Very cheap, shameful China

By Park Moo-jong

China's cheap retaliation against South Korea for its hosting of a U.S. THAAD missile defense battery to destroy incoming North Korean ballistic missiles is getting out of hand.

As the first parts of the missile interception system arrive in South Korea begins, China is stepping up taking retaliatory measures on all levels out of a sort of anti-Seoul hysteria.

Looking into what China is doing proves it is definitely not a superpower, even if it has the largest population ― nearly 1.5 billion ― occupies the fourth biggest land mass on the globe and is the second-largest economy only after the U.S.

The Communist state-controlled media outlets have been running all out to fan an anti-Seoul boom "voluntarily" ― as the government claims ― and the obedient mobs are boycotting goods and merchandise from their neighboring country.

On top of these childish retaliatory measures is a travel ban to South Korea. Chinese tourists are forced to cancel their flights and cruise tickets and travel agencies have "spontaneously" scrapped their Seoul-bound package tour programs.

Not only South Koreans but many people around the world must have been lost for words when about 4,000 Chinese tourists on board a cruise ship "refused" to disembark at the harbor of Busan of their "own free will" to protest Seoul's refusal to give into Chinese pressure to give up THAAD.

What ridiculous behavior! Why did their cruise ship call at the South Korean port. As a result, about 80 Busan tour buses waiting for the "patriotic" Chinese tourists helplessly left the pier.

Adding salt to injury was the Chinese government's latest refusal to allow a chartered plane flight for the South Korean national soccer team to Changsha, Hunan Province, to meet the Chinese squad for its away match in the 2018 Russia World Cup preliminaries, held yesterday.

These are examples of Chinese retaliatory measures, which absolutely show that China is not big, but small, compared to such countries as the Netherlands and Singapore, which are small, but big as I wrote in this column seven months ago.

Such Chinese retaliation, as U.S. House Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific said during a hearing Tuesday, is "unacceptable" and unjustifiable.

The THAAD deployment in South Korea is a self-defense measure against potential North Korean nuclear missile attacks. As a choice for the survival of our people's lives and properties, THAAD is not for attack but for defense, not aimed at China, in particular.

It is mistaking means for an end for China to take issue with the THAAD deployment in South Korea without addressing North Korea's nuclear threat that makes the defense system necessary for Seoul.

But the basic problem is Beijing's idea of its long history as a big country, and South Korea as a small country that should not have the boldness to defy a big country like China.

In order to understand the current situation right, we need to once again look into history, the history of Chinese invasions of Korea.

The last Chinese invasion dates back recently to 1950 during the Korean War (1950-1953). South Korean and United Nations forces were heading for victory when the "then" Chinese Red Army crossed the border in a human-wave attack to foil the unification of the peninsula by South Korea.

Five thousand years of history show that any Chinese invasion has been futile, as seen, for instance, in the "Salsu Daecheop" (Great Victory on the Sal River, or Cheongchon River) in 612 during the invasion by China's Su Dynasty (581-619) into Goguryeo (BC 37-668) located in the northern part of the peninsula and the northeastern region of present-day China.

The "incredible" victories over China's greedy invasions to occupy the Korean Peninsula were the result of our ancestors' united forces and fortitude. History tells us the answer. We should learn from history.

We should not yield to Chinese pressure and threats. We have to overcome them, even though they are painful. If the government and the people are united, we can tide over the crisis. Politicians, especially, those from the opposition parties still opposing the THAAD deployment, should not commit behavior to split public opinion.

I don't think that China will continue pushing ahead with unfounded retaliatory measures indefinitely because they could boomerang against it. Its international credibility will surely fall in the long run.

Diplomatic efforts at diverse levels should be made to help untie the knot. It is common sense that China is still a Communist country, where the Communist Party has absolute control over the people; so it is not that easy to solve the problem on the private level.

Japan overcame a more serious crisis in its diplomatic relations with China during the 2012 Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands dispute and there is no reason why South Korea cannot do so.

Dreadful is the enemy within. To win against the enemy without is national unity, something that a country such as China should never underestimate.

Park Moo-jong is The Korea Times advisor. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter from 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei20@gmail.com.