Jeju Peace Institute

The cause of new disputes in Northeast Asia lies in the success of the Chinese policy of reform and door-opening and the Communist Party’s resultant stronger grip on power and greater influence on politics (typified by Communist Party-based centralism), economy (reform and door-opening policies), military (with modernization of its military), society (Chinese type of socialist society) and culture (spiritual civilization befitting the Chinese socialist system). The campaign of the authoritarian government to build up national power is based on stronger leadership of the Chinese Communist government led by Xi Jinping. Therefore, the Communist government led by the “leadership core” (Communist party, military and political leader) is expected to maintain the One Belt, One Road Initiative under the vision of Chinese dream (中國夢) for a longer term. Given the fact that the Chinese leadership actually preferred the strict unified order of the School of Law (法家) in political and military affairs to the traditional Confucian ideology which used to govern social, administrative, educational and family systems, it should never be overlooked that the Communist Party exerts far greater influence than any other social organizations over Chinese politics. This paper will investigate the international affairs of Northeast Asia in the perspective of South Korea, examine the Korea-China relations and foresee the changes in the bilateral ties. It is also aimed at exploring the fundamental tasks lying ahead of the Korea-China relations and seeking the solutions by identifying the points of dispute between academic groups and scholars of the two countries. For instance, it is one of the purposes of this paper to answer questions such as why the Korea-Chinese ties matter, what elements affect the Korea-U.S. and Korea-China ties, and how do the inter-Korean relations influence the ROK-U.S. and Korea-China ties. The structural contradiction in the Korea-China ties can be attributed to the historical changes in the ties of the two countries, their divergent purposes and responses to the hegemonic rivalry of the world powers in the region. This paper seeks to find the root cause of the conflicts and the kind of efforts the involved parties have to make to reconcile the intrinsically problematic issues and improve their relations. In its conclusion, this paper stresses the unique characteristics of the inter-Korean and ROK-U.S. ties, as the realities of the international politics as well as the domestic politics of South Korea tend to underscore the importance of the security alliance between ROK-U.S. The alliance constitutes the basics of South Korean diplomacy with the U.S. and China.

Author

KIM Jin Ho (Professor, Dankook University)