Art of miscommunication between Seoul and Beijing

Vice Foreign Minister Park Suk-hwan, left, meets Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun in Seoul, Dec. 27. / Korea Times

The following is the first in a two-part New Year series gauging ties between South Korea and China that will celebrate the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two. ― ED.

By Sunny Lee

BEIJING — It’s the job of diplomats to be “diplomatic,” especially when cameras are rolling and reporters are present. South Korea and China recently wrapped up a high-level strategic dialogue and it was a classic “diplomatic” moment.

South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Park Suk-hwan and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun smiled in front of journalists and shook hands before photographers.

The meeting drew keen attention as it was arranged after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s death, but analysts viewed the real purpose of the meet-up was to pave the way for President Lee Myung-bak to visit China this month.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Seoul-Beijing diplomatic relations. In Asia, it’s an important number in which a person enters adulthood. So, is the relationship entering maturity?

Last year, Seoul had its bitterest diplomatic spat with Beijing since 1992 over North Korean provocations surrounding the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents. China refused to condemn Pyongyang. This sparked an anti-China sentiment in South Korea. China, which had been brooding with anti-Korean heat over Korea’s “hijacking” of Chinese cultural heritage, reacted with high-handed condescension. The two haven’t fully recovered from the bitter exchanges.

Yet given the significance of the anniversary, the two are likely to be motivated to put aside their differences and try their best for friendly looking photo-ops. They have also kicked off a year of “friendly exchanges.” But the good-look diplomacy shouldn’t overshadow the existence of underlying tension.

A newspaper, Asia Today, captured the sentiment perfectly when it characterized the strategic dialogue as “miscommunication within communication.”

In fact, the communication gap between Seoul and Beijing has been a prominent feature under the Lee Myung-bak administration. A Google search for “Seoul-Beijing communication problems” results in 926,000 results. One of them was related to a Korean university, which held a conference with the topic: “How to Promote Communication Between South Korea and China.”

President Lee downplays it. “Seoul-Beijing ties are better than they seem,” he said recently in a meeting with lawmakers. In fact, that’s the standard remark by diplomats who strive for diplomatic correctness.

Yet, questions on the bilateral communication gap came to the fore again lately when Chinese President Hu Jintao didn’t accept Lee’s request for an emergency telephone conference following the death of Kim.

Analysts worry that a lack of communication between the leaders at such a volatile time could become a serious security concern. “They failed to communicate when they most needed to do so,” observed Kim Heung-kyu, a Sino-Korean relations expert at Sungshin Women’s University.

After the North Korean leader’s death, Professor Kim spent a week in China on a fact-finding mission to gauge Seoul-Beijing ties. “It clearly showed that the two countries have a communication problem,” said Kim.

Zhao Huji, an expert on Korean affairs at the Central Party School of the Communist Party, agreed. “The appearance the two countries displayed was not like partners,” he said.

Seoul and Beijing upgraded their diplomatic ties to a strategic partnership in 2008. Academics from both countries are not sure what that means.

As for the failure of the phone conversation between Lee and Hu, Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-je cited a “schedule conflict” as the reason. Yet the day after Hu declined the call from Lee, he took time from his busy schedule to visit the North Korean Embassy in Beijing to deliver condolences, flanked by other Politburo members.

Moon Chung-in, a professor of political science at Yonsei University, explains what might have been behind the Chinese calculation: “Beijing may not have wanted to antagonize Pyongyang by giving the appearance of discussing North Korean contingencies with Seoul at such a delicate time.”

Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, South Korea and the U.S. have developed military contingency plans involving North Korean instability. China strongly opposes this. Instead, it hopes for a smooth power transition in the North and has rallied all-out support around the untested rookie, Kim Jong-un.

“Since the beginning of the Lee administration, South Korea has been urging China to hold a dialogue to discuss North Korean contingencies, to no avail,” said Moon at Yonsei.

Han Suk-hee, who teaches at Yonsei’s Graduate School of International Studies, cautions against reading too much into a single episode and extracting a general conclusion. “It would be an exaggeration if we see the particular incident and say it shows the overall picture of Seoul-Beijing ties,” he said. Han believes that China appeared to have wanted to handle Kim Jong-il’s death “on its own.”

But Kim of Sungshin Women’s University sees that the very reason Beijing handled the situation alone without bothering to consult Seoul, a key stakeholder, indicates “China’s deep mistrust toward South Korea,” which resulted in China’s “disregard of the South Korean factor.”

The “unanswered phone” episode followed on the heels of a “murder at sea” episode in which a Chinese fishing boat captain stabbed to death a South Korean coastguard. Instead of expressing regret over the death, China’s initial response was to warn Seoul to “fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese fishermen and to provide them with due humanitarian treatment.” This outraged the Korean public.

In many Koreans’ minds, it evoked the image of China as a historical bully. Korea used to be a vassal state of China. Amid the mounting anti-China sentiment in Korea, Lee floated the idea of “reconsidering” his planned visit to China.

Hwang Jae-ho, an expert on China at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said Lee’s making the idea public was not wise.” If Seoul and Beijing were strategic partners, Lee should have all the more reason to visit China and communicate the issue with Hu. But Lee instead rode along with the high tide of public sentiment.”

Hwang continued: “The two countries will have to jointly deal with a host of issues. But the fact that the bilateral relationship gets easily derailed whenever such an individual incident happens only proves that their relationship is not strategic.”