South Korean President Park Geun-hye made a surprising decision recently by naming former general Kim Jang-soo as the new ambassador to China. Previously, civil servants or China specialists filled the role. As a former defense minister and former chief of the National Security Office at the presidential office, Kim is the first military man appointed as an ambassador to Beijing since China and South Korea established diplomatic ties in 1992.
China is the largest exporter to South Korea and their annual trade volume of nearly $300 billion has contributed about 2 percentage points to Seoul's GDP aggregate. South Korea's trade volume with China has surpassed the sum total of its trade with the US, Japan and Europe for years.
According to statistics issued by the Korea Tourism Organization in February, the number of Chinese tourists in 2014 surged 41.6 percent to 6.127 million, accounting for 43.1 percent of foreign arrivals and bringing some 18.6 trillion Korean won ($16.5 billion) for the South Korean economy. In addition, the whopping increase in Chinese visitors has helped create 340,000 jobs.
It is predicted that 7.2 million Chinese will visit the South in 2015 and spend 22 trillion Korean won. Beijing and Seoul initialed in late February a free trade agreement that will cover 17 areas, opening up a broader prospect for their bilateral trade and economic development. Seoul is following Beijing closely in economy.
However, following Washington in military and security strategies, Seoul is serving as a bridgehead of Washington's "rebalancing to Asia" strategy. To safeguard its hegemonic status in the Asia-Pacific region, the US has been constraining China and Russia while enhancing security relations with its traditional allies including Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines.
Washington has also been ramping up the development of Japan's ties with Australia, South Korea and the Philippines as well as US-Japan-Australia and US-Japan-South Korea trilateral relations. It aims at forging a network of Asia-Pacific alliances to facilitate it in transferring its strategic center to Asia, in a bid to wield more influence and control over Asia-Pacific affairs.
Last December, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul clinched a memorandum of understanding on the sharing and safeguarding of classified information about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, which came into effect immediately. Though Seoul repeatedly stressed that the memorandum was inked to deal with the threat from Pyongyang, South Korean public opinion considered it as having the same effect as the pact between Seoul and Tokyo to share military intelligence that blew up in 2012. So why does the US exert all its strength to do this?
South Korea is descending into a new geopolitical plight. The rise of China and the intimate economic relations between Beijing and Seoul have brought about a diplomatic conundrum for the South. Since Park decided to appoint Kim, a military man-turned politician who has contacts with important Chinese military leaders, the future development of Sino-South Korean ties will depend on how Kim and the South Korean government strike a balance between the Washington-Seoul alliance and the Beijing-Seoul strategic partnership.
The South should not forget that the process of the Korean Peninsula being colonized and split was also part of China's decline. Over the century when Japan and the US encroached on the peninsula, turbulence gripped Northeast Asia and tensions continue unabated today.
History has proved a powerful China is the foundation for the stability and peace of the Korean Peninsula and that the intervention of maritime powers is the cause of the secession and crisis there. If Seoul fails to face up to the law of history and attempts to gain immense economic benefits from China while damaging China's security interests, its efforts will be in vain.
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