South Korea & Japan's response to China

 As part of Kina Kunz's PhD research, she conducted twenty interviews with current and former officials, advisors, academics, researchers, and journalists in Japan and South Korea. This article draws on her findings to discuss the similarities and differences in Japan and South Korea’s China policy, as well as highlight some parallels in Australia and New Zealand’s relationships with China.

As China's global influence continues to expand and US-China competition intensifies, the responses of countries in the Indo-Pacific region have become increasingly crucial.

Understandably, here in Aotearoa New Zealand we hear the most about our own government’s China policies, with our neighbour, Australia, a close second. 

However, we can also learn from the policy responses from other states, particularly states that have been thinking about China for much longer.

There are a lot of similarities in how Japan and South Korea responded to China’s rise over the last 30 years.

First, both Japan’s and South Korea’s relations with China are more tense now than they were 30 years ago. Second, Japan and South Korea have each diversified their diplomatic ties with other states, making use of regional, bilateral, and minilateral avenues, including FTAs and institutions like APEC. Third, Japan and South Korea have both repeatedly reaffirmed and strengthened their alliances with the US. Lastly, despite increasing tensions, both states have intensified their economic ties with China over the last 30 years.

However, there remain important differences in Japan’s and South Korea’s responses to China’s rise. Four stand out as particularly important.

Difference in Fluctuation

The first difference regards the fluctuations of Japan and South Korea’s cooperation with China.

Their China policies both change over time. When we compare the fluctuations, along with the two countries’ changes in political administration, a pattern emerges. In South Korea, relations with China generally improved under liberal or progressive administrations and deteriorated under conservative ones. Since Roh Tae-woo, there was no right-leaning administration that had a net positive effect on the extent of cooperation, and there was no left-leaning administration with a net negative effect.

The first several years of Park Geun-Hye’s administration represented an aberration from the rule. However, her term fits the conservative pattern since China-South Korea relations had deteriorated drastically by the time she left office in 2017.

By contrast, Japan’s fluctuations did not adhere to a clear pattern based on which party, faction, or even what type of individual, was in power.

In the mid to late 2000s, there were periods of thawing relations under both LDP (Abe’s first term, Fukuda, and Asō) and DPJ (Hatoyama) administrations. There were tense periods under LDP prime ministers Koizumi and Abe II, but also under DPJ prime ministers Kan and Noda. Factions provide a more nuanced look at Japan’s politics, but even there, we find no easy answers. Asō and Kishida were both from the moderate Kōchikai faction, but neither fitted the moderate mould neatly.

Even at the individual level there were clear inconsistencies, as Abe’s first stint in office was profoundly different from his second.

All this suggests there was a more direct correlation between the domestic politics of South Korea and the degree of its cooperation with China, compared to those of Japan. Explaining this difference is also best done in another article. In this case, it is the domestic institutions and domestic politics that need to be examined.

The Time Lag

Second, there is a difference in terms of timing. Japan and South Korea both followed a similar trajectory of increasing tensions with China, but concerns about China developed earlier amongst Japanese decision-makers than for their South Korean counterparts.

For instance, threat perceptions of China spread among Japanese security experts around the time of the 2004 Senkaku Island Incident.

In South Korea, the sinking of the Cheonan and the Yeonpyeong Island shelling in 2010 had a comparable effect.

This was followed by a relative thaw in relations in 2006-2010 for Japan and 2013-2015 for South Korea.

Next the relationship plummeted in the period from the Fishing Trawler Incident in 2010 to the remilitarisation under Abe until 2014 in Japan, and over the THAAD issue in South Korea in 2016 and 2017.

Difference in Overall Cooperation Levels

The Sino-Japanese relationship was more tense than the Sino-South Korean relationship overall.

The most prominent points of friction were the territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and the historical issues. South Korea had a dormant maritime boundary dispute over Ieodo/Suyanjiao, and there were occasionally spats over history, for instance over the Northeast Project, but both were on a much smaller scale. Japan’s devotion to the Quad and its championing of the FOIP strategy are examples of Japan’s lower levels of cooperation with China.

This is also reflected in interviewee responses. Interviewees were much to quicker to characterise Japan’s policy towards China as “balancing”, compared to South Korea’s China’s policy, for which interviewees used terms like “hedging” and “strategic ambiguity”, “confused”, “not wanting to choose”, or “muddling through” instead.

Only in relation to the Yoon administration did an interviewee describe South Korea as favouring “pro US balancing”.

Different Threat and Leverage Perception

The fourth difference concerns China’s perceived threat and leverage.

Respondents in South Korea placed greater emphasis than their counterparts in Japan on China’s economic leverage.

They also spoke at lengths about the possibility that China might have important leverage that could be useful in making progress in the inter-Korean conflict, although several also expressed doubts about the likelihood of cooperation on the matter.

On the other hand, Japan appeared to perceive Chine as more threatening.

Evidence for this can be found in its military documents, such as the 2004 NDPG or the 2013 NSS, as well as in the responses of several interviewees.

Half of the Japanese respondents explicitly described China as a “threat”, with others using words like “danger” or “challenge”.

By contrast, there was only one interviewee in South Korea who explicitly described China as a “threat”, while several others explicitly rejected the term. Others used words like “risk” or “indirect threat”. Notably, one interviewee in Korea argued that China’s rise was a “challenge”, but the “threat” to South Korea was the US-China rivalry. Another stated China’s rise was “both a challenge and an opportunity”.

This threat and leverage perception can likely explain the overall difference in cooperation. It makes sense that Japan’s relations with China are more tense because they feel more threatened by it than South Korea does.

Conversely, South Korea’s stronger perception of Chinese leverage imposes constraints on its decision-makers.

The puzzling question is: what causes this discrepancy in the threat and leverage perception? An additional article (or several) is necessary to unpack this in full, but I argue that geography and distribution of material capabilities hold the key.

Parallels

Interestingly, the differences between Japan and South Korea’s China policy mirror the Australia/New Zealand situation in key ways.

Australia and Japan view China as a greater threat compared to New Zealand and South Korea respectively.

Like Japan, Australia has also aligned itself more closely with the US.

There is also the same pattern in their overall cooperation levels. Australia-China relations are more tense than the relationship between New Zealand and China. The Diplomat described Australia as “balancing”, just like many respondents described Japan.

Meanwhile New Zealand is “hedging”, just like South Korea. While respondents used the term “strategic ambiguity” in relation to South Korea, New Zealand has been described as “sending ambiguous signals”. One respondent stated South Korea “does not want to choose”. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had rejected the idea of having to choose between the US and China. This is a debate currently underway in New Zealand with regard to this country possibly being invited to join the AUKUS pact. 

Given these parallels, gaining an improved understanding of Japan and South Korea’s decision-making may also provide insights into the decision-making of Australia and New Zealand.

The opinions expressed are those of the author.

- Asia Media Centre