Kang Seung-woo is the Business Desk editor at The Korea Times. Prior to this position, he covered politics, national affairs, finance and sports.
Korea's strategic value re-rises amid US-China rivalry
Joe Biden, then U.S. vice president, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing in this August 2011 photo. / Yonhap
By Kang Seung-woo
By Kang Seung-woo
In the wake of Joe Biden's election as the new U.S. president, a competition between the United States and China to get Korea on its side is expected to intensify ― a demonstration of Seoul's rising strategic value amid their hegemonic rivalry, diplomatic experts said Thursday.
This is a drastic change from a month ago when U.S. President Donald Trump was threatening to withdraw American forces from the Korean Peninsula, while pressuring Seoul to increase its financial share for the presence of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). China was also bent on bashing Seoul, finding fault with K-pop group BTS' Korean War comments, and distorting the history of the three-year war.
Four days after Biden was elected as the new American commander-in-chief, President Moon Jae-in had a phone conversation with him, Nov. 11, during which the former vice president reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to Korea. In addition, Biden made a visit to the Korean War Memorial in Philadelphia on Veterans Day, also Nov. 11, which was his first outdoor activity as the incoming president, raising expectations that he will seek to restore the alliance with Korea that was being broken apart by the Trump administration.
“There is a general consensus on China's great threat to the U.S. within the Democratic Party and in that respect, the Biden administration is expected to make efforts to have Korea lean toward the U.S. side in its competition against China,” said Shin Beom-chul, a director of the Center for Diplomacy and Security at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Park Won-gon, a professor of international politics at Handong Global University, echoed Shin's view.
“The Biden administration is more likely to want Korea to side with the U.S. than the Trump administration,” Park said.
“Biden's response to the recent signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) means his determination to prevent China from leading the international community and to draw it to the U.S.-set global rules. If that is the case, the U.S. needs allies and wants Korea to be a supporter of this plan.”
In response to Washington's recent moves to court Korea, Beijing also seems to have started out with countermeasures.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to make a trip to Korea soon and should he come, the two countries may discuss Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit here.
Since President Moon last visited China in 2017, Korea has sought Xi's reciprocal visit to Seoul within this year to address the remaining economic retaliatory measures imposed by China on Korea following the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has been pushing the Chinese president's trip back.
“It is still possible that Korea will be the destination for Xi's first overseas trip next year,” Park said.
“Korea is the friendliest to China among U.S. allies, so it will try to keep Korea away from the U.S.”
Should Xi's visit occur, Beijing may lift a ban on overseas group tours to Korea and Korean content on Chinese screens, imposed following the THAAD deployment, Park noted.
In response to the Sino-U.S. rivalry, the government has maintained a so-called “strategic ambiguity” as the U.S. is Korea's long-time security ally, while China is its top trading partner.
However, this may no longer work under the Biden administration, Park added.
“When Trump was in office, his bizarre behavior denying democratic values and free trade was an excuse for allies not to support his anti-China policy, but the Biden administration will stand up against China with an emphasis on values and justification for democracy, which will make it difficult for Korea to reject,” Park said.