EAI Fellows Program Working Paper Series No. 3
South Korea needs a new strategy for managing triangular ties with China and Japan. It. must address the deteriorating state of Sino-Japanese relations as well as U.S. scepticism about China’s push for regionalism and the South’s autonomous inclinations through a patient role as a facilitator, not a balancer. In 2005 it overreached in a desperate response to a difficult environment. Tracing the dilemma the South faces, this paper focuses first on the U.S. factor and the frustrating impact on Roh Moo-hyun’s plans to engage North Korea. Then it evaluates ties with Japan, delineating causes and effects of the sharp slide in bilateral cooperation with restoration difficult. Next it assesses relations with China and how hard it is to synchronize them to other ties. The conclusion stresses the value to South Korea of a balance of power. As a middle power between assertive competitors, it must tread cautiously with special attention to shaping the triangle with China and Japan.
저자
South Korea is buffeted by four countries whose foreign policy does not measure up to the standards needed for our times. All have reacted to recent international events by accentuating worrisome trends seen in earlier policies and show no inclination of changing direction. George W. Bush has steered the US not only away from Clinton’s engagement policy toward China but also toward an inconsistent regional strategy in which Richard Armitage’s Japan first approach coupled with Robert Zoellick’s follow-up to encourage China to become a “stakeholder” has been interspersed with Dick Cheney’s neo-conservative quasi-containment of China combined with an ideological rejection of diplomacy with North Korea.1 Koizumi Junichiro has let his obsession with visiting the Yasukuni Shrine overwhelm traditional diplomatic professionalism, making no effort to staunch an upsurge of ultra-nationalist claims in Japan or to try to contain the damage across the region. Hu Jintao has been less flagrant about his transgressions of cautious diplomacy, but some would argue that he has betrayed early expectations that China was ready to find common language to reassure the US and Japan by exploring shared values with increasing transparency. Finally, Vladimir Putin has resuscitated the image of an authoritarian leader in Moscow narrowly concerned with supporting dictators in order to expand his state’s influence regardless of the impact on regional stability and human rights. In the shadow of the powerful US influence and a marginal Russian one, South Korea faces the challenge of managing the deepening rivalry between China and Japan.
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