But the question is why Chosun would be afraid of China? What can China do to Chosun?

Because as history has shown us repeatedly, Korea is basically China’s little whore who pants and licks at every beckon and whim that her master, China, commands. They dare not upset their master.

With Japan on the other hand, there’s so much expression of anti-Japanese sentiments in the public space that a cartoon won’t get much attention

Absolutely spot on. Give me a break…the publishing of an anti-Japanese cartoon in the Chosun Ilbo has as much impact in increasing the low class level of Korean manners and bigotry as a fart would in increasing the danger of a hurricane.

Chosun was first to sound the warning about Beijing’s “historical territorial ambitions” and other Chinese threats, well before other papers saw them coming.

It wrote quite a bit about Goh Kun’s statement that while he was acting president he went and asked top gov’t people what the plan was if NK collapsed. Might have been around the time of the Ryongchon explosion up there. According to Goh they said “there is none” (which wasn’t entirely true) and he couldn’t sleep for quite a while for worry that if it did fall China would set up a pro-Beijing gov’t there. Anyway Chosun used it to attck Roh, but they still pressed the point that China is a long-term threat and need to be kept out of NK.

While working there I personally translated several editorials attacking comments by China’s ambassador to Korea, which it accused of “thinking like he’s here to govern a tributary state” and indeed he had been talking that way. I know for a fact that Chosun’s man in Beijing got called to the responsible ministry there and was told in vague terms that he should be aware of the fact they all read the Chosun.

The Chinese Chosun is another story. They’re a small group of people and, being mostly Koreans with personal experience in China, they get on the net every day and sift through all the Hallyu fan sites and occasional Korea bashing (literally, even, as in when Korean students get beaten up at football games) on Chinese language sites. The name “Choson” represents the hanja both China and Japan generally use for the peninsula, so the Chosun Ilbo gets a lot of traffic from both places for that reason alone. Still, Japanese Chosun is one of the most well-visited news sites in the Japanese language ANYWHERE - that is, it beats most news sites in Japan. It is the best source for anti-NK and anti-Roh information (sometimes true, sometimes not) in Japanese. Korea’s the little country next door in this era when Japanese are watching Korean dramas on TV, and when there’s a 5 car accident on the Seoul-Korea expressway, Japanese Chosun covers it. DAre I say, and I mean it as a compliment, it’s almost a regional Japanese news outlet. In the meantime, however, the Chosun just has to be strong with Japan because it has to prove itself, given its
ready and willing, more-than-average collaboration activities.

Chinese Chosun, however, is still strugging to catch up (and the pressure is on within the company) and the way they chose to do that while I was there was to pump it full of Hallyu / tabloid / dyed Korean hair junk as possible. They try not to offend.

How do you know that,Sonagi? Did Chosun Ilbo write about that?