Seoul’s post-impeachment pivot: a win for China?
Beijing sees a rare strategic opening. Washington remains resentful. And South Korea’s
future hangs in the balance.
The impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on April 4, 2025, has sent
shockwaves through the Korean Peninsula and beyond. With opposition leader Lee Jaemyung now favored to win the presidency in a likely snap election, South Korea stands at a
geopolitical crossroads - precariously perched between its democratic allies and an
increasingly assertive China.
This is not merely a domestic crisis. It’s a moment of strategic vulnerability. Beijing, for one,
is watching with quiet satisfaction. China sees an opportunity to reclaim influence long
denied; the US, disillusioned with an ally it increasingly sees as ungrateful, questions the
very value of its commitments on the peninsula.
Lee Jae-myung - known for his conciliatory stance toward Beijing and Pyongyang - may tilt
South Korea toward a new kind of alignment, one far more palatable to Xi Jinping than to
Washington.
China’s long game: a tributary state reimagined
Beijing has never shed its historical vision of Korea as a subordinate - an obedient tributary
nestled under the Middle Kingdom’s shadow. From the diplomatic rituals of the Joseon
Dynasty to Mao Zedong’s Cold War framing of Korean deference, the narrative has
remained strikingly consistent: keep Korea close, compliant, and within China’s sphere.
Xi Jinping’s modern strategy echoes that traditional ambition. Today, with South Korea
politically shaken and economically anxious, Beijing sees a rare opening. Yoon’s ouster
undermines the pro-US camp, while China’s economic leverage grows ever more potent over 25% of Korean exports still flow to China.
Through trade dependency, technological entanglement, and cultural diplomacy, Beijing is
well-positioned to reassert dominance.
For China, the goal is clear: a South Korea that no longer functions as a forward base for
American power, but instead becomes a neutralized buffer - or better yet, a pliant partner
to counterbalance the US’s influence in Northeast Asia. The vassal-state vision never died.
It simply evolved.
Lee Jae-myung may be Beijing’s best bet
Enter Lee Jae-myung: a populist firebrand known for bucking convention and challenging
Washington’s strategic expectations. As governor of Gyeonggi Province, Lee championed
engagement with China through initiatives like the "Korea-China Friendship City," while
minimizing US contributions to Korean security.
Lee’s calls for a “balanced diplomacy” are widely interpreted as code for downgrading the
US alliance in favor of warmer ties with Beijing. Should he take power, Lee may revive interKorean projects such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex, welcome Chinese investment in
sensitive sectors, or edge Seoul away from the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy.
In Lee, China sees a leader unlikely to resist its ambitions and more than willing to lead
Korea out from under Washington’s shadow.
US’s growing resentment: strategic ally or security freeloader?
Washington, meanwhile, is growing increasingly impatient. For years, US policymakers especially on the right - have accused Seoul of free-riding on American security guarantees.
That frustration flared again on April 3, when the Trump administration abruptly slapped a
25% tariff on South Korean export materials - just one day before Yoon’s impeachment.
Justified as a matter of economic self-defense, the decision undermined the strategic trust
that anchors the alliance. And in light of Cold War precedent, it looks dangerously
shortsighted.
In the 1960s, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations saw Japan’s economic rise as vital
to regional stability. In a now-declassified 1964 memo, the State Department urged "firm
Executive Branch resistance of American industry demands for curtailment of Japanese
imports" (https://history.state.gov//historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v29p2/d15?) and
supported Japan’s growth - even at the cost of short-term US trade interests.
This tacit bargain - security in exchange for economic leniency - enabled Japan’s postwar
ascent and kept it from falling into Soviet hands.
Today, the inverse seems to be happening. Rather than shielding South Korea from external
pressure, Washington’s punitive posture threatens to drive a strategically vital ally toward
Beijing just as China’s influence expands.
Resentment on both sides
Anti-American sentiment, long simmering within Korea’s leftist circles, may now return with
renewed vigor. Lee’s political base - animated by economic frustration and nationalist pride
- has long bristled at US military exercises and the continued presence of American forces.
Ironically, Washington’s complaints about “unfairness” may only hasten the strategic drift
that Beijing hopes to exploit. Impatience in Washington and indignation in Seoul now
reinforce each other.
A precarious balancing act
For South Korean conservatives - those of us who’ve worked to keep Korea aligned with
the liberal democratic order - this is a nightmare scenario unfolding in real time.
The coming months will determine whether Seoul remains a steadfast partner of the West,
or drifts toward a new geopolitical reality, one shaped not in Seoul or Washington, but in
Beijing.
Hanjin Lew is a former international spokesman for South Korean conservative parties.