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kim and cha • between a rock and a hard place<br />
On September 2, 2015, South Korean president Park Geun-hye visited<br />
Beijing upon invitation by Chinese president Xi Jinping to attend the<br />
country’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Joined<br />
by Russian president Vladimir Putin and other foreign guests, Presidents Park<br />
and Xi watched a massive military parade at Tiananmen Gate. Absent from<br />
the celebration was the current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Ironically,<br />
61 years ago it was Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung, founding fathers of the<br />
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea, respectively, who were<br />
standing together in the same place to see a military review. Perhaps nothing<br />
can better illustrate the current state of affairs in China’s relations with the two<br />
Koreas than a juxtaposition of these two contrasting images.<br />
The bilateral relationship between the Republic of Korea (ROK)<br />
and China under the current Park and Xi governments is undeniably at<br />
its strongest point in modern history, with a series of efforts underway to<br />
consolidate and institutionalize their strategic partnership. The first summit<br />
between the two leaders in June 2013 led to the establishment of four strategic<br />
communication channels to regularize high-level strategic dialogues. Both<br />
countries also pledged to move forward on their previous agreement to set<br />
up a military hotline between their defense ministers. With respect to the<br />
economic relationship, the two countries signed the China-Korea Free Trade<br />
Agreement and agreed to establish a direct trading market for the Chinese<br />
yuan and Korean won to further boost bilateral trade. All these measures<br />
are indicative of a new level of bilateral cooperation unprecedented in the<br />
modern history of Sino-ROK relations.<br />
Nonetheless, South Korea’s relations with China remain complex, and it<br />
appears unclear whether the current positive dynamic in the relationship will<br />
or can be sustained into the future, given a pattern of recurring fluctuations<br />
in South Korea’s policy toward China. Some analysts may argue that this<br />
pattern has emerged because South Korea’s China policy is determined by the<br />
administration in Seoul or the strength of the U.S.-ROK alliance. However,<br />
this vacillation actually results from far more fundamental conditions<br />
underlying South Korea’s political, economic, and security considerations<br />
and geostrategic calculations, which create four strategic dilemmas for South<br />
Korea in dealing with China: dilemmas over power, economics, North Korea,<br />
and entrapment in the U.S. alliance. Understanding these four dilemmas<br />
is important because South Korea’s policy toward China holds important<br />
geopolitical and regional implications. South Korea is a key U.S. ally in<br />
Asia, yet Seoul’s growing closeness to Beijing amid emerging tensions and<br />
competition between the United States and China complicates U.S. strategy as<br />
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