South Korea under the United States–China rivalry: dynamics of the economic-security nexus in trade policymaking

Abstract

With the advent of the Trump administration and the subsequent U.S.–China trade conflict, South Korea's trade policy is under immense pressure. The KORUS FTA has been pushed for renegotiation while the China–South Korea trade relations have stumbled after the THAAD deployment to South Korea. This challenge can be characterized by the economic-security nexus shifted from positive to negative: that is, South Korea is compelled to either sacrifice its economic benefits in favor of security interest or vice versa. In contrast to Japan that seeks to retain TPP as a way of benefitting from a regionwide trade integration and balancing both Trump unilateralism and Chinese mercantilist influence, South Korea is forced to play a more complex game. Given its deep yet asymmetric economic interdependence with China and North Korean security threats, South Korea needs to accommodate China while at the same time courting US engagement in resolving the North Korean nuclear problems.

Keywords:

• Trade policy
• South Korea
• United States–China rivalry
• Trump
• protectionism
• economic-security nexus

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 South Korea’s economic interdependence with China is asymmetric. China is South Korea’s largest export market: China has accounted for 25 percent of Korean annual exports over the decade while South Korea is China’s fourth largest export market. Given South Korea’s export-oriented economy, this asymmetry makes South Korea particularly vulnerable to Chinese retaliation.

2 A sign of estrangement in the military sphere caused by an ROK’s independent course of action would be balanced by a binding with the U.S. in the economic sphere (An interview with Bae Gi-chan, a former Presidential Secretary for Northeast Asian Affairs, July 2009).

3 An interview with former high-ranking Trade official of the ROK government (February 25, 2013).

4 Wang Yi warned that ‘The deployment of THAAD is beyond defense needs of the Korean Peninsula, and no excuse can be justifiable.’ He continued, ‘the US should neither promote its own security by taking advantage of other countries’ instability, nor threaten other countries’ legitimate security interests by making an excuse of its own security threat’’ (China Daily, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Global Research Network program through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A2A2041060).

Notes on contributors

Yul Sohn

Yul Sohn is Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, and the President of the East Asia Institute (EAI), a foreign policy thinktank in South Korea. Sohn currently serves President of the Korean Association of International Studies (KAIS). He served Dean of the GSIS (2012-2016) and President of the Association for Contemporary Japanese Studies (2012). Before joining the faculty at Yonsei, Sohn taught at Chung-Ang University, and was a visiting scholar at institutions in the University of Tokyo, Waseda University, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Sohn has written extensively on Japanese and East Asian political economy, and East Asian international relations. His most recent publications include Japan and Asia's Contested Order (2019, with T. J. Pempel) and Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia (2016, with Jan Melissen) both from Palgrave MacMillan.

Sohn received his Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA.