The Finlandization of South Korea

CHINA WINS ITS WAR AGAINST SOUTH KOREA’S US THAAD MISSILE SHIELD – WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT
BY DAVID JOSEF VOLODZKO

A detente between China and South Korea may be good news for the Korean economy and a necessary step towards resolving the North Korea issue, but at the same time it threatens to degrade regional security for years to come.
When South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Xi Jinping agreed on November 11 to “normalise exchanges”, they ended a conflict that began more than a year ago with Seoul and Washington’s decision to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea.
Beijing, which claims the system’s radar can be used by the United States to spy on China, retaliated against the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system with unofficial sanctions against the South. 

Seoul has now agreed to accept military constraints in return for the lifting of those sanctions, creating a worrying precedent for Beijing’s rivals in the region.
South Korean protesters try to block two US military vehicles hauling THAAD missile defence systems in Seongju. 

The military constraints are known as the “three nos”, meaning Seoul agrees there will be no further anti-ballistic missile systems in Korea, no joining of a region-wide US missile defence system and no military alliance involving Korea, the US and Japan. 

This is an enormous sacrifice but for reasons both economic and political Moon had few other options.
Economically, after being suffocated for 16 months by China’s “doghouse diplomacy”, many South Korean businesses were left gasping for air. 

Hyundai’s sales in China dropped 64 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 from a year before, Lotte’s supermarket sales in China fell 95 per cent over the same period and Chinese tour groups to South Korea were banned outright, which alone led to an estimated revenue loss of US$15.6 billion this year, according to Hyundai Research Institute.
Politically, a better strategy might have been playing both ends against the middle by fostering better ties with Japan and the US but this would have alienated Moon from his base and may not even be something he wants at the moment.
“Moon Jae-in is on the political left, which tends to believe ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, so they dislike Japan and feel closer to China for historical and political reasons,” said Joseph E. Yi, associate professor of political science and international studies at Hanyang University. 

“The left-wing in Korea is very anti-Japan and has a post-colonial outlook, seeing China and Korea as opponents of Japanese colonialism.”

It all depends, Yi said, on how one views the past. 

If Koreans view themselves and Chinese as victims of Japanese oppression, they will be more likely to sympathise with China. 

But, he noted, the problem with this perspective is that Japan today is not the country it was 60 or 70 years ago – neither is China.
As such, Korea and Japan are arguably better allies, according to the political philosophy of liberalism, which suggests liberal democracies should ally against non-liberal states because whatever their differences, their goals ultimately overlap.
China’s economic retaliation is an example of this, since it constitutes a violation of its free trade agreement with Korea, whereas Japan, which also has a free trade agreement with Korea, has honoured its part of the deal.
But liberalism is the philosophy of Korea’s political right, while its political left is defined by social constructivism, or the theory that decisions and knowledge are based not on liberal like-mindedness or realpolitik, but on certain narratives.
“If you see Japan as an unrepentant, evil colonial power then you’d rather ally with China against Japan,” Yi said. 

“So when Moon met Trump, instead of trying to develop a stronger alliance between Korea, Japan and China, Moon introduced a comfort woman, and they had Dokdo shrimp.”
Comfort women is the euphemism given to the tens of thousands of Korean women forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese brothels during the second world war; Dokdo shrimp are caught in waters around islets at the centre of a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan – Tokyo lodged a protest about both issues after the Trump visit.
“[Moon is] focused on redemption against the past,” Yi said. 

“He wants the Japanese prime minister to apologise, and I think this kind of focus on the past shapes politics in an unhealthy way.
“The ‘three nos’ creates a precedent that links economics to political and national security. Korea would never do that if it was any other country, like Vietnam or Japan, but they’re doing it for China because the only other way is to ally with Japan and that’s not an option for the left.”
South Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, centre. 

Already, however, the first signs of an economic thaw are visible. 

Two days after Moon and Xi’s agreement, South Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun appeared in an ad for health products on China’s biggest online shopping website, Taobao by Alibaba, the owner of the South China Morning Post.
Also, during their November 11 summit in Vietnam, Moon and Xi agreed that Moon would visit China in December, and Moon invited Xi to attend the upcoming Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. 

During the same trip, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested he and Xi visit each other next year to mark the 40th anniversary of their nations’ friendship treaty.

Xi Jinping gives his speech to the 19th National Congress. 

This raises further questions about China’s efforts to isolate Japan and constrain South Korea’s military options. 

According to Donald K. Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia programme at Stanford University, China’s 19th National Congress, which was held from October 18-24, provides some answers. 

For one thing, the recent congress has further cemented Xi’s hold on power. 

That shift, Emmerson said, coupled with China’s economic means, provides Beijing the capacity for expansion.

So capacity is there, what about desire?
Xi opened the congress with a speech that lasted more than three hours, in which he said China had entered a “new period” and must now “take centre-stage in the world”. 

Emmerson said this language suggested that while Beijing’s expansionist ambitions might not extend to Europe, “China wants dominance in its immediate periphery”.
The South China Sea, for example, is administered in domestic Chinese law through the province of Hainan, which means Beijing sees the South China Sea as a Chinese lake. 

Subsequently, when former Philippine president Benigno Aquino filed a suit against China at the United Nations, China refused to take part and denounced the tribunal’s decision, which was not in China’s favour. 

China then blocked fruit exports from the Philippines and discouraged tourists from visiting.
“China was furious,” Emmerson said. 

“They denounced the Philippines and punished it economically, kind of an equivalent to what happened to Lotte in [China] after the THAAD incident in South Korea. The idea is to do economic damage until the state in question behaves properly, according to Beijing.” ■

It’s Not China, It’s You, India Seems to Tell Spurned Aussies

New Delhi hasn’t forgotten Canberra’s previous flip-flop on regional security, and isn’t ready to let Aussies join three-way naval drills.
BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

China’s growing assertiveness and economic heft across Asia, combined with a newly reticent United States, is making countries in the region wonder if and when they’ll have to choose sides between Washington and Beijing.
That’s exactly what appeared to happen last week, after India rejected Australia’s request to send warships to participate in big naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. 

News reports painted the rejection as a way for India to appease China, or at least avoid needlessly provoking Beijing.
But former naval officers and analysts say the rejection more likely reflects New Delhi’s worries that Australia may not be an entirely reliable security partner.
“When it comes to formulation of a collective response to China, including in terms of ‘moderating’ Beijing’s assertive behavior, Australia does not particularly inspire confidence,” Indian Capt. Gurpreet Khurana, who also directs the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi, told Foreign Policy.
That’s because the United States, India, Japan, and Australia have tried this before — only to see Australia walk away from four-way military exercises. 

In 2007, India, the United States, Japan, and Australia held naval exercises, along with Singapore. But China objected strongly, lodging diplomatic protests to each of the four main participants, as one goal of the quad was clearly a response to China’s own expanding maritime interests.
After Kevin Rudd became Australian Prime Minister, he held several meetings with Chinese officials, and in February 2008 Australia withdrew from the quad in a joint press conference with the Chinese foreign minister.
“New Delhi hasn’t forgotten Canberra’s hasty capitulation a decade ago,” said Nitin A. Gokhale, a New Delhi-based national security analyst, in an email to FP. 

“Moreover, the foreign policy establishment is aware of the deep economic and political relations that Australia and China have.”
Canberra has adopted a conciliatory approach to China, its largest trading partner. 

It has declined to participate in U.S.-led freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to push back against China’s expansive claims of sovereignty there, though Australia has participated in multilateral naval war games there. 

And, as demonstrated in the short-lived quadrilateral exercises of 2007, a change in government can easily usher in an about-face in its policy towards Beijing.
But today, Australian security experts say, Canberra is eager to help make sure that one country doesn’t come to dominate the Asia-Pacific region. 

“Australia is quietly seeking to build and support informal coalitions to balance Chinese power,” said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University.
He said any Indian doubts about Australia being willing and able to help bolster regional stability are misplaced.
“Any such Indian concerns misread the depth of Australian security planners’ determination to build a multipolar regional order. India may also not yet fully appreciate the extent of Australia’s capabilities as a maritime power,” Medcalf said.
For decades, India and China have had a tense relationship, thanks to a disputed border which led to a war in 1962. 

China’s increasingly tight economic and defense relationship with Pakistan — including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor — doesn’t ease those tensions.
And they are spreading to the seas as well, as China has expanded its naval ambitions beyond just the South China Sea to include the wider Indian Ocean region. 

Beijing is building port facilities that can be used for commercial and military purposes from Sri Lanka to the Horn of Africa, and just established its first overseas military base in Djibouti. 

China has sent submarines into the Indian Ocean on at least six occasions since 2013, including several nuclear submarine deployments that can’t really be explained by China’s ongoing anti-piracy patrols.
That has made Indian naval planners wary of being encircled — and emboldened Prime Minister Narendra Modi to push back against Beijing.
“I don’t believe the hesitation on [Australia joining the exercises] is primarily at this point driven by concerns about provoking China,” said Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at Brookings, in an interview with FP. 

“[Modi’s] government, if anything, domestically has been criticized for taking too many provocative steps towards China.”
After more than twenty years of bilateral naval drills between the United States and India in the Bay of Bengal, Japan joined in 2014, just as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looked to expand the country’s traditionally pacifist defensive forces into a more active regional role.
But that trilateral group has yet to expand to include Australia, even though Aussies have sought to join for two years. 

Rather, New Delhi and Canberra are taking steps to firm up their own bilateral cooperation first. 

In September 2015, India and Australia held bilateral naval exercises, known as AUSINDEX, in the Bay of Bengal, focusing on anti-submarine warfare with a P-3 anti-submarine reconnaissance plane from Australia and a P-8 long-range anti-sub aircraft from India, along with naval vessels.
Retired Vice Admiral Anup Singh, who led the Indian Navy’s Eastern Command until 2011, highlighted that India’s current approach to Australia’s participation isn’t a full-stop rejection, but rather more of a wait-and-see approach.
“The Indian side has told the Aussies that we have to go through the bilateral [exercises] first,” Singh told FP in an email. 

Other experts agree.
“In my view, they wanted to wait for at least one more edition of Australia-India bilateral naval exercise to go through before firming up their opinion about Australia’s long-term intentions and capacity to stay the course,” said Gokhale.

Duterte's move is 'a massive affront against the US'

Duterte has announced his rupture with the US and tilted towards China seeking closer partnership with Beijing. Regional security and economic interests are at stake.
DW

DW: Rodrigo Duterte announced his "separation" from the Philippines' longtime ally, the US, during his state visit to China. What is your take on this move?
Siegfried Herzog: The move certainly represents a massive affront against the US. 

Duterte has shared deep animosity towards Washington for years, and the US criticism of his anti-drug campaign in recent months has only augmented that deep dislike. 

We're observing its effect in the form of his angry anti-US rhetoric since he took office.
The Philippines has been a strategic ally to the US since its independence in 1946. 

Washington has so far been restrained in its response to Duterte's assertions as other members of his government have strived to clarify the president's incendiary remarks by denying a radical turnaround in Philippine foreign policy.
It's the same case even this time round, with Duterte's Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia stressing that Manila will not break its ties with the West, but rather wants to promote stronger economic integration with its Asian neighbors. 

Formal steps have so far not been undertaken.
Duterte is notorious for his impulsive communication style. 

He is extremely thin-skinned and reacts aggressively to criticism. 

That's why an over-the-top response to his foul-mouthed rhetoric may not necessarily be useful. Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for the Asia-Pacific region, will visit Manila this weekend and it will give an opportunity to clarify the potential implications of Duterte's pronouncements.

Is the Philippines sacrificing the regional security architecture for the sake of its economic interests?
The real question is whether Duterte is willing to sacrifice both the country's regional security alliance as well as its economic interests as part of his pro-China push. 

That's because the Philippine economy is far more intertwined with the US than with China. 

The US accounts for a third of the billions of dollars in remittances transferred to the country by the Filipino diaspora.

Herzog: 'Duterte has shared deep animosity towards Washington for years'

The US is also a much bigger source of foreign investment in the Philippines than China. 

And the most important sector of the nation's economy -- the business process outsourcing industry -- is a major source of economic growth and job creation. 

The service providers predominantly work with US clients.
These businesses have now become hesitant with regard to new investments. 

Obviously, Duterte now expects massive amounts of aid from China and will probably receive it. 

As a result of their opaque dealings, some major projects undertaken previously by Chinese businesses in the Philippines became mired in corruption allegations and eventually failed. 

Against this backdrop, it remains an open question as to whether China can really contribute to the Philippines' economic progress.
The impact the Chinese economic activity has had on Africa is a case in point. 

As in that continent, an alliance with China might pay off politically, but the benefits it will reap for the population are not so obvious.

How do you assess the possibility of Duterte being able to carry out his new foreign policy despite opposition to it from at least some sections of society?
On the one hand, Duterte enjoys a high approval rate among the country's electorate. 

At the start of their terms, nearly all presidents have high ratings. 

But Duterte is also being seen by many a determined politician who ultimately wants to clean up the rotten system that only serves the interests of the elites. 

This is quite popular in the country.
But there are also warning signals. 

Surveys show that while people back his anti-drug campaign, they don't support mass killings of suspects without holding independent trials. 

And Duterte is relatively isolated when it comes to his strategy towards the US and China, with polls showing that Filipinos view the US much more positively than China.
It's, therefore, very risky for Duterte to side with Beijing. 

Although he enjoys the backing of the nation's communists in this endeavor, most Filipinos have closer ties to the US. 

This is particularly the case when it comes to the country's military, political and business classes, who are critical of Deuterte's polarizing rhetoric.
The military, in particular, has been overwhelmed by Duterte's moves. 

But after decades of struggle against communist rebels, it's not thrilled to see the communists in the cabinet. 

Furthermore, after decades of close cooperation with the US and in the context of ongoing threats and humiliations from China, this about-turn announced by Duterte is anything but a given.
Duterte's inner circle consists of his close confidants from the southern city of Davao, where he had served as mayor for decades before winning the presidency. 

And they all lack experience at the national level. 

To govern effectively, Duterte has roped in a number of technocrats and people from allied political camps, but many of them do not share his views towards the US.
This disagreement was also evident in China, where some members of the president's delegation did not fully stand behind Duterte's announcement. 

He, therefore, risks a certain alienation among key groups.
On the other hand, China will not criticize Duterte for his anti-drug war or his generally authoritarian style of governance, in a manner that Western governments do. 

Beiing will rather support him. 

If this is a relevant motive for him, the polarization in the Philippines would be even sharper.

The US currently has five military bases in the Philippines. What does Duterte's announcement mean for Washington's strategy in the Asia Pacific?
The joint military exercises haven't so far been officially ended. 

Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay says many of the president's pronouncements haven't been discussed with the ministry, which leads to ambiguities regarding Manila's future course of action. 

Furthermore, for the annulment of the joint drills, a separate agreement would be necessary. 

And it need not affect the pact related to the rotational deployment of US troops in the country.
But should Duterte's announcement be implemented, it would represent a bitter setback for the US and Barack Obama's strategic pivot to Asia. 

In this particular instance, however, one shouldn't solely blame the Obama administration as the US remains popular in the Philippines. 

The whole responsibility for the policy turnaround lies with Duterte and his inner circle.
There are, of course, a few factors arguing in favor of closer ties with China. 

There is a large Chinese minority in the country that is well integrated into society and can act as a bridge. 

The territorial dispute in the South China Sea (SCS) is also of great importance to the Philippines, whose position over the row recently received a spectacular boost from the ruling issued by the international tribunal in The Hague.
China's angry reaction to the verdict and the intensified nationalist rhetoric, have increased the risk of armed confrontation. 

Against this backdrop, the key question is whether it would be better for the Philippines to become a pawn between the US and China, rather than risking a conflict with Beijing.
Most countries in the region would rather not have to choose between the two. 

But there is already the temptation to lean towards the supposedly stronger one. 

The US must now consider how to respond, not only to the Philippines, but also to other countries in the region.
Europe, too, cannot remain indifferent to the developments in the SCS, because too much is at stake: Will international law be respected by big powers? 

Will democratic values and international human rights standards be weakened further?

China and the Philippines have agreed to tackle the territorial dispute bilaterally -- a long-held demand of Beijing. What does this decision mean for ASEAN, the code of conduct in the seas and the island dispute in the SCS?
The decision is a setback in all these areas. 

China has done its utmost to prevent the ASEAN from adopting a common stance on the SCS dispute. 

The Philippines has until now pushed for it, while China's allies Laos and Cambodia have thus far blocked it. 

But the larger ASEAN nations have sided with the Philippines and Vietnam, another country that has a territorial spat with Beijing. 

But now if Manila joins the Chinese camp, then that would spell the end of efforts to agree on a common ASEAN position on the SCS dispute.