Say to Beijing what you have to say

We have to fix our strategic position amid the turbulence in the Indo-Pacific, and we have only just begun.

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

In March, Russia’s Ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, made remarks suggesting Moscow’s endorsement of Pyongyang’s belligerent responses to “provocative actions by the United States engrossed in conducting massive military drills frantically together with its allies.” The ambassador said, “Russia stands in the same trench with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” His statement translates into an unequivocal support for the North’s uninterrupted nuclear development and missile launches.

The pugnacious comment in January by Kim Yo-jong — the mighty sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — was in perfect parallel with what the Russian ambassador said. “The hegemony-aspiring policy of the U.S. and the West devoted to posing endless military threats and pressures has finally pushed Russia … to take a preemptive military action,” she said. At the time of defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she used the same rhetoric, “The DPRK will stand in the same trench side by side with the Russian army and people,” she said.

Last November, China and Russia conducted a large-scale joint military drill mobilizing their navy and air force. The two navies crossed the waters between the sensitive Taiwan Strait and Okinawa and carried out a joint exercise in the seas near the Yonaguni Island in the Nansei Archipelago. After Chinese and Russian strategic bombers penetrated the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (Kadiz), our fighter jets immediately took off to warn them.

On July 27, when the Korean War Armistice was signed at Panmunjom seven decades ago (North Korea calls it “Victory Day”), North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared on the podium of the military parade in Pyongyang with Li Hong-zhong, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to show off the North’s advanced drones and ICBMs.

Let’s go back to 2016. The deployment of the U.S. Thaad antimissile system in South Korea was aimed at countering potential missile provocations from North Korea. The inevitable difference of attitude between Seoul and Beijing about the Thaad missile deployment is readily comprehensible. While China was convinced of a U.S. strategy to check China with the Thaad missiles on the pretext of protecting the security of its ally, the deployment was actually a matter of survival for South Korea, which was — and still is — exposed to omnipresent missiles threats from North Korea.

Moreover, China reportedly deployed more than 1,000 missiles targeting South Korea. Under such volatile circumstances, Beijing’s persistent ban on Korean pop culture — and its apparent connivance with the Chinese pubic’s methodical boycott of Korean products — certainly went beyond the limits. As a result of the restrictions, South Korea suffered massive economic and cultural damage, not to mention a sudden freezing of friendly sentiments between the peoples of both countries.

North Korean missiles flying over their heads are nothing new for the Japanese. The debris of a ballistic missile fired from the North even fell into the waters off Hokkaido after its atmospheric reentry. In 2016, the North said it would launch a low earth orbit satellite, but the international community deemed it a test-firing of an ICBM. Tokyo strongly warned Pyongyang that it would intercept the missile, but the North Korean leader launched it regardless.

China told neighbors to “stay put so as not to worsen tensions on the Korean Peninsula.” But after a North Korean missile flew over the skies of Japan last October again, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had to issue an emergency evacuation order as Japan was not sure where the missile would fall. To Japan, North Korea has emerged as a real threat. In early 2021, North Korea unprecedentedly ratcheted up the level of threat by threatening a “preemptive nuclear attack” on enemies. In his New Year’s speech that year, then-President Moon Jae-in showed his signature gesture for peace to Kim Jong-un. “I am willing to talk with Chairman Kim even in a video conference,” he pleaded.

North Korea’s response came a few days later. Kim Yo-jong, the high-nosed sister, attacked the South Korean president in the utterly substandard rhetoric. “They are a tribe of unrivaled freaks and idiots who do not know what to do,” she said.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, answers questions from reporters in a joint press conference after their fist exclusive tripartite summit at Camp David on Aug. 18 with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minsiter Fumio Kishida.

The South Korea-U.S.-Japan summit at Camp David should be comprehended in such a dire context. Victor Cha — a professor of government at Georgetown University and former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) in the Bush administration — attributed the staging of the exclusive summit to a deepening sense of security crisis in the Asian theater from the ever-closer North Korea-China-Russia ties, as seen in their joint defense of one another’s aggression and provocation, not to mention their frequent infiltration of the Kadiz after their joint drills. If such recurrent belligerency is not a security threat, what is?

The Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Chinese government, blasted the tripartite summit as an attempt to create a mini NATO in Asia. But the agreements at the summit are not only “non-binding” — as they do not mandate automatic intervention at times of crisis — but also are different from the 31-member NATO. In other words, the trilateral security mechanism is just a consultative body similar to the Aukus — a security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) between Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

If you have to compare the tripartite security body to the NATO, you must first look at the structural difference in the cooperation system between Europe and Asia. While Europe has a multilateral security network in which all its members unite in times of crisis, Asia has separate bilateral networks based on security cooperation with the United States. For instance, South Korea is an ally to the United States, as is Japan, but there is a security vacuum between South Korea and Japan.

Over the past few years, Seoul-Tokyo relations arguably have been their worst since the 1965 Basic Treaty to normalize their diplomatic relations. South Korea somehow invited it due to its deep-rooted grudge over past issues.

In a recent Brookings Institution forum, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel gave a refreshing evaluation of the first standalone summit at Camp David. He said that China’s strategy is based on the precondition that America’s first and second allies can never go together in the future, but that will change. The trilateral security body will transform the strategic terrain in the Indo-Pacific theater.

Koreans’ apprehension about their country’s heavy reliance on China for trade can be understood. But China is also the largest export market for Japan. People concerned about China’s retaliation are afraid of using wordings China reacts most sensitively to — such as the Taiwan Strait — on diplomatic documents. But we must wonder why we turn to self-censorship when it comes to the issues China sensitively reacts to.

Whenever we are immersed in self-censorship, China retaliates against us recklessly, as we have never shown Beijing a core value we would never abandon. It was we Koreans that gave China the impression that we surrender when China threatens us with economic retaliation.

I am not saying that we must compel others to accept our core values. I am just saying that we must send China the message that both sides can achieve mutual prosperity only when Beijing does not harm our core values. We don’t have to presume that the principles and spirits at Camp David will harm our relations with China and Russia. We have to fix our strategic position amid the turbulence in the Indo-Pacific, and we have only just begun. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration is left with the responsibility to manage well the obvious cost in the transition. Translation by the Korea Joongang Daily staff.