The U.S. Ideological Alliance Strategy Targeting China and the Dynamics of China-South Korea Strategic Legalization

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the deepening U.S. “Cognitive Domain Operations” (CDO) against China, the advancement of its ideological alliance strategy exhibits increasingly distinct legalized and institutionalized characteristics. By extending the extraterritorial application of domestic laws, coordinating legal frameworks among allies, and shaping international rules, the US methodically shapes allied policies across political, security, economic, and technological spheres, thereby placing South Korea in a “strategic dilemma.” South Korea faces significant compliance risks and sovereignty constraints due to the tension between fulfilling legal obligations within the alliance and preserving its strategic economic autonomy. In response to this structural pressure, South Korea has adopted a composite strategy leveraging legal and institutional space: employing “strategic ambiguity” regarding key issues to retain policy autonomy; pursuing differentiated cooperation through “domain-specific” approaches under various international rule frameworks; and enhancing strategic resilience via domestic legislation and independent technical standard development. These measures potentially signal, at a legal level, an openness to pragmatic cooperation with China. China-South Korea strategic interactions should transcend traditional geopolitical competition and transition to establishing a rules-based legal and institutional framework. This can be achieved by expanding bilateral engagement within frameworks such as international law and regional rules, strengthening legal and institutionalized cooperation, and deepening rules-based collaboration in third-party markets. These efforts would contribute to building a sustainable stabilizing mechanism for bilateral relations. Legal-framework-based interaction offer a critical pathway for both countries to explore a stable, predictable, and mutually beneficial model in response to the pressures exerted by the US ideological strategy.