“Strategic Cooperative Partnership” between Beijing and Seoul?A Quest in Search of Reality

Abstract

This brief essay analyzes how the intermix of changing mutual perceptions and strategic realities affects South Korea’s policy toward China. This could shed some light on the ROK’s three most fundamental questions regarding China and its rise—namely, a) how best to cope with its alliance with the U.S. and its cooperation with China? b) how can South Korea reconcile its needs for cooperation with China and, at the same time, its potentially conflictual issues with China? and c) what role is China likely to play in the future of North Korea and of the Korean Peninsula?While both countries have long harbored the dual images of superiority and inferiority when eyeing on the other, this has not prevented them from improving bilateral ties in all major fields for the past 20 years. In fact, it is one of the most successful bilateral ties ever established when viewed in terms of the quantity of trade volumes, frequency of mutual contacts, and the level of closeness in diplomatic rhetoric. The divergence of interests, however, is likely to transpire in a host of such salient issues as Korean unification, North Korean residents in China, the Koguryo history, and the Six-Party Talks. It is thus argued that their deepening ties will coexist with wary feelings without any appreciable convergence of their positive memories and interests. Under such circumstances it is necessary for South Korea to reap the benefits of its alliance ties with the U.S. in addressing the growing importance of the “China factor” to itself. It is also prudent to maintain the strategy of engagement and hedging toward China. In the long and tortuous path for realizing South Korea’s national objectives, it is entirely possible that China will remain a source for both despair and hope.