South Korea is pressing to restore a summit with the leaders of China and Japan despite a diplomatic rift that’s led some parliament members of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party to call for the expulsion of Beijing’s envoy.
(Bloomberg) — South Korea is pressing to restore a summit with the leaders of China and Japan despite a diplomatic rift that’s led some parliament members of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party to call for the expulsion of Beijing’s envoy.
South Korea is communicating its intention to hold the trilateral summit this year and is in discussions with China and Japan, National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong told reporters Wednesday, before departing for a meeting in Tokyo with his US and Japanese counterparts.
“South Korea has a centered and determined position hoping to develop a healthy relationship with China, and developing the South Korea-China-Japan consultative body,” Cho said.
Resuming a three-way summit between the nations last held in 2019 and suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic and political rancor would be a major step in reconciliation. The three have been at odds, with Seoul and Tokyo drawing Beijing’s ire for backing US policies placing curbs on some high-tech equipment to China and looking to bolster supply chains for key materials such as semiconductors that are less dependent on the country.
Ties between South Korea and China have plummeted to depths not seen in years after Ambassador Xing Haiming said in a meeting last week with the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party that Seoul’s embrace of pro-US policies could bring it harm. South Korea protested, saying Xing’s language was unacceptable and an interference in its domestic politics.
China responded by expressing “grave concerns and dissatisfaction” over Seoul’s comments. The two countries have been sniping at each for days with lawmakers from Yoon’s conservative party seeking to escalate the matter with the first expulsion of a Chinese envoy to Seoul since South Korea was founded.
“The government should designate Ambassador Xing as a ‘persona non grata’ and expel him for his provocative behavior,” Shin Wonsik, a ruling party lawmaker, said in a post on his Facebook page. “Chinese diplomats cannot be an exception if they trample on the sovereignty and pride of South Korea.”
While Yoon has expressed dissatisfaction with the envoy’s comments, he is unlikely to take such a drastic step as an expulsion that would alienate his country’s biggest tradition partner and one of the most powerful forces in trying to persuade North Korea to curb its atomic ambitions.
China used economic retaliation against South Korea in 2017 when it objected to Seoul deploying the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile shield. Beijing was concerned the system’s powerful radar would allow spying on its missile program and launched economic measures that shaved an estimated 0.4 percentage points off South Korea’s gross domestic product expansion in 2017.
Yoon, a conservative who took power a little over a year ago, has pledged to take a tough line on China as he embraced hawkish trade and security policies backed by the Biden administration. He may look to keep China in his sights as his party seeks to take back control of parliament in elections in less than a year.
The president may find backing among a South Korean public that has soured in its perceptions of China, which ranked last in preferred nations among the US, Japan, Russia and North Korea in an April poll from Hankook Research.
–With assistance from Shinhye Kang.
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