Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States (review)

Rapid development of Sino–South Korean relations has been felt by many ordinary Koreans and Chinese long before academia began to invest serious efforts to analyze them. In 2006, nearly four million Koreans visited China, more than the number of Korean visitors to the next four popular destinations—Japan, United States, Australia, and Canada—combined. China became Korea's biggest trading partner in 2004, and Korea is China's third largest investor, behind Hong Kong and Japan. Large and bursting Koreatowns have emerged in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Shenyang, Qingdao, and Shanghai. In the southwestern part of Seoul, especially along subway line 2, Chinese and Korean Chinese are building up their own ethnic or cultural enclaves. Korean soap dramas have became fixtures of everyday life in Chinese cities, and Chinese language has became the second most important foreign language—English being the first—in Korea. Few had imagined the magnitude of economic and human interactions between these two countries when they formally established diplomatic relations in 1992.

The new book by Jae Ho Chung, the best-known Korean scholar on Chinese politics and political economy, Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States, is an invaluable contribution to our thin understanding of the comprehensive structure of Korea-China relations in the context of East Asian regional order. Though Korean and Chinese literature on this theme has constantly increased since diplomatic normalization, there was virtually no monograph encompassing various aspects of Sino-Korean relations written in English, excepting Chae-Jin Lee's China and Korea: Dynamic Relations (Hoover Institute, 1996), which, however, does not cover the post-normalization period. Furthermore, by thoroughly utilizing documents recently made available and diplomatic memoirs on Sino-Korean relations during the pre-normalization period, Chung's book definitely is much more than a mere extension of earlier works.

The first three short but concise chapters show the author's ambitious attempts to theorize Sino-Korean relations in regional, historical, and politico-economic contexts. In recent years, "the emergence of China as a great power undoubtedly poses a serious question to its neighbors," but "there is no uniform answer to the question of what to do with China" (p. 4). Hence, the core puzzle in analyzing Sino-Korean relations is, as the author correctly pointed out, "what then is . . . the strange magnet pulling the two former foes together at such a sweeping pace?" (p. 17). For this question, this book suggests two possible factors in South Korea: "historically induced positive sentiments" and recent "disenchantment with the United States" (p. 17). The Chinese decision making for the rapprochement is persuasively explained in three mutually complimentary models: the learning model, the nationalism model, and the emulation model.

Three subsequent chapters analytically review South Korea relations up to the moment of the diplomatic normalization. In addition to a discussion of the magnetic factors in both countries, each chapter also includes important external constraining factors, especially the Sino–North Korea alliance and the Taiwan question, in the steady progress in Sino–South Korean relations. Many readers will find that the sixth chapter, "The Politics of Normalization," is extremely informative in explaining how the concern for political legitimacy and popularity impacts foreign policy decision-making processes. Well supported by new evidence and recent interviews with former diplomats, this chapter clearly shows that the South Korean government did not have much leverage vis-à-vis Chinese negotiators in 1992, because South Korean leadership was obsessed with turning this diplomatic opportunity into a chance to boost the regime's domestic image and popularity and under utilize the Taiwan issue, which could provide valuable leverage during the negotiation. More fundamentally, Korean leaders failed to see the diplomatic normalization as a long-term diplomatic task that would radically change the security and economic environments around the Korean peninsula.

I believe the last three chapters contain the most valuable contribution of this monograph...