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China’s rise because the United States’ foremost overseas coverage problem signifies that, greater than ever, South Korea is a crucial U.S. ally whose geopolitical place and democratic values have a key function in President-elect Joe Biden’s imaginative and prescient to “bring America back.” But vital home modifications in Seoul during the last 4 years guarantee there will probably be no simple rewind to the pre-Trump period. South Korea, now led by the one strongest ruling celebration in your entire democratic historical past of that nation, has new instincts which have grand coverage implications for U.S.-ROK relations. The incoming Biden administration urgently wants to know the priorities of the ruling liberals with a view to tailor a overseas coverage technique most conducive to revitalizing the connection.
The world didn’t cease revolving whereas America went on hiatus. Just as Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, South Koreans woke as much as a home scandal involving their president that instantly slashed her approval scores to a stunning 5 p.c. An estimated 10 million South Koreans, or a fifth of your entire inhabitants, spilled onto the streets in a “candlelight revolution” to oust the conservative President Park Geun-hye in December 2016, leaving her profession and full celebration in smoking damage. Both Park and her predecessor Lee Myung-bak are in jail right now for corruption, serving decades-long sentences.
Meanwhile, their progressive rival Moon Jae-in clinched the presidency within the unprecedented vacuum left by Park’s impeachment. His single five-year time period is about to finish in May 2022, nicely into the Biden presidency. The 2020 legislative elections – wherein South Korean progressives secured a “behemoth” filibuster-proof supermajority within the National Assembly – has all however decimated significant conservative opposition, whereas cementing Moon’s standing as the primary elected South Korean president to not face a lame duck interval. This makes the present ruling celebration essentially the most dominant political celebration to carry energy in South Korea since democratic rule was first established in 1987.
Foreign Policy Priorities of South Korean Liberals
In broad strokes, the overseas coverage of South Korean liberals is obvious: selling concord with North Korea, justice towards Japan, and, wherever potential, autonomy from nice energy interference, together with that of Washington. That agenda gives a pointy distinction with South Korean conservatives, who’re historically extra more likely to favor a hardline on North Korea, strategic cooperation with Japan, and reliance on the U.S.-ROK alliance alongside the ideological phrases of the Cold War. U.S. policymakers are extra aware of the conservative place, however to strengthen ties with Seoul and restore American management, the Biden administration must take the present authorities’s overseas coverage commitments as the start line.
In reality, no incoming Democratic U.S. administration has ever confronted an incumbent liberal Korean administration within the 70 years of the connection. The final time an incoming American president, George W. Bush, sat throughout a liberal South Korean administration – one which was far much less highly effective than the present ruling celebration – his failure to take account of South Korea’s home terrain contributed to critical coverage gaps that in the end led to document anti-American sentiment and a majority of youthful South Koreans calling for American troop withdrawals. These earlier failures underscore the significance of calibrating American technique to accord with shifting political realities in Seoul.
North Korea
Historically, South Korean liberals have pursued a coverage of peaceable coexistence and engagement with North Korea based mostly on pan-Korean ethnic unity, whereas the conservatives have thought of the North a proper state enemy. During conservative administrations, the South Korean Defense Ministry known as North Korea an “enemy state” in its white papers, however that label was promptly eliminated below the progressive administration of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and once more in 2018 below Moon’s presidency. Notably, the proportion of South Koreans selecting North Korea because the nation’s biggest safety risk constantly hovered above 50 p.c below conservatives Lee (2009-13) and Park (2013-16), however plunged to 30 p.c through the liberal administrations of Roh (2004-08) and Moon (2017 to the current).
“We were together for 5,000 years, apart for 70,” mentioned Moon in an emotional attraction to North Koreans in his 2018 Pyongyang Address, wherein the time period “blood ties” was used to invoke inter-Korean ethnic oneness. In the spirit of peaceable coexistence, South Korean nationwide tv not too long ago broadcast North Korea’s total annual navy parade dwell, together with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un’s 26-minute speech, whereas media now commonly discuss with Kim by his full official title of Chairman of the State Affairs Commission.
Moon stays dedicated to ending the Korean War with a proper peace treaty and to persevering with a coverage of inter-Korean engagement, which he has known as the “most effective national security policy.” Also within the engagement pipeline are plans to reopen the Mount Kumgang resort with North Korea and a joint Seoul-Pyongyang bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics (though the North itself has proven little curiosity in these proposals of late). It is towards this normal backdrop of inter-Korean concord that the ruling liberal celebration not too long ago handed a controversial anti-leaflet invoice that restricts North Korean human rights activism towards the Kim regime.
Japan
Trilateral cooperation amongst Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington is pivotal to a cohesive U.S. alliance structure in Asia, particularly with an assertive China and the North Korean nuclear risk. But, traditionally, South Korean progressives and Japanese conservatives combine like oil and water. Condemning cooperation with Japan has lengthy been the linchpin of South Korea’s progressive agenda from each a human rights and decolonization perspective. “Cleansing” the nation of chinilpa (pro-Japanese) affect is the self-professed precedence of Moon and his progressive allies.
Some 80 p.c of South Koreans assist this sentiment, saying that “vestiges of Japanese imperialism have not been eliminated properly.” Nearly 30 p.c of South Koreans now imagine Japan to be their biggest safety risk, a dramatic leap from 7 p.c in 2017 and a stage not seen for the reason that final progressive Roh administration in 2008. Under the Moon administration, the South Korean Supreme Court has ordered main Japanese companies Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to compensate Korean victims of compelled wartime labor. South Korea even pursued a $4 million undertaking to chop down 500,000 Japanese larch bushes in Taebaek National Park to eradicate traces of Japanese colonial affect. An enormous public boycott of Japanese items befell for a lot of 2019, and Moon has brazenly proclaimed to each Trump and former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo that “Japan is a U.S. ally, not ours.”
Anti-Japanese progressive sentiment goes hand-in-hand with inter-Korean unity: In his 2019 Liberation Day Address, Moon known as reunification with North Korea the “royal road to…overtaking Japan.” In a hypothetical struggle between North Korea and Japan, almost half of South Koreans would again Kim Jong Un, whereas solely 15.1 p.c would assist Japan. In 2019, a document 77 p.c of South Koreans felt “unfriendly” towards Japan, the very best since polling started in 1991, whereas 87 p.c believed Japan had not atoned correctly for its World War II atrocities towards Koreans.
Meanwhile, a document 74 p.c of Japanese felt “distrustful” of Koreans in 2019. Most not too long ago, Japan has tried to close down a statue commemorating Korean “comfort women” in Berlin and opposed the candidacy of U.S.-endorsed South Korean Yoo Myung-hee for WTO director-general. The South Korean progressive place on Japan gives an vital context for the Moon administration’s resolution (since reversed) to repeal the General Security of Military Information Agreement – a key navy intelligence sharing pact with Japan – and scrap the 2015 Comfort Women settlement, each seen as symbols of chinilpa affect antithetical to Korean progressive identification.
China
Ties between Seoul and Beijing have deteriorated for the reason that 2016 resolution by conservative President Park to deploy THAAD, a formidable U.S. anti-missile system meant to discourage North Korean provocations however perceived in Beijing as a risk to Chinese safety. In retaliation, China struck Seoul with greater than 40 financial sanctions together with bans on shopper items, cultural imports like Okay-pop, and even group tourism to South Korea. Fast ahead 4 years and Chinese President Xi Jinping has nonetheless but to go to Seoul as soon as since Moon took workplace, though in the identical interval, Xi has held 5 official summits with Kim Jong Un, together with one in Pyongyang. As not too long ago as fall 2020, BTS, the well-known Okay-pop boy band, incurred the wrath of Chinese state media for recognizing American contributions within the Korean War.
Nonetheless, among the many United States’ Pacific allies, South Korea stays closest to the Chinese orbit. A comparatively low 29 p.c of South Koreans have a “very unfavorable” view of China, in comparison with 52 p.c of Japanese and 45 p.c of Australians. Even as a plurality (34 p.c) of South Koreans now see China because the primary safety risk, 52 p.c nonetheless favor “friendly cooperation” with Beijing. Historically, South Korean liberals present a pure counterweight to conservatives who align extra carefully with Washington within the U.S.-China rivalry. During the THAAD disaster, the truth is, present President Moon criticized the deployment of the U.S. missile system on the Korean Peninsula. Even within the midst of the worldwide pandemic, South Korean liberals made it a centerpiece of their overseas coverage to not ban journey from China. By far, China stays South Korea’s largest buying and selling accomplice, accounting for greater than 1 / 4 of South Korean exports in 2019 – an uneasy statistic for any Korean chief aware of South Korea’s slowing financial progress.
South Korea has notably resisted strain from the United States to ban Huawei, involved that it could set off a “second THAAD incident,” whereas sustaining strategic ambiguity on each Xinjiang and Hong Kong. When Trump invited South Korea to affix the G-7 Summit this yr, South Korean media instantly known as the invitation “burdensome” lest Washington try and enlist South Korea in a “united front against China.” A 2019 survey exhibits that even amongst South Koreans who imagine the rise of China is “not helpful” to South Korea, a plurality (49.5 p.c) nonetheless imagine Seoul ought to keep neutrality between Washington and Beijing.
The United States
Support for the U.S.-ROK alliance amongst South Koreans stays extraordinarily excessive at 90 p.c. The United States stays Seoul’s second-largest buying and selling accomplice, accounting for 13.6 p.c of South Korean commerce in 2019. But the connection is just not with out its cracks, solely a few of which might be attributed to the idiosyncrasies of the Trump presidency. The U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Harry Harris, needed to shave off his mustache as a result of it reminded the South Korean public of colonial Japan. Protesters had been destroying the U.S. ambassador’s portrait within the streets as not too long ago as December 2019. South Korean college students, characterised by native media as a “progressive civic group,” even broke into the U.S. ambassador’s residence to protest the American troop presence in South Korea, after tensions broke out publicly over alliance cost-sharing between Seoul and Washington. More than two-thirds of South Koreans oppose a rise in alliance cost-sharing whereas 55 p.c imagine South Korea and the United States are not aligned on regional safety points. To be certain, these tensions haven’t translated to a dent in general assist for the alliance, however they spotlight strain factors that have to be managed.
Dating again to the founding of the republic, South Korean progressives have lengthy fought for autonomy from overseas powers and the flexibility to dictate the phrases of inter-Korean peace with out nice energy intervention. While the ruling liberal celebration has by no means opposed the U.S. troop presence, it has disliked the optics of South Korean dependence, not too long ago negotiating the return of 12 American navy websites to Seoul. A distinction to conservatives, the progressives have sought to expedite the return of wartime operational management (OPCON) from U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to the ROK navy, which essentially decreases Seoul’s reliance on the United States for its protection.
The ruling celebration’s desire for concord with North Korea additionally has penalties for the U.S. alliance: The two allies are not in lockstep on the risk notion of North Korea as the continuing enemy of the Korean War, the theoretical basis for the alliance. Already, below the Moon administration, Seoul and Washington have canceled quite a lot of joint navy drills to assist the ambiance of inter-Korean engagement. Moon Chung-in, a South Korean thought chief whose feedback replicate the Moon administration’s technique, publicly argued in Foreign Affairs that the presence of U.S. forces can be “difficult to justify” if a peace treaty had been signed with North Korea. He was subsequently tapped as ambassador to the United States, and is at present particular adviser to the South Korean president after the United States reportedly opposed his ambassadorship in non-public. Moon Chung-in has contended that Seoul might proceed to interact with Pyongyang no matter future U.S. opposition.
Recommendations for U.S. Policy
While the U.S.-ROK alliance is certainly not below an existential risk within the quick time period, the Biden administration faces a ruling liberal celebration with a distinctly pragmatic, moderately than ideological, strategy to the alliance – one outlined not by Cold War competitors, however on the phrases of its personal regional imaginative and prescient for peace with North Korea, justice towards Japan, and optimization between Beijing and Washington. The following suggestions are just a few methods wherein Biden would instantly carry heat to an important relationship with Seoul.
First, Biden should resolve the alliance cost-sharing dispute. Disputes over protection cost-sharing have positioned pressure on the alliance and weakened U.S. energy within the eyes of Beijing and Pyongyang, with President Trump at one level demanding a five-fold improve in Seoul’s monetary contribution and threatening to withdraw troops. Biden has already promised to not “extort” his allies and may take Seoul’s supply to extend its burden-sharing by as much as 13 p.c.
Second, the Biden administration should respect South Korean reluctance to take a aspect within the U.S.-China rivalry. Seoul prefers to navigate the rising safety risk of China by neutrality. A well-known Korean proverb guides South Korean considering on this regard: “It is the shrimp that gets crushed when two whales fight.” With South Korean liberals in energy, forcing a alternative tends to accentuate insecurities that South Korea is only a chess piece in U.S. rivalry with Beijing, an American watchtower on a distant frontier bordering China. Seoul is 951 kilometers from Beijing however 11,116 kilometers from Washington. Six occasions as many Chinese vacationers go to South Korea as go to the United States; South Korea now sends extra college students to China than to America; China accounts for greater than twice the quantity of South Korean commerce as does the United States. From Seoul’s perspective, diplomatic wiggle room is indispensable to its financial survival. Forcing a alternative, as an illustration by pressuring Seoul to affix the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, will instantly set off South Korean fears of turning into a goal of each Chinese and American retaliation: of being crushed by the 2 whales. Siding with America have to be a pretty alternative even for an ally, not solely strategically but additionally economically.
Biden must also assist continued South Korean engagement with North Korea. South Korean liberals don’t share the U.S. notion that the Trump-Kim summits had been mere photo-ops. At the time, 81 p.c of South Koreans supported the summit, and over 78 p.c of South Koreans thought of Kim Jong Un to be “trustworthy” or “very trustworthy.” According to a survey performed in December 2020, 73 p.c of South Koreans at present imagine Biden ought to restart talks with Kim. In the Nineteen Nineties, President Bill Clinton signed the Agreed Framework with North Korea, criticized by the Republicans as appeasement. The function reversal now in Democrats criticizing Trump’s diplomatic gamble with the North ought to be weighed towards South Korean assist for the present establishment of continued engagement. Reverting to a hardline on North Korea within the absence of a serious North Korean provocation will instantly create tensions with Seoul that may complicate Washington’s broader efforts to bolster its alliance infrastructure in Asia.
Finally, Biden and his workforce should mediate South Korea-Japan cooperation with a possible trilateral summit. The Trump administration was notably absent as Seoul and Tokyo descended right into a bitter historic dispute over compelled labor and luxury ladies. In the United States’ absence, China, Japan, and South Korea have pursued trilateral summits. It ought to be a precedence for Biden to behave as a bridge and supply a platform for Seoul and Tokyo to at the very least come to the desk with out both aspect dropping face.
The unprecedented energy of South Korea’s ruling liberal celebration signifies that come January 20, Biden should navigate the alliance in a approach that almost all successfully communicates his familiarity with the brand new contours of Korean politics. With China’s rise, what hangs within the stability could not simply be the way forward for the alliance, however the restoration of U.S. international management itself.
Brian Kim is a J.D. Candidate at Yale Law School, the place he’s at present a Herbert Hansell Fellow on the Center for Global Legal Challenges. His work has been printed in Lawfare, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Global Asia, The Asan Forum, and the Asian Jurist.
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