minded countries to team up with the U.S.-led alliance. Sweden, a traditional neutral state, has joined NATO. The photo of an enlarged NATO family and the AP4 leaders holding hands vividly mirrors the changes of the time.

Whether we may become too dependent on the U.S.-led order should not be an issue. As the global axis evolves around the U.S. and China, we must keep up our horizontal and multilateral relationships with Europe, Asean, India, and others on the U.S.-led front to have leverage over the U.S. We could find ourselves isolated if we sit on the fence or play solo. The concerns about turning Beijing and Moscow against us must not disturb Seoul’s proactive global strategy.

Future of China and Russia hard to predict It is difficult to predict how China would change in the third term of Xi Jinping. While Seoul helplessly waited for Beijing to dissuade North Korea from pushing its nuclear ambition, Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities have rapidly advanced. Russian President Vladimir Putin even implied the use of nuclear weapons on the day he ordered an invasion to Ukraine and stationed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine. When Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries roamed northward toward the Kremlin, Washington ironically worried about Putin’s security.

The U.S. can hope for a minimum of rationality if nuclear weapons are under Putin’s control. But if he is suddenly pushed out of power, it cannot be known into whose hands nuclear weapons can fall. It is utterly naïve to think that China or Russia will consider Korea their friend just because Korea gives up its aggressive global strategy.

Economic gains also should be taken into account. Korea’s defense industry — currently ranked sixth to seventh in global scale and backed by reliable and speedy manufacturing capacity and compatibility with U.S. weaponry — is expected to achieve an export milestone of $20 billion this year, which would be 120 times bigger than two decades ago. The global market is getting bigger following the Ukraine war. Members of NATO are moving fast to meet defense spending of 2 percent of their GDP, bolstering the global defense market.

Join the global order with boldness and prudence The U.S. supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine has raised ethical issues over earning money through weapons of mass destructions. But if arms production cannot be stopped, it must be contained under international rules.

If Prof. Cummings’ diagnosis is correct, South Korea may have been extremely lucky so far, as it would mean that the international order in which Korea had no say has worked favorably for the country. While a new order is in the making, Korea now stands on an international rank to have a say in the process. Korea must act boldly — and prudently — as the country’s fate is at stake. We must open a world map and discuss our global strategy.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.