I remember when I was at Kyung Hee and one of my professors rather angrily explained the difference between subtle Chinese influence and crude American pressure. The Chinese operate in a much more sophisticated manner, he explained. I wonder if this is what he had in mind:
The Chinese Embassy in Seoul discouraged South Korean lawmakers from attending the May 20 inauguration ceremony of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, lawmakers said on Wednesday.
“Although I was invited by the Taipei government to President Chen’s inauguration, the Chinese Embassy asked me not to participate,” Lee Kang-too, chief policy-maker of the Grand National Party (GNP), told The Korea Times.
“China is a country with official diplomatic ties with South Korea, so it is not appropriate for Seoul lawmakers to visit Taiwan (with which ties were cut in 1992),” Lee quoted an official at the embassy as telling him.
Lee, who also attended Chen’s first-term inauguration in 2000, flatly refused the Chinese embassy’s request and flew to Taiwan with other lawmakers and businessmen to attend last month’s inauguration.
According to officials at the GNP and ruling Uri Party, the Chinese Embassy sent a letter to the party leadership and lawmakers who were invited to the inauguration, calling for them to boycott it. The letters were written in the name of Chinese Ambassador Li Bin, they said.
Needless to say, some are unhappy with China’s sophisticated diplomatic style:
Meanwhile, some politicians are fuming over the Chinese pressure tactic, saying that it amounts to intervention in South Korean affairs.
“The Chinese Embassy has critically damaged Seoul’s sovereignty,” former lawmaker Chang Sung-min said through his Web site. He also went to the Chen’s inauguration.
Chang argued that the Chinese ambassador here in Seoul should apologize to the nation and that the South Korean government should expel the official at the embassy who called on lawmakers not to join the event.
Seoul won’t be expelling anyone at the Chinese Embassy — or issuing protests, for that matter — and the boys over at Myeong-dong aren’t in an apologizing mood. In fact, they’re taking names:
Concerning demands made by the Chinese Embassy last month that Korean politicians not attend the inauguration on the Taiwanese president, the information officer of the Chinese Embassy in Korea said Wednesday that, “China would not take immediate measures against the relevant individuals, but it would remember.”
In a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo, the information officer, when asked if China would refuse to grant visas to those politicians who visited Taiwan, answered, “We remember when big and small things occur. Don’t we have emotions, too?”
Apparently, the embassy — acting completely on its own — threatened lawmakers thinking of attending Chen’s inauguration by telling them, “You have to visit China someday, don’t you?” But hey, they meant well, and at least they didn’t display that American-esque arrogance:
Asked if the action could be seen as arrogant, the Chinese information officer said, “Because of their identities as National Assemblymen, they can influence things politically… This wasn’t arrogance, but something done because we’d like to sincerely think of Korea as a close
vassalfriend.”
As you might imagine, the Chosun was really pissed:
63 percent of ruling party lawmakers count China as our most important diplomatic and trading partner. How come the relationship between Korea and China has frustratingly reached this point in a country where the ruling party is placing more value on China, rather than the U.S.? The more China grows into a powerful country, the more it will grow arrogant and disrespectful. It is a frightening situation even to imagine. We are really curious as to what measures the government, which emphasizes independent diplomacy toward the U.S., is coming up with in preparation for that situation?
For the Roh administration, I think those measures could be properly summed up by the term Finlandization.
5 Comments
Hmmm… sounds a lot like the relationship between the current White House and White House press pool.
Of course I dare ya to name the lead representative of the US delegation to Chen’s inauguration. And name his position in the Bush administration. (That’s a trick question… because no one from the Executive Branch went to Taiwan… not even an assistant to the assistant of the deputy director of some sub-department.)
It would seem that the Chinese Embassy is trying to train Korean politicians. Politicians in many other countries would be more aware of the issues involved and thus less inclined to take part in any Taiwanese ceremony. Korean politicians, being the generally incompetent bunch they are, are perhaps not particularly aware of events and circumstances in the big bad world.
The Chinese Embassy sending letters is just a continuation of their normal policy, albeit a rather heavy-handed example, and while perhaps notable, is nothing particularly new.
The Korean response has been fun though.
If the Koreans are so worried about it, why did they cut ties with the ROC, hhhmmmmm?
Don’t get me wrong. I support the Taiwanese.
Tom - Daai Tou Laam said:
Of course I dare ya to name the lead representative of the US delegation to Chen’s inauguration. And name his position in the Bush administration. (That’s a trick question… because no one from the Executive Branch went to Taiwan… not even an assistant to the assistant of the deputy director of some sub-department.)
They left it to a member of the Legislature. Representative James A. Leach (R-Iowa) Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China and
Chairman, House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific to lead the U.S. delegation.
From James Kelly’s testimony to the House International Relations Committee:
First, let me thank Chairman Leach for his service in leading the American people’s delegation to the May 20 inauguration of President Chen of Taiwan. Your longstanding interest in Taiwan underscores the respect we feel for the people of Taiwan, their democracy and our commitment to working with the new Chen Administration. And, your presence delivered a clear and unambiguous signal to Taiwan and the PRC on the importance of reducing tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
Misc. question to all, but I’d really appreciate KimcheeGI’s take on this. How come the Taiwan issue hasn’t been pressed as an analogue to the issue of Cuba? That is, a politically antagonistic nation just off the shore of the larger country. The USA has Cuba to deal with, why can’t China “be a man” about it and leave Taiwan alone?
The Communists of China physically captured the mainland, but they want to be given the island of Taiwan by default. If Taiwan agrees to stay non-nuclear (like Cuba) what else would China need to be happy?
[ I know this sane thinking would require the Communists to not be, well, communists. But.... ]
Scott,
Actually the Cuba argument has been used in the reverse:
The Taiwanese Elephant
Taiwan is the elephant in the living room that we all have tried to ignore. Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province that must inevitably be reunited with the motherland. Taiwan is the bottom line of Chinese foreign policy, the place that Beijing would most likely use force to assert its will or to fend off what it sees as foreign interference. When we ask why China wanted American nuclear technology, we need look no further than Taiwan.
The fate of Taiwan is Reason Number One why the Chinese are so adamant that countries should not intervene in one another??р꽓s ???밿nternal??? affairs. Beijing??р꽓s rulers figure that if they are not making trouble for us in Cuba, we have no business bothering them about their renegade island. Those Red Army nukes are meant to enforce this view by saying, ???뱒tay out of our back yard.???
The trouble is that China has a big back yard. Besides Taiwan, we need to be concerned with Tibet, India (with which China shares a tense Himalayan border), Russia (another historically tense border), Burma (where the Chinese apparently maintain good working relations with a repressive junta), Korea (China probably does not want a united, prosperous and free Korea right next door, preferring to keep the peninsula quiet but divided), Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia, Japan (the traditional rival and not-too-long-ago invader), and even Indonesia and the Philippines, whose jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea overlap China??р꽓s.
Here’s another reference that neatly summarizes China’s Modern National Security Policy: The Chinese Security Concept and its Historical Evolution