What's the future of China-South Korea relation?

BY Liam Lee

This year is the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and South Korea. Usually this would be a great event to celebrate. However, due to South Korea insisting on the deployment of the US THAAD anti-missile system, relations are now growing cold in the political and economic sectors. At the end of September, while participating in the third "Sino - S. Korea Relations Forum", I found non-governmental communication seems to be an important way to keep current Sino-S. Korean relations on the right track.

A photo shows a Sino-South Korean cultural event held in the South Korean city of Gongju between late September and early October 2017. [Photo: takungpao.com]

There is a game that youngsters often play. Staring into each other's eyes, the loser is the one who blinks first. This is the game sometimes countries also play against each other. Beijing and Seoul are trying to work out each other's bottom line in relation to THAAD. In Sino-South Korean relations, the one who moves first will lose the game.

Next month, US president Donald Trump will visit S. Korea as part of his Asia tour. The White House has told the public that the N. Korean nuclear issue would be a key topic. But from China's perspective, N. Korea developing a nuclear program and S. Korea deploying THAAD are two separate problems, even though both threaten China's security, we should adopt different ways to deal with them.

I recently visited the JSA (Joint Security Area). Setting off from the Seoul city hall, after an hour I came across the huge arch outside Paju which says 'welcome to the reunified country' in Korean, which reminded me of a similar slogan on the other side of it.

A banner hangs in the now restored railway station of Dorasan which says: "It's not the last stop in the south, but the first in the North." 

At the moment, S. Korean youngsters care little about North and South Korea, the railway terminus, the Exit - Entry Administration, or the destination indicators of the South Korean trains supposedly heading to Pyongyang. The public are more concerned about whether Trump will reveal his latest policy towards North Korea, just as Obama did before at the same place.

Many senior South Korea diplomats are staying silent, but China is showing no signs of being willing to make concessions. Noh Young-min, South Korea's new ambassador to China seems willing to make great efforts to alleviate relations between the two countries, which he sees as his most important task. He said he also understands China's worries about THAAD.

In the long run, improvements in Sino-South Korean relations need a helping hand from outside, but surely neither of two countries want relations to worsen. One Chinese expat who'd lived in S. Korea for many years once said even if two parents quarreled with one another, their children can still play together.

Non-governmental and local communication plays an important role in maintaining bilateral relations. Qu Huan, the president of the Sino- South Korean Culture Friendship Association said, she was both the daughter of China and the mother of South Korea. She told me vividly, there was an old saying, when the rooster crows in Shandong Peninsula, farmers in Chungcheongnam do will begin to work, which means China and South Korea are close neighbors, something that cannot be changed.

During my stay in South Korea, I knew many South Korean and Chinese people who regarded each other as good friends, firmly believing in the long history of bilateral friendly relations and the faith that difficulties would be overcome eventually. Even when big cities such as Beijing reduced the flights to S. Korea, a local city in the southwest, Zunyi, opened new flights to Seoul.

As for the solution to improving Beijing-Seoul relations, Da Zhigang, the director of the Institute of Northeast Asia of Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences offered two words: Cultural Exchanges. He said, bilateral relations got worse because of the deployment of the THAAD system. The question is how to conquer the challenges. On the one hand the problems test the intelligence of politicians, while on the other they provide new opportunities for cultural exchanges to break the ice. 

Da Zhigang says, Sino-South Korean cultural exchanges currently need updating, to not only adapt to the new changes in bilateral relations and northeast Asian cooperation, but also explore new fields within which to work, and conquer new challenges with a focus on realizing "Heart to Heart Communications" among youngsters in the cultural sphere.

(Liam Lee is a senior international desk correspondent based in Beijing)