South Korea's 'overwhelming pro-US' Pacific tilt triggers alarm in China: 'this could become a nightmare'

South Korea's recent summit with Pacific island nations reflects its wider strategy of becoming a "global pivotal state" with a more expansive role beyond East Asia, even as analysts warn that its apparent tilt towards the United States risks a collision with China.

The two-day inaugural Korea-Pacific Islands summit held in Seoul last month saw agreements on expanding cooperation in economic development, security and responding to climate change.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol pledged to strengthen "tailored" support for each Pacific island state while making it clear that Seoul respected the independence and sovereignty of all countries and the rules-based international order, according to presidential spokesman Lee Do-woon.

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South Korea also said it would double the scale of its development assistance to the Pacific region to US$39.9 million by 2027, the Yonhap news agency reported. Yoon met the leaders of the Cook Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Niue and Palau, and also held summits with the heads of five other Pacific island nations.

Peter Lee, a research fellow at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre, said Seoul's growing engagement with the Pacific region reflected its desire to take a more expansive role and realise its aspirations of becoming a "global pivotal state".

"South Korea recognises that it can make a modest but nonetheless important contribution to the Pacific islands together with traditional partners like the United States and Australia," Lee said, noting that Yoon's predecessor did not focus on the Pacific. "So this is a region where the Yoon administration can differentiate itself with new ideas and cooperation."

Seoul's engagement with the Pacific islands could also offer a "uniquely Korean approach" to regional issues like economic development, energy security and climate mitigation, he added.

Yoon first mooted the idea of a "global pivotal state" in an article on the Foreign Affairs website in February last year while still a candidate for president, calling for South Korea to adopt a new foreign policy of "clarity and boldness" and accusing the administration of his predecessor Moon Jae-in of "timidity".

Proclaiming his desire to transform the country into one that placed freedom, values and the support of international rules at the heart of its diplomacy, Yoon said this new approach would involve strengthening cooperation with the US and Japan and adopting a more critical position towards China.

Erik Mobrand, Korea policy chair and senior political scientist at the California-headquartered Rand Corporation, said that until recently, South Korea had demonstrated little diplomatic interest in the region outside of Northeast Asia.

"Now Seoul has made this overture to the Pacific islands, an area that South Korea has not traditionally had strong ties with," Mobrand said, adding there could be opportunities for development assistance, in particular infrastructure projects.

"These would play to South Korea's strengths while also offering responses to climate change-related threats that Pacific island nations face," Mobrand said, noting that the projects, if done well, could fill gaps in the region's needs.

Given Seoul's strength in overseas infrastructure building, South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has announced plans to turn the country into one of the world's top four for overseas construction, capable of winning US$50 billion in overseas deals every year by 2027.

The Pacific islands are experiencing rising sea levels, increasingly frequent and intense droughts and storms, and damage to coral reefs and fisheries, all as a result of climate change.

Alexander M. Hynd, non-resident James A. Kelly Korea fellow at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, said Seoul was looking to expand into new markets and create new regional forums where it could demonstrate a middle-power leadership role on development and the climate crisis.

"The Pacific islands region fulfils both of these criteria," Hynd said, adding that given regional powers' jostle for influence in the Pacific, it made sense for Seoul to make sure that its core security interests were considered by these states.

In recent years, China has stepped up engagement with the region through expanding economic ties. It also signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in 2022. The US has responded by boosting aid to the region, opening an embassy in Vanuatu and hosting the first US-Pacific Island Summit last year.

Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation chair of Korea studies at the Brookings Institution, said Seoul's recent interest in the Pacific islands was likely influenced by Washington's concern about growing Chinese clout in the region.

"[South Korea's] involvement is less about [the Pacific islands] 'mattering' to South Korea, and more about [Seoul] providing public goods in the Indo-Pacific region where it can play an early and significant role in addressing issues like climate change and development assistance," Yeo said.

On Wednesday last week, Yoon's government issued its first National Security Strategy highlighting South Korea's vision of becoming a "global pivotal state for freedom, peace and prosperity" amid a rapidly changing international environment and intensifying regional security threats.

Released for the first time in five years, the policy paper outlined the need to address current and future security challenges while defending liberal democracy and contributing to global prosperity and solidarity.

Under the strategy, South Korea's goals are to protect its sovereignty, establish peace on the Korean peninsula and lay the groundwork for prosperity in East Asia while expanding the country's global role, according to Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo.

This comes on the heels of an Indo-Pacific Strategy released in December, which Seoul says is a commitment to increasing the country's role "in addressing various issues in the region and building a positive regional order".

"Recognising Korea's economic, social and cultural prowess from semiconductors and batteries to nuclear power and K-pop culture, the international community now expects Korea to match its role and contributions with its elevated stature," said the government paper "Strategy for a Free, Peaceful, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region".

These recent strategies appear to have built upon and replaced Seoul's earlier New Southern Policy (NSP), announced in November 2017 and aimed at deepening its strategic partnership with Southeast Asia and India to a level similar to Seoul's ties with the US, China, Japan and Russia.

Apart from visiting all Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states, former president Moon also held two summit meetings with India.

Brookings' Yeo said the Yoon government wanted to unveil a more ambitious Indo-Pacific-wide strategy that would go beyond the NSP and connect with Yoon's concept of a "global pivotal state". Yoon in 2022 launched the Korea-Asean Solidarity Initiative, meant to boost economic and strategic cooperation with Southeast Asia.

"The ambition of the global pivotal state is reflected in the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the newly released National Security Strategy," Yeo said.

South Korea's recent interest in the Pacific islands was in line with its Indo-Pacific Strategy and demonstrated Seoul's "status as a second-tier regional actor capable of sharing resources with weaker states," Pacific Forum's Hynd said.

"The Indo-Pacific Strategy builds on the NSP using many of the same approaches in trade, investment and people-to-people diplomacy. What has changed is the scope of the vision, which has expanded to a truly regional level, and the explicit use of some new strategic language, such as 'Indo-Pacific', which South Korea was previously hesitant about," Hynd added.

Under the previous administration, Seoul practised "strategic ambiguity" aimed at striking a balance between the US, its military ally, and China, its strategic economic partner.

South Korea's apparent tilt towards the US strategic orbit has progressively angered China.

After Seoul unveiled its Indo-Pacific Strategy in December, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing advocated solidarity and cooperation among all countries, and opposed the establishment of exclusive cliques.

In April, after Yoon declared Taiwan a "global issue" comparable to North Korea, Chinese foreign vice-minister Sun Weidong made solemn representations to South Korea's ambassador to China, Chung Jae-ho, over Yoon's "wrong remarks", reported China's nationalistic Global Times tabloid.

The Communist Party-controlled daily also warned that Yoon's "overwhelming pro-US policy could become a nightmare for South Korea".

Earlier this month, Seoul's decision to upgrade the alliance with Washington to a "nuclear-based alliance" was met with scorn from China, which argued that deploying US nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula was a dangerous and provocative act towards China, Russia and North Korea.

"Washington and Seoul will face strategic-level retaliation which could spark another nuclear crisis in the region," Global Times said.

Relations with China came to a boil last week after Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming warned Seoul against making a "wrong bet" amid the Sino-US rivalry, adding that "those who bet on China's defeat will definitely regret it".

Apart from summoning Xing to issue a protest and express "strong regret" over the comments that Seoul described as "provocative", Yoon also questioned Xing's approach as a diplomat.

"Looking at Ambassador Xing's attitude, it's doubtful if he has an attitude of mutual respect or promotion of friendship as a diplomat," Yonhap reported Yoon as saying.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, international relations professor at King's College London, said that since "the THAAD fracas" of 2017 and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic three years later, Seoul had become much more willing to stand up to China when its interests were at stake.

Brookings' Yeo shared this sentiment, saying the current administration appeared more resolute and confident in promoting values-based diplomacy and a rules-based international order.

Security differences have threatened to undermine bilateral efforts to improve ties since South Korea installed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system in 2017. Seoul said the system was aimed squarely at deterring North Korea but Beijing viewed it as a security threat, saying its radar could be used to monitor China's military facilities.

Following the deployment of THAAD in 2017, China halted trade and cultural exchanges with South Korea, and imposed restrictions effectively banning its citizens from visiting the country.

After China undertook retaliatory measures, Korean carmaker Hyundai's sales in the country dropped 64 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 from a year before, according to the Hyundai Research Institute, while Lotte's supermarket sales in China fell 95 per cent over the same period.

The ban on Chinese tourists to South Korea led to an estimated revenue loss of US$15.6 billion in 2017, prompting then-president Moon to agree to what became known as the "three noes" in return for Beijing's lifting of economic sanctions.

The "three nos" refer to Seoul agreeing that there would be no further anti-ballistic missile systems in South Korea, no joining of a region-wide US missile defence system and no military alliance involving South Korea, the US and Japan.

Pacific Forum's Hynd said that while some South Koreans were worried that Chinese economic sanctions and coercion might be used again this time round, Beijing was more concerned about Seoul's attitude on the Taiwan issue, particularly its role as a base for the US military.

Lee Yong-jun, a former official with South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned last month that the country would inevitably be drawn into a potential war in the Taiwan Strait, so it must take steps to prepare and prevent conflict from breaking out.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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