Yonhap News:
China’s vociferous reactions over the planned dispatch of an advanced U.S. antimissile system to South Korea could compromise its ostensibly goodwilled neighborhood diplomacy, a key element of its strategy to rise as a major power, analysts here said Friday.
The analysts also warned that China’s forceful objections to the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here by end-2017 would persist as it apparently seeks to undercut the South Korea-U.S. alliance and evolving security ties among the two allies and Japan.
Since Seoul and Washington announced the plan to deploy THAAD to the southern town of Seongju last month, Beijing, along with its scholars, has heaped opprobrium on the allies, claiming THAAD would only escalate regional tensions and undermine its security interests.
In particular, China’s state-run media have issued a series of strongly worded statements, one of which even warned that South Korea would become the “first military target” in case of an armed clash between the U.S. and China.
On Wednesday, the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, even mentioned President Park Geun-hye by name in an editorial pressuring the South Korean leader to “be circumspect” over THAAD “not to bring her country into the worst situation.”
This photo, taken on Aug. 3, 2016, shows the third page of the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, carrying articles on the planned deployment of an advanced U.S. antimissile system to the peninsula. (Yonhap)
Analysts said that China’s hitherto strong reactions could further undermine its “peripheral diplomacy” with its neighboring countries, some of which are mired in diplomatic spats with China over maritime sovereignty and other thorny issues.
“China’s current stance (against South Korea) runs strictly counter to its neighborhood diplomacy,” said Suh Jin-young, professor emeritus at Korea University. “If it turns many of its neighbors into adversaries, its peripheral diplomacy can flounder and then, it would face some kind of diplomatic isolation.”
In 2013, China put forward its neighborhood diplomacy principles of “qin cheng hui rong” — meaning the principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness. These principles are in line with China’s efforts to forge an external environment congenial to its rise as a major power.
China has long sought to ensure stability on its periphery as any instability along its borders would hamper its economic ascent and its efforts to tackle a slew of domestic issues, including economic revitalization, income gaps, social polarization, corruption and political reform.
Some observers said that China’s reactions to THAAD appear to reflect its efforts to divert public attention away from its series of conundrums, including a slowing economy and a humiliating defeat in a landmark court case against the Philippines that rendered its claims to the lion’s share of the South China Sea legally unfounded.
