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Opinion

Columnists

Sun, January 24, 2021 | 11:15

lee seong-hyon

Yang Jiechi's visit

By Lee Seong-hyonYang Jiechi, a senior adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, is reportedly to land here soon. Yang is a member of the Political Bureau, the Communist Party's supreme 25-member committee. What draws our attention is that he is director of the CPC's Office of Foreign Affairs, China's highest foreign affairs decision-making body, headed by Xi. Yang is comparable to Suh Hoon, President Moon Jae-in's director of National Security Office, or equivalent to the White House National Security Adviser in the United States.Yang is a known quantity. Decades ago, as a junior foreign min...

2020-08-18 18:15

China's think tanks (II)

Under the Chinese political landscape, the limits of Chinese think tanks derive from their mandate to provide logic to the government policies, and therefore a lack of autonomy from the state. This partially explains, for instance, why efforts by Korean think tanks and academic experts to persuade Beijing to reconsider its retaliation against Seoul (for hosting the THAAD battery system) were unavailing from the very beginning.

2020-08-04 17:13

China's think tanks

In May, Hong Kong's venerable South China Morning Post ran an exclusive story. It said, "An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation." The internal Chinese report was crafted by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's top intelligence body. CICIR was mentioned in a previous column, “Plan on NK contingency?” (May 12). Since then, some curiosity was r...

2020-07-21 17:33

In event of NK contingency? (II)

Despite years of speculation, there is no evidence that suggests the U.S. and China have agreed on an action plan in the event of sudden unrest in North Korea. However, it has its own long-running storyline that goes back to the year 2009.

2020-06-30 17:05

New US-China Cold War

Just short of calling it a “Cold War,” the U.S. formally announced the onset of a new Cold War with China, with the public announcement of the “United States Strategic Approach to the People's Republic of China," May 20. South Korea may try to disown such a notion or demote the significance of the report, signed by President Trump, because that would indicate a geopolitical dark era for the Asian middle power which has been squeezed by powerful players for thousands of years and pressed to choose a side. But the best strategy is to square with the reality on the ground and buckle up for a bu...

2020-05-26 17:08

US-China conflict: South Korea stuck between rock and hard place

Plan on NK contingency?

Despite years of speculation, there is no evidence that the governments of the United States and China have agreed upon a specific action plan in the event of a sudden turmoil in North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's recent “disappearance,” whether staged or not, awakened the world for the need to prepare for such a contingency. And cooperation between Washington and Beijing is deemed crucial.

2020-05-12 16:44

Kim Jong-un, a liability

North Korea is a country that invites misunderstanding. The disappearance of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been creating commotion not just in South Korea, but around the world. The security implication is, understandably, huge. North Korea is a nuclear state. A power vacuum could incite violent turbulence in the region. However, when the dust finally settles, all the headlines of Kim's alleged death or grave illness is likely to turn out to be "much ado about nothing." The most critical indicator is that North Korea's military is not on alert, as it would otherwise be.

2020-04-28 16:31

Ministers reaffirm no signs of Kim Jong-un's ill health

New Southern Policy

Will the coronavirus epidemic have an impact on President Moon Jae-in's New Southern Policy (NSP)?

2020-04-14 17:29

Defining NK-China relations under Kim and Xi

Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, indicating his willingness to aid North Korea in battling the coronavirus. If Kim were to accept the offer, that would make China lose face, North Korea's most intimate ally.

2020-03-31 22:09

Virus and Korea-China ties

Many expected that the coronavirus epidemic, which started in China, would offer room for cooperation between the neighboring country and South Korea. On the contrary, the relationship has been disintegrating. The question is why.

2020-03-17 17:36

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