China's Approach to the US-ROK Alliance

While China had often opposed the US-Japan alliance, it rarely criticized the US-South Korean alliance, noted Robert Sutter from Georgetown University.

In a draft paper titled China's Approach to the US-ROK Alliance - Background, Status, Outlook (Oct 2006), Sutter noted that the muted criticism was due to the delicate situation on the Korean Peninsula, arguing that if the US alliance with South Korea is disrupted over North Korea, China's development and stability would in turn be adversely affected.

Even though Sutter argued that China's management of relations with Japan "represents arguably the most significant failure in Chinese diplomacy" in recent years, Chinese leaders had shown great skills in managing very difficult and often contradictory imperatives coming from both North and South Korea. China was also able to strengthen its position in Pyongyang, and markedly improving its relations with Seoul. And all these were done in a way that does not challenge US leadership in Korean affairs as well as the US-ROK alliance.

The net result, Sutter noted, was a marked increase in China's relations with South Korea, and continued China's relations with North Korea "closer than any other power." And again, all that without negatively affecting Beijing's relations with the US.

So much so that by the early 2000s, China enjoyed a much more positive image than the US among South Korean elites and public opinion. Seoul welcomed the improved ties with Beijing as a means to diversify South Korea's foreign policy options, reduce dependency on the US alliance (though many still rightly argue that relations with China or any other foreign policy options provided no substitute for the US-ROK alliance), and secure South Korean interests on the Korean Peninsula. Indeed, China's willingness to cooperate with South Korea in the common deliberations of APEC and ARF also strengthened China-South Korean relations.

The Asian economic crisis of 1997 also prompted stronger regional cooperation efforts led by South Korea and China under the ASEAN Plus Three rubric. Furthermore, 2004 was said to have marked a high point of pro-China fever in South Korea, a period that coincided with widespread friction in the US-ROK alliance. South Korean leaders at that time publicly sought a role as regional "balancer" between the United States and Japan on one side, and China on the other. China officials naturally supported South Korea's position.

A year earlier in 2003, Chinese and Korean presidents Hu Jintao and Roh Moo-hyun upgraded bilateral relations to a "comprehensive cooperative partnership." Among other things, Seoul promised to assist in developing China's western region, and both sides pledged to expand military exchanges and enhance transparency in military policies.

"It was broadly held among South Korean and US observers in Seoul that one of the main reasons South Korea was reluctant to agree to allow US forces in South Korea to be deployed to other areas was that those forces might be deployed to the Taiwan area in the event of a US-China military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait."

But other thorny Sino-South Korean issues remained, and these include nationalistic concerns over competing Chinese and Korean claims over the scope and importance of the historical Koguryeo kingdom, China's longer term ambitions in North Korea, and the Chinese treatment of North Korean refugees in China and of South Koreans endeavoring to assist them there. Officials also saw serious issues in China-South Korean relations and noted that South Korean opinion was volatile and could turn against China if sensitive issues were to emerge.

In addition, South Korean officials also asserted that the country wanted to avoid a situation where it might have to choose between Washington and Beijing if US-China relations were to take a nosedive. Others noted that China wanted to make use of better relations with South Korea so as to counter perceived US efforts to contain China's growing power and influence in Asian and world affairs. Hence, it is more likely for South Korea to seek cooperation as well as mute frictions with the US, so as to preserve Seoul's independence as China rises in Asia.

Sutter argued that in the long term, China is better off pursuing an incremental effort to improve relations with South Korea without directly challenging the ROK-US alliance.

As for South Korea, even during the high point of anti-US sentiments and pro-China fever in South Korea in 2004, government officials in Seoul continued to privately tell Americans that they believed the "United States remained more important for South Korea than China."

"Without a healthy US-ROK alliance, they judged, China would have less incentive to be so accommodating of South Korean interests and concerns."