외교부

핀랜드공관장회의특강
2011.4.4(월)
신라호텔

Korea, China, Japan: Dynamics in the Northeast Asia

Good morning excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Korea and welcome to Seoul. It is a great honor for me to be invited to this very important gathering and share with you my views on situation in this region.

Let me start with the explanation on the geopolitical characteristics here.  Northeast Asia consists of three countries, namely Korea, China and Japan. No, I should say four instead of three since there are two Koreas or, simply, Korea is currently divided into two countries. These countries have survived thousands years of history and come to share a so-called “love and hatred relationship” with each other throughout the history. How about Finland? Do you have any ‘love and hatred’ country in your neighbours?  
 

Korea and China, for the past decades, have achieved the most rapid economic growth among others and the currently divided Korean Peninsula has been the main source of instability in the region. Either in positive or negative way, northeast asia is probably one of the most dynamic places in the world now.

Koreans tend to perceive their country as being very small. Yes, considering that it covers the territory of only 90,000 square kilo-meters, it can be considered small. However, its population of over 50 million and GDP of almost a trillion US dollars suggest that Korea, in fact, is not a small country. Korea now probably ranks around 15th in the world in terms of population and size of economy. It may have been perceived smaller than it actually is as the country is, in a way, squeezed between the world’s super powers, namely China, Japan and Russia. As you can easily predict, surviving among those super powers is not too easy for Korea and it requires a rather complex strategy.

Current security situation in the Northeast Asia is very unstable, and this is mainly due to the Northeast Asian countries’ high sensitivity towards traditional security problems as well as towards nationalism. Also, Northeast Asian countries share a very weak sense of “We” with those living in the same region. Therefore, they still remain in a premature stage in the process towards institutionalizing the framework required for discussing the security-related issues.

In addition, a number of other sources of instability have been recently added. The first is China’s rapid rise, and it seems that China is trying to make its own voice heard based on its rapidly achieved economic power and will go further to play a greater role in the Northeast Asia region. North Korea, for a long time, has been the main source of instability in the region, and the current problems related to the regime’s nuclear program, power succession as well as economic difficulty have aggravated the explosive nature of the issues at stake. Japan, with losing its vitality, also provided the source of instability in the region as it fails to effectively act as a balance against China.

(Korea-Japan relations)

Korea and Japan, throughout their history, have engaged in a “love and hatred relationship”, but South Korea’s resentment still remains over Japan's early 20th-century colonization. However, despite continued conflicts over historical issues, Korea and Japan, since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1965, have rapidly improved the bilateral relationship. The trade volume between Korea and Japan reached 92.5 billion USD in year 2010 as compared to mere 200 million USD back in 1965. Also, there are more than 5.46 million people traveling between the two countries annually, and more than 500 flights a week are now operating between Korea and Japan. We’ve witnessed in recent years that cultural exchanges have become more active. Korean citizens’ wholehearted efforts to support those suffering from the recent earthquake in Japan through launching various ‘support Japan’ campaigns have brought the two nations closer to each other than ever.

Since Japan has not yet fully admitted or expressed regret over its past wrongdoings, it would be difficult for the two countries to become a complete ally. However, Korea and Japan, as of now, are sharing the closest ever relationship in both economic and political terms.

(Korea-China Relations)

Thousands years of history as neighbours between Korea and China include Japan’s colonial period as well as the Cold War period, and they finally established diplomatic relations in 1992 after close to 100 years of severed diplomatic relations. Since then, the two countries have achieved unprecedented rapid development in bilateral relations. Trade volume between the two has gone from 6.37 billion USD in 1992 to 188.4 billion USD, which is about 30 times of the number recorded in 1992. In terms of personal exchanges, the number has gone from 130 thousand to almost 6 million people. You may not believe this figure, but there are now 837 flights a week operating between Korea and China.

Politically, bilateral relations between the two countries have also developed significantly, and, in 2008, Korea and China have agreed to a “strategic cooperative partnership” between the two. South Korea’s President Lee, Myung-bak have already made 26 occasions of contacts at the summit level with top Chinese leaders since he took office in early 2008.

There have been active human and cultural exchanges between the two countries, and, as one of the examples, there are currently 68 thousand Korean students studying in China and close to 64 thousand Chinese students studying in Korea. Every year about 90 thousand people from all over the world apply for the Chinese Proficiency Test(HSK), and more than 60% among them, amounting to about 60 thousand, are Koreans.

The only obstacle that will impede the development of bilateral relations between Korea and China is North Korea. Considering that China, for a long time, has acted as a guardian for North Korea, it has continued to maintain some degree of reservation when dealing with issues related to North Korea while working together with Korea to develop their bilateral relations. How China responded to the sinking of the Cheonon as well as the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island have seriously disappointed us. Korea and China share a common objective of seeking for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula as well as achieving denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. However, as to the matter of how we are going to deal with North Korea, the two countries still hold very different views. Korea believes that China must take more active steps to persuade the North Korean regime to give up its nuclear program and carry out reform and opening.   China, on the other hand, believes that the more urgent matter is to prevent the North from taking more aggressive actions and consistently argues that completely isolating the regime might trigger such dangerous responses.

China, as the chair country of the Six-Party Talks, is required to play a leading role in resolving the North Korean nuclear problems, but, in reality, there has been no significant sign of progress for the past few years as China failed to hold the talks at least once during that time. And North Korea, taking this as an opportunity, seems to advance the development of its nuclear program. North Korea expects assistance from China and also uses China to its own advantage but it hardly listens to the advice coming from China. Therefore, we can well understand the difficult situation that China is in.

(China-Japan Relations)

China and Japan are highly dependent on each other economically but, we cannot say that they are very friendly to each other. In the year 2010, the trade between them reached close to 300 billion USD, and there have been heavy investments made in China by the Japanese firms.

The two governments have been devoting substantial efforts towards maintaining their friendly relations, but the occurrence of events that resulted in sparking a deeply-rooted hostility between the two caused them to remain in a stalemate.

Recently, with Japan’s concern over rapidly rising China, territorial disputes and development of resources in the East China Sea have triggered strong public sentiments as well as nationalism in both countries.

(Cooperation among Korea, China and Japan)

The history of cooperation among Korea, China and Japan is only 10 years old. Starting with the decision reached during the 1999 ASEAN+3 Summit to regularly hold an informal breakfast meeting, the leaders of three nations are now taking turns to hold the summit meetings.

Trilateral activities include the summit, which is held once annually, the meeting of foreign ministers, ministerial-level meetings in the areas of economy, trade, finance, energy, distribution, and environment, as well as more than 100 ongoing joint trilateral projects. The scope of cooperation among the three countries has extended from the areas of economy, cultural/human exchanges and cooperation with the ASEAN to major global issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear program, environment and climate change, and also non-traditional security issues, including crisis management and maritime issues. Korea, Japan, and China are currently discussing the possibility of concluding the free trade agreements. A permanent secretariat is going to be set up in Korea this year.

Although Korea, Japan, and China have made significant developments in trilateral cooperation within a relatively short period of time, it still remains far from achieving more comprehensive integration as we see in the case of the European Union. Therefore, it should be set as a long-term goal to be reached in the distant future. However, the possibility of signing the free trade agreements in ‘not very far’ future is relatively high, through which the three countries will be able to achieve some degree of economic integration.

(Conclusion)

As one of the most dynamic places in the globe given rapid developments of Korea and China, the Northeast Asia is expected to maintain “a slightly vulnerable stability” despite the presence of many factors of instability.  In the future, the focus will be given to how North Korea is going to act in the future, how we are going to manage the North Korean regime’s behaviors, and also to what extent China, which has rapidly grown in power, is going to play the role of a constructive and responsible partner in the region.

Thank you for your attention.