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President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea shakes hands with President Xi Jinping of China on Nov. 15 in Bali, Indonesia. (Yonhap)

With South Korea’s relationship with China nearing the historical nadir reached during the THAAD controversy of 2016-2017, there are concerns that China might soon retaliate against Korea. But what’s different from the THAAD controversy is that a consensus has formed among major countries about the need to form a coalition against China’s “economic coercion.” That means that Chinese punishment of Korea could escalate into a broader conflict involving the US and other countries.

Experts call on both Korea and China to have the prudence to stop provoking each other and the responsibility to seek a solution together.

A March report titled “Deny, Deflect, Deter: Countering China’s Economic Coercion” by US-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies examined eight instances in which China exacted economic retribution on other countries for political reasons since 2010, when China’s rise began in earnest.

Provocations over Taiwan, which China regards as one of its core interests (Lithuania’s establishment of a delegation there in 2021), territorial issues (the conflict with Japan over the Senkaku Islands in 2010 and with the Philippines over the South China Sea in 2012), issues that directly impact national security (the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea in 2016), and other issues related to the prestige of the state (Australia’s request for a COVID-19 investigation in 2020 and Canada’s detention of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in 2018) have invariably led to China unleashing economic retaliation, using its economic might as a cudgel.

Given that precedent, one might expect that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s comparison of the Taiwan issue to inter-Korean relations in an April 19 interview with Reuters and his foreign policy focus on strengthening a trilateral alliance with the US and Japan would prompt retaliation from China, since Yoon’s moves impinge upon China’s core interests and national security.

After tracking the diplomatic moves of the Yoon administration for a year, China did in fact communicate “Four Noes” — including a threat to halt cooperation with Korea if it meddled in China’s core interests (such as Taiwan) or if it moved forward with an unbalanced pro-US and pro-Japan foreign policy — in a meeting of mid-level bureaucrats in Seoul on May 22.

Since that ultimatum, China has only repeated its position that the “current difficulties and challenges in the China-ROK relations are not caused by China,” as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin remarked on Friday. Korea is also refusing to take back what amounts to a summons of Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming for his remarks about “betting” against China.

In effect, the two countries are locked into a battle of nerves, with both sides digging in their heels and demanding concessions from each other.

But there’s a formidable counternarrative that China may not be in a position to crack the whip against its neighbors as it has done in the past. Major countries have been building a coalition against China’s “economic coercion” since Joe Biden became US president in January 2021.

The leaders of the US and the other Group of Seven countries said in a communiqué following their Hiroshima summit on May 20 that they “will enhance collaboration by launching the Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion to increase our collective assessment, preparedness, deterrence and response to economic coercion, and further promote cooperation with partners beyond the G7.”

After American chipmaker Micron Technology was slapped with sanctions by the Chinese authorities on May 21, the US announced it would keep working closely with the G7 countries and its partners and allies to counteract distortions in the semiconductor market caused by China’s measures.

Since the country the US will need to work with there is South Korea, the only country capable of selling China products to replace Micron’s chips, the US probably can’t remain a bystander to a Korean conflict with China as it did during the THAAD controversy.

China also knows that the moment it exacts retribution, it might legitimize American criticism that it always resorts to economic coercion against its neighbors.

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

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