Getting East Asia Right:
IR Theory and Bilateral Relations between China, Japan and South
Korea in the 2000s
Yinan He
Paper prepared for the conference
"Misjudging the Rise of Asia in the 1970s-2010s: Assessing What International Relations
Theory Got Wrong and How Princeton Responded"
Princeton University
April 12, 2013
East Asia is seriously understudied in the IR field. According to a recent survey of
US IR scholars (TRIP 2011), East Asia is widely considered the area of "greatest strategic
importance to the US" today (46% of respondents) as well as in twenty years (72% of
respondents). Yet only a small proportion of US IR scholars (9% of respondents) mainly
work on East Asia in their own research. A review of major IR journals also shows that
East Asian cases are systematically excluded from much of the analysis in the United
States and Europe (Johnson 2012). It is therefore questionable if the dominant IR theory
can apply to East Asia satisfactorily. Many have called for considerable revision to these
theories by including more East Asian cases (Acharya & Buzan 2010; Hamilton-Hart
2009; Kang 2003).
The goal of this chapter is to examine the challenges posed by East Asia to IR
theorists steeped in arguments drawn from Western experiences, and point out possible
contributions that East Asian studies can make to the field. I particularly focus on the
complex bilateral relations between the three biggest players in the region -- China, Japan
and South Korea in the first decade of the 21st century. Two of the three, China and Japan,
are currently the second and third largest economies in the world. Japan and South Korea
are liberal democracies, while China remains an authoritarian country. All three countries
have had thick economic and societal ties with one another. The relations between these
three countries thus provide a rich reservoir of empirical observations to test and refine
some key theoretical arguments in US and European IR theory.
The rest of the chapter is divided into three parts. It first offers a succinct review
of degree of fit between some influential IR theories and the three cases of bilateral
relations. The purpose is to sort out the specific areas of strength and weakness of these
1
theories when applied to East Asia. The second part examines the three cases in more
detail, with a special focus on the role of national identity in shaping states' foreign policy
preferences that has not been sufficiently recognized in the existing literature on
contemporary East Asian IR studies. The chapter concludes with a summary of the
theoretical and empirical findings, as well as suggestions on how one might integrate
theories emphasizing material factors (e.g. military and economic elements) and official
institutions and policies on the one hand, and alternative perspectives that appreciate the
impact of important non-material variables on IR on the other hand.
What Theories Can Explain and Cannot
The first 10 years in the 21st century witnessed general structural stability in East
Asia. The economic gap between Japan and South Korea remained substantial throughout
the decade. China was clearly on the rise and over the decade its GDP size finally caught
up with that of Japan (Figure 1). But China's economic catch-up was an incremental
process in the first half of the decade, and only accelerated after 2005. Fast economic
growth allowed China to rapidly increase its defense spending, which became the second
largest in the world. Regardless, these developments did not significantly alter regional
military balance of power because China's newly acquired naval and air force capabilities
were quietly matched by Japan's own steady process of military modernization and power
projection (Hughes 2009). At the same time, South Korea and Japan's security alliances
with the United States were solid, which maintained the strategic status quo in East Asia.
The realist theory of power rivalry suggests that cooperation will be difficult if
two states see each other as “threatening competitors who are categorized as enemies”
(Thompson 2001, 55). This often happens when the growing power of one state
2
challenges the security of another, in which case states will take measures to balance each
other. But the theory hardly explains the strained political relations in the 2000s between
Japan and South Korea, which were not rivalries measured by their economic and military
power. Also, the two countries were both allied to the US, faced the common military
threat of North Korea, and shared concerns about a rising China. Although the reasons for
strategic cooperation were ample, the two governments could not take any substantial
steps toward joint military actions. The rise of China indeed fostered a sense of rivalry
with Japan, if not with South Korea, but none of the issues of their diplomatic contention
-- such as islands and resource disputes, and food safety problem -- involved vital
national interest. At least in the 2000s China and Japan had more shared interests than
conflicting ones as there was considerable room for bilateral cooperation on various
global issues “ranging from energy security, environmental protection, climate change,
prevention and control of diseases to counter-terrorism, combating transnational crimes
and the prevention of proliferation of weapons of massive destruction.”1 Moreover, the
theory would predict a greater degree of diplomatic tension between China and Japan in
the second half of the decade than the first half, when China's economic size still lagged
far behind that of Japan's. This prediction is contrary to what actually happened because
Sino-Japanese relations underwent a downward spiral during the Koizumi administration
since 2001 before being gradually repaired in 2006-2009.
The political regimes of the three countries also kept stable, if not always popular,
in the 2000s. In democratic Japan, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) held
Quoted from Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao’s speech at the Japanese Diet, April 12,
2007. Available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t311544.htm
1
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power until being unseated by the center-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in
September 2009. South Korea experienced three presidents in the 2000s through
democratic elections -- Kim Dae-jung until 2003, Roh Moo-Hyun of the Uri Party until
2008, succeeded by Lee Myung-bak of the conservative Grand National Party. Under the
tight control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China is the only non-democracy
among the three countries, even though its society grew increasingly open and pluralistic,
thanks to globalization, internet and the boom of other non-official media.
The relevant theory here is the liberal idea of democratic peace, which argues that
democracies do not war against one another because of their shared liberal norms and the
constraints of democratic institutions (Doyle 1983; Owen 1994; Russett 1993). Liberal
scholars and policymakers also believe that the spread of democracy can foster greater
international stability and cooperation (Ikenberry 2011). The theory is a tough fit for the
difficult relations between the two mature democracies, Japan and South Korea. It fits
better the cases of Sino-Japanese and Sino-South Korean relations, where value conflict
indeed became more prominent in the 2000s. Particularly, from 2006 Japanese Foreign
Minister Asō Tarō and Prime Minister Abe Shinzō made statements promoting a valueoriented diplomacy aiming at establishing "the arc of freedom and prosperity" along the
outer rim of Eurasia, which would obviously leave out China. South Korean President
Lee also sought to strengthen cooperation with the US and Japan based on common
values as fellow democracies, which could be conceived as a three-way collaboration to
contain China (Cho 2010; Snyder 2009). But as an illiberal state ever since 1949,
Communist China had enjoyed relatively smooth relations with Japan since 1972, and
with South Korea since 1992 diplomatic normalization. The fact that their different
4
political systems became more of an issue in the 2000s than before is a puzzle beyond the
explanation of the democratic peace theory.
Economically, interdependence through mutual trade and investment grew rapidly
between China, Japan and South Korea in the 2000s. China particularly surpassed all
other countries to be Japan and South Korea's top trading partner (Chan & Kuo 2005). By
the end of the decade Japan and South Korea were among the five largest trading partners
of China. The value of Japan’s foreign direct investment (FDI) toward China exceeded $5
billion since 2005, which was more than ten times from the value back in 1989. China
also became the largest destination of South Korea's FDI from 2002, and in 2004 China's
share reached 1/5 of its total outward FDI (Noh & Mah 2011). Because of the growing
presence of China, the importance of Japan and South Korea to each other as a trading
partner had a relative decline, though the absolute value of their trade continued to grow
in the decade (Mukoyama 2012). Direct investment between the two countries, negatively
affected by the 2007 financial crisis, also recovered quickly by the end of the decade
(Figure 2).
According to the liberal theory of commercial peace, increased levels of economic
interactions should discourage armed conflict (Rosecrance 1986; Oneal & Russett 1997;
Keohane & Nye 2001). A logical corollary of the theory is that commerce can also
moderate mutual policy in times short of war for fear that a rapidly worsening political
relationship will eventually harm economic interest. Yet strong economic relations did
not prevent diplomatic volatility between the three East Asian countries, including
suspension of high-level intergovernmental meetings, economic boycott, and mass
protests. I have shown elsewhere that Japanese and Chinese policymakers felt neither
5
strong economic incentives nor business lobby pressure to adopt an accommodative
policy towards the other nation during their relationship downturn in 2001-2006 (He
2008). Nor was there much evidence suggesting that mutual commercial interests served
to smooth over political tensions between Japan and South Korea (Cooney & Scarbrough
2008).
The last theory pertinent to these cases is the constructivist view that the more
transnational communication and transactions there are, the more countries will develop
mutual understanding and trust, and the more likely they will form a security community
characterized by a shared identity (Deutsch 1957; Alder & Barnett 1998). The best
evidence supporting the theory is the economic and political integration of West Europe
after WWII that paved a solid foundation for regional stability. In the 2000s, China, Japan
and South Korea maintained an extremely high degree of economic and societal contacts,
yet regional integration in the form of a multilateral free trade zone, close alignment of
national markets, or a unified currency was far beyond reach (Chan & Kuo 2005).
Economic interactions in the region mostly followed the logic of bilateralism than
regionalism. Despite obvious economic and security incentives felt by most countries in
the region for establishing an East Asia Community, the development of regionalism
repeatedly suffered setback in the 2000s. The Bush Administration's discouragement,
competition and mutual suspicion between China and Japan, and the narrow-minded
nationalist approach of various countries to regional cooperation were some of the major
obstacles (Bisley 2007-2008; Rozman 2004; Rozman 2010). In the meantime, intimate
people-to-people interactions often brought complex mutual image mixing affection,
alienation, and sometimes even disgust (He 2013).
6
In summary, the relationships between the three biggest countries in East Asia in
the 2000s reveal substantial inadequacy of the dominant IR theory when applied to the
region. Mostly, the literature tends to emphasize international material factors (e.g.
military and economic elements) and the role of formal, official institutions and policies
while leaving out the impact of popular emotions and perceptions on IR that are often
shaped by domestic, ideational and psychological variables. Below I briefly review and
analyze the three bilateral relations.
Sino-Japanese Relations
The 2000s was quite an eventful decade for Sino-Japanese relations. After Jiang
Zemin's visit to Japan in 1998 backfired, China took care to improve relations with Japan
at the beginning of the 2000s.2 But the temporary relaxation was ended by Prime Minister
Koizumi Junichirō, who from October 20012 started annual worship at the Yasukuni
Shrine, a Shinto temple in Tokyo commemorating Japanese war dead, including Class-A
war criminals from World War II. In protest, Beijing suspended mutual state visits of
leaders until 2006. Two additional issues of official friction in the decade are Japanese
reduction of ODA to China from 2001, eventually phasing out new loans in 2008, and
bilateral disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and exclusive economic zones (EEZ)
in East China Sea (ECS) that escalated in 2004-2005.
At the popular level, anti-Japanese demonstrations, online and popular media
attack on Japan, and Baodiao [defending Diaoyu] activism in China became a routine
concern in Sino-Japanese relations. In summer 2003, more than one million Chinese
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people responded to an online petition demanding that Japan apologize and compensate
for Chinese injuries caused by the leaking of Japanese chemical weapons left behind after
the war. In the same year, Chinese “netizens” campaigned to oppose the choice of
Japanese Shinkansen technology for the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail link because of
Japan’s denial of war guilt. In 2004, seven Chinese activists landed on the disputed
Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands before being arrested by Japanese Coast Guard. In spring 2005,
massive anti-Japanese demonstrations erupted in dozens of Chinese cities over Japanese
textbooks, its bid for a permanent seat at the United Nation Security Council, and
Koizumi's Yasukuni visits. Meanwhile, Japanese public feeling of closeness to China
dropped below 40% from 2004. This downward trend continued into 2008 despite a
slight improvement in Chinese perception of Japan (Figure 3), thanks to Beijing's
propaganda to "promote Japan" after the 2005 demonstrations (Reilly 2012, Chapter 6).
After Koizumi stepped down in September 2006, the two governments took a
number of steps of leadership diplomacy to repair the damages, including most notably
Prime Minister Abe’s ice-breaking (pobing) visit to China in October 2006, Premier
Wen’s ice-melting (rongbing) visit to Japan in April 2007, Prime Minister Fukuda’s
spring-welcoming (yingchun) trip to China in December 2007, and President Hu’s
warmspring (nuanchun) visit to Japan in May 2008. As a result of the relationship
warmup, bilateral history disputes received a respite. Fukuda and Hu also agreed in 2008
on the principle of jointly exploring the gas fields in ECS, and Prime Minister Hatoyama
Yukio of the first government of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), created in
During Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan in November 1998, his harsh
criticism of Japan’s attitude toward the WWII history touched off widespread Japanese
2
8
September 2009, proposed a diplomatic concept of "East Asian community" with the
principle of fraternity. But the recovery in 2006-2009 proved to be superficial and shortlived, and an undercurrent of mutual discontent was running the whole time over the
contaminated Gyōza controversy,3 lack of progress in implementing the Hu-Fukuda
agreement on the ECS joint exploration, and spiraling moves of the two sides to assert
sovereignty over the disputed offshore islands, to name a few problems. Relations
deteriorated quickly when a Chinese fishing boat rammed into two Japanese Coast Guard
vessels near the disputed islands in September 2010, ushering in a downward spiral in the
past three years.
If taking a closer look at Sino-Japanese relations in the 2000s, one is struck by the
high degree of shared interests and absence of critical strategic conflict between the two
countries. Not like in WWII when a militaristic Japan was destined to collide with China,
or in the Cold War when they were engulfed by a global superpower struggle, today the
two countries are far from being predisposed to strategic antagonism. Mutual threats are
frequently inflated and told in self-fulfilling prophecy than based on rational, objective
assessment, and overreactions have become more and more the rule than exception. The
result is that secondary disputes increasingly crowd out mutually beneficial cooperation in
areas concerning greater national interests or the daily life of the two peoples.
resentment against China.
3
After ten Japanese citizens fell ill from eating Chinese-made frozen dumplings in
December 2007 and January 2008, China denied that the contamination occurred on its
territory until March 2010, when a man was arrested in China for poisoning the
dumplings. The incident sparked a scare in Japan over Chinese food and complaints about
China's irresponsibility.
9
The extremely complex and paradoxical Sino-Japanese relations testify to the
power of perceptions that are shaped by not just power factors but also cultural-ideational
forces, including conflicting conceptions of national identity and divergent political
ideologies. Take historical memory for instance, negative emotions and suspicion of
hostile intentions stemming from conflicting interpretations of the WWII history proved
to be consequential in worsening both popular and elite perceptions of one another
country in the 2000s. The poisoned perceptions not only exerted a direct pressure on the
two governments to take a tough diplomatic position toward each other country, but also
indirectly swayed government decisions by affecting elite politics and hindering openminded policy debates. In China, the moderates were defeated in the "New Thinking"
debates about Japan policy in 2002-2003. In Japan, during the Koizumi Administration
the influence of hawkish, nationalist leaders like Koizumi, his Chief Cabinet Secretary
Abe and his Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Nakagawa Shōichi were boosted
by the country's widespread displeasure about China at the expense of moderate, proChina Japanese politicians and diplomats (He 2008).
Although often working against bilateral harmony, much of these culturalideational forces would be unsustainable if they had not been aided and abetted by
domestic political incentives. War memory assumed greater potency in driving the course
of Sino-Japanese relations only in recent decades because opportunistic elites of the two
countries employed historical mythmaking as a tool to meet their practical needs,
including to ensure regime legitimacy, facilitate social mobilization, or enhance factional
and organizational interest. While mainly produced for domestic consumption, national
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myths of different countries can pit them against one another over historical interpretation
and elicit visceral mutual antipathy and mistrust (He 2009).
Neither is the democracy-authoritarianism dichotomy in their current political
discourses completely natural. Communist China is never a democracy, a fact that seemed
to be forgotten by Japan until the 1990s. When the relations were first normalized,
Japanese elite and public were generally optimistic about the future of China's market
reform and political liberalization. Japanese self-confidence at the time also afforded
more willingness to tolerate an economically backward China that was eager to learn
from Japan. But the Tiananmen incident in 1989 suddenly demoted China "from a model
student to a pariah" in the eyes of the Japanese. China's growing power and international
assertiveness also alarmed Japan to possible threats that an illiberal China might pose to
its neighbors (Sun 2012, 39-43).
While many Japanese citizens today truly subscribe to democratic values,
ironically some of Japan's most vocal critics of China's human rights records are
rightwing nationalists (Akaha 2010). Japanese leaders who pushed for a value-oriented
diplomacy are also ardent advocates of a strong and proud Japan untainted by its
historical past, not to mention their explicit disrespect for gender equality, minorities'
rights, and other important civic values.4 For the rightist elite, democracy is an instrument
of moral competition that they use to counter China's history card, and fanning anti-China
nationalism could rally public support for their political agenda at home.
Japan-South Korea relations
4
For some evidence, see "Abe's Sex Slave Stance Darkens Women's Day," Japan Times,
March 10, 2007; "Japan's Aso: Elderly Should Hurry up and Die'," News.msn.com,
11
Similarly, historically based emotions and perceptions seriously complicated the
relations between Japan and South Korea in the 2000s. The mood was upbeat after the
signing of the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration in 1998, when Prime Minister
Obuchi Keizō expressed “deep remorse and heartfelt apology” for the "tremendous
damage and suffering" that Japan caused to the Koreans during its colonial rule, and
President Kim Dae-jung "accepted with sincerity" Obuchi's recognition of history and
called upon both countries to "overcome their unfortunate history and to build a futureoriented relationship based on reconciliation as well as good-neighborly and friendly
cooperation."5 But bilateral relations were soon set back by the incident of Japanese
history textbooks. Japanese history textbooks approved in the year 2000 markedly deleted
or watered down descriptions of Japanese military atrocities. In 2001, the conservative
Ministry of Education also approved a controversial textbook New History Textbook
compiled by a nationalist organization named the Japanese Society for History Textbook
Reform (abbreviated Tsukuru Kai). In response, Seoul cancelled a joint military exercise
with Japan and demanded Tokyo to correct the historical distortions in its textbooks, a
request that the new Japanese prime minister Koizumi refused to grant. Koizumi then
added insult to injury by paying homage to the Yasukuni Shrine shortly after entering
office. The Koreans felt betrayed and were angry about Kim's previously soft approach to
Japan (Rozman 2002).
While the 2002 World Cup helped stabilize the ties temporarily, mutual disgust
and mistrust continued unabated. Tensions particularly escalated in a diplomatic row over
January 23, 2013.
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the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands in 2005, which had more to do with the image of historical
humiliation, national pride, and domestic politics than the material value of the islands.
The island disputes, compounded by Japanese textbook controversy and Koizumi's
annual visits to Yasukuni, led to suspension of the "shuttle diplomacy" between the
leaders and nearly caused a maritime conflict. Ironically, 2005 was recognized as the
Korea-Japan Friendship Year, but it turned out to be far from friendly. A public survey
released in June 2005 reveals that as high as 89 percent of Korean respondents said they
could not trust Japan (Rozman 2007, 199).
History became such a touchy issue in Japanese-South Korean relations not just
because Korea suffered the longest and most painful Japanese colonization in Asia and
made that experience a central part of its national identity. Political elite in both countries
also manipulated history to advance their domestic political goals. Japan's rightwing
revisionism and conservative leaders' use of history for boosting national morale irritated
Koreans and aroused their deep suspicions. Meanwhile, for some South Korean
politicians, playing up the colonial history would increase their domestic popularity and
support electoral strategy. So in 2004 President Roh announced a campaign to thoroughly
investigate those who collaborated with the Japanese colonial authorities, with the
intention to discredit his political opponents more than to accurately understand the past
(Jager 2005). In 2005 he again focused public attention on history by calling for a
reassessment of the normalization treaty with Japan in 1965 that had failed to secure
rightful compensation for Korean suffering at the hands of the Japanese.
5
The text of the joint declaration is available at: http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asiapaci/korea/joint9810.html
13
After Abe succeeded Koizumi to be the prime minister, his denial of Japanese
governmental responsibility in forcing women into sexual slavery continued to foster
Korean resentment and distrust of Japan. His proposal for a value diplomacy, which
contradicted his refusal to acknowledge Japanese acts of historical injustices, sounded as
hypocrisy among South Koreans (Rozman 2007, 210). In fact, during the troubled years
in the decade, the shared democratic norms and values of the two countries appeared to
have very limited effect in reducing bilateral tension. The emotional twists of JapaneseSouth Korean relations also flew in the face of obvious common interests between the
two countries. Although the North Korean nuclear issue had since 1998 compelled Japan
and South Korea to work with each other, conflicting national identities kept driving them
apart. Neither did their intimate societal contacts and mutually beneficial economic
relations buffer the damaging power of historical memory and nationalism. In 2007, for
instance, South Koreans made up about one-third of all foreign tourists to Japan, and
South Korea was the third-most popular destination for Japanese tourists. Given the
heavy two-way trade and investment, the business communities of both countries were
enthusiastic about establishing a bilateral free trade area (FTA). But the progress on the
FTA was stalled by domestic politics in the two countries, as well as remaining suspicion
and hesitation among some South Koreans because of the colonial history (Cooney &
Scarbrough 2008, 176-177).
The Lee government inaugurated in South Korea in early 2008 was more
pragmatic and less ideological than its predecessor in Japan policy. President Lee
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expressed the willingness to leave history disputes to experts.6 His conciliatory policy
was reciprocated by a similarly moderate Fukuda. The "shuttle diplomacy" between
Japanese and South Korean leaders resumed thereafter, and trilateral talks with
Washington was restored. The new DPJ government from 2009 also promised to give
more weight to historical reconciliation with Asian neighboring countries, such as in
Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio's call for a East Asia Community, and his foreign
minister Okada Katsuya's proposal for China, Japan and South Korea to write a common
history textbook, with joint history study being the first step towards this goal.7 The next
DPJ prime minister Kan Naoto even made an eye-catching apology to South Korea in
August 2010 for Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea.8
The DPJ’s gestures remained inadequate, however, for example in lacking any
response to the apology and compensation demands of former sex slaves and forced
laborers. And these gestures met strong backlash in Japan. After Kan issued his apology
to South Korea, Japan's Sankei Shimbun immediately blasted Kan's apology to be
"treasonous diplomacy,” and rightwing groups held an "emergency citizens’ meeting" in
central Tokyo that passed a resolution calling for a bilateral relationship "based not on
feelings of moral superiority for one party and guilt for the other" (Harris 2010). While
recognizing the importance of reconciliation, the DPJ government also grew impatient
with the "excessive" anti-Japanese nationalism in South Korea and China (Sengoku
2012). In South Korea, public opinion remained skeptical and alienated toward Japan. In
a poll held in March 2008, Japan (31.4%) was reported to the country most unfavorable to
6
7
Asahi Shimbun, February 2, 2008.
Korea Times, October 8, 2009.
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South Korea, worse than even North Korea (29.5%), and far ahead of Russia (12.6%) and
China (11.8%).9 In a joint poll held in June 2010, a much greater proportion of South
Korean respondents believed that Japan's colonial rule and other historical problems had
not been settled (94%) and Japan had not sufficiently apologized to Korea (97%) than
Japanese respondents (52% and 30% respectively).10 Given such a negative trend of
public opinion, including extreme nationalist voices, a cool-headed, rational foreign
policy strictly following the logic of international relations theory was not something one
could find between Japan and South Korea. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the decade,
issues like the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and Japanese history textbooks continued to
haunt Japanese-South Korean relations. And the two natural allies had yet to take
substantial measures to coordinate their security policy even under the growing North
Korean challenge. Worse, Japan's move to strengthen its own defense capabilities in
response to China's military modernization was seen as a potential threat by South Korea,
who had greater distrust of Japan than China (Taylor 2012). This is what I will turn in the
next section.
China-South Korea relations
China and South Korea fought against one another in the Korean War, and
remained strategic adversaries throughout the Cold War until 1992 when they finally
8
New York Times, 10 August 2010.
Chosun Ilbo March 2008 Opinion Poll Commemorating 60th Anniversary of Korea.
Accessed at http://mansfieldfdn.org/program/research-education-andcommunication/asian-opinion-poll-database/listofpolls/2008-polls/chosun-ilbo-march2008-opinion-polls-08-03/, March 22, 2013.
10 Asahi Shimbun/Dong-A Ilbo June 2010 Joint Public Opinion Poll, accessed at
http://mansfieldfdn.org/program/research-education-and-communication/asian-opinion9
16
normalized relations. But since normalization, the two countries quickly developed a
"cooperative partnership" in 1997, which was elevated to a "comprehensive cooperative
partnership" in 2003 and a "strategic cooperative partnership" in 2008. Economically,
China first overtook Japan and then the US to become South Korea's largest export
market in 2003. The next year China became South Korea's largest trading partner. By
end of the decade South Korea's trade volume with China is equivalent to its trade with
the US and Japan combined. China was also South Korea's top destination for outbound
investment in the 2000s. By 2008, China had received 37.6 billion of cumulative
investments from South Korea (Wong 2009, 14).
As result of the thick economic contacts, numerous Korean companies opened
office in China. In 2005, as many as 30,000 Korean corporate offices were in operation in
China (Chung 2007, 95). In 2008 about 700,000 South Koreans were long-term residents
in China, including 65,000 students, which was the largest foreign student body in China.
Chinese also made up 44 percent of total foreigners in South Korea in 2007, the biggest
foreign group there. This is not to mention millions of tourists who paid visits to each
other country in the decade. The prospect for people-to-people contacts was so bright that
during Lee-Hu summit in 2008 they agreed to designate 2010 as the Visit China Year and
2012 the Visit Korea Year (Wong 2009, 15). Korean pop culture also brought a feverish
Hallyu, or "Korean Wave," to Chinese society. In terms of public opinion, it is reported
that at least in the first half of the 2000s Korean public held quite a favorable perception
poll-database/listofpolls/2010-polls/asahi-shimbundong-a-ilbo-june-2010-joint-publicopinion-poll-10-21/, March 22, 2013.
17
of China, sometimes even more favorable than their perception of the US (Chung 2007,
96-99).
Despite these positive trends in Sino-South Korean relations, in the 2000s it was
far-fetched to imagine that Seoul would bandwagon with China or stay neutral in USChina relations. Seoul's strategic dependence on the US had been deep-rooted since the
Cold War, which continued to be justified by the North Korean threat and elite concerns
about a rising China. China and South Korea also had divergent interests in the North
Korean nuclear issue. What is puzzling from a realist point of view is that Seoul did not
appear to be equally worried about China's growing power as the US and Japan were.
According to a poll in 2005 for instance, South Korean respondents listed North Korea
(46.1%), Japan (28.1%) and the US (17.3%) as the nation's biggest threats, trailed by
China as the fourth one (6.7%).11 Another poll in the same year shows that South Koreans
treated the US, China, Japan and North Korea as largely equal threat to the nation
(Rozman 2007). While North Korea's landing at the top of its threat list conforms to
realist prediction, the fact that Japan and the US were more feared than China does not. In
fact, as David Kang argues, South Korea demonstrated no intention to balance China in
the 2000s; its strategic and military planning did not aim at a potential China threat, and
politically Seoul largely accommodated China (Kang 2009).
Part of the reason that South Korea drew close to China instead of guarding
against it lies in its implicit attempt to gain leverage on the US, with whom South Korea
had disagreement over how to deal with North Korea (Kang 2009, 15). President Roh in
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particular wished to reduce Korea's strategic dependence on the US by employing
hedging toward China (Chung 2007; Rozman 2007). Although the Lee Administration
sought to distance from Roh's policy by strengthening the alliance with the US, most
South Koreans believed that China's cooperation is important for dealing with North
Korea. Ideally Seoul wishes to maintain harmonious relationships with both China and
the US without having to choosing between them (Han 2012). Another reason, especially
regarding Koreans' more favorable view of China than of Japan despite their shared
democratic values and common fear of North Korea, again had to do with Korea's
national identity and collective memory associated with the colonial history. In a 2007
poll, for instance, it was reported that a much higher percentage of South Korean
respondents believed that a nuclear-armed Japan (90%) would pose a potential threat than
those who believed that North Korean nuclear weapons were a threat (63.9%) (Kang
2009, 17).
This is not to refute the fact that conflicting norms and values indeed worked to
keep China and South Korea at distance from one another, in addition to structural factors
like the US-South Korean alliance or South Korea's remaining skepticism about China's
good will in the North Korea issue. But such conflicts were not limited to issues of
democracy and human rights that the democratic peace theory would predict. A range of
normative clashes happened between China and South Korea in the 2000s, including
issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity in Tibet, North Korean refugees, ideas on
regional integration, and soft power competition (Cho 2010). Moreover, the history
11
Dong-A Ilbo Opinion Poll on South Korean Attitudes Toward Japan and Other
Nations, March 2005, accessed at http://www.mansfieldfdn.org/backup/polls/2005/poll19
controversy that erupted in summer 2004 over whether the ancient Korean kingdom,
Goguryo, was part of Chinese history raised South Korean's suspicion of China's cultural
expansionism and intention to subordinate Korea to the old Sino-centrism. This
controversy visibly soured South Korean perception of China. Take one of many
examples, surveys conducted by the East Asia Institute/the Korea Research show that
positive view held by Korean public about China declined from 49 percent in 2004 to 32
percent in 2006 (Kim 2009, 4). The cozy mood of bilateral popular relations was further
dampened in the second half of the decade by a number of other cultural and historical
disputes involving, for instance, who owes cultural heritage over the Dragon Boat
Festival in Chinese or, in Korean, Gangneung Danoje Festival that are celebrated on the
same date of the lunar calendar; and Korea's popular claim of sovereignty over Mount
Baekdu (called Changbai Mountain in Chinese), a sacred mountain in Korean culture that
is located on the border of China and North Korea (Wong 2009, 23-24). At the core of
these dispute was the identity politics in both countries that is not captured by dominant
IR theories.
Overall, my research calls for recognizing a greater role for ideas and emotions in
East Asian IR studies. This is not to say that power does not matter. East Asian nations
are indeed sensitive to military balance and external threats, but their perception of and
response to these structural, material forces are often conditioned by cultural-ideational
factors, including the deep-rooted historically based suspicions and animosities, frustrated
nationalism, and distinct conceptions of national identity.
05-2.htm, February 25, 2013.
20
Figure 1: GDP size of China, Japan and South Korea, 2000-2009 (trillion current US $)
Japan
China
South Korea
Source: World Development Indicators, World Databank
Figure 2: Japan's Direct Investment in South Korea
Source: "Japanese Firms Intensify Investment in South Korea," Nikkei Business
Online, March 12, 2012.
21
Figure 3: Japanese Public Feeling of Closeness toward China, 1999-2009
Source: Cabinet Secretariat of the Japanese Prime Minister, Seron Chōsa Nenkan
[Opinion Polls Yearbooks] (Tokyo, Ōkurashō Insatsukyoku)
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