On Friday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House. For Moon, in his final year in office, this is likely the last opportunity to introduce a sense of urgency for his legacy item: establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Biden has other priorities.
Aside from the completion of a North Korea policy review earlier this month, the administration hasn’t shown much interest in getting the diplomatic ball rolling with the North. As far as we know, U.S. contacts with North Korean officials thus far have centered on explaining the conclusions of the policy review rather than searching for the resumption of negotiations.
When Biden sits down with Moon on Friday, China will be the president’s top concern. According to the Financial Times, the White House is pushing Moon to sign a joint statement that throws darts at Beijing for various infractions of the rules-based order.
This ask is a tall order for any South Korean president. If Biden pushes too hard, he risks putting one of Washington’s most reliable allies (not just in East Asia, but in the world at large) into an extraordinarily uncomfortable position. It would also reinforce a mainstream paradigm among many U.S. officials, analysts, and pundits in Washington, D.C., that U.S. security interests can only be accomplished by building a global anti-China coalition and treating Beijing as it if was the 21st-century iteration of the former Soviet Union.
South Korea is often referred to as a “shrimp among whales,” a phrase that connotes a medium-sized country caught in the middle of predator-filled waters. Many South Koreans would dispute this characterization; the South, after all, boasts a highly dynamic and versatile economy. It hosts some of the most profitable conglomerates in the world. At $44,000, South Korea’s GDP per capita dwarfs Russia’s and rivals Italy’s. The South is no slouch on defense spending either. Seoul’s defense budget has gone up every single year since 2011, providing the Moon administration with the space to develop its own stealth fighter and purchase big-ticket weapons platforms such as the F-35, anti-missile systems, ballistic missiles, and surveillance assets.
However, when compared to China and the United States, South Korea is in many ways still a shrimp. It’s captive to both countries, with the U.S. still in command of South Korean forces in wartime and China holding a significant amount of economic leverage over Seoul’s head. Moon doesn’t have the luxury of choosing sides in the U.S.-China competition. Frankly, he shouldn’t be asked to. Binding exclusively to Washington would produce a world of economic pain courtesy of China, South Korea’s largest trading partner. Elevating China over the U.S. would be virtually unthinkable considering the U.S. guarantee to Seoul’s security.
Moon possesses some first-hand experience with this Rubik’s Cube of a dilemma. During its first year, the Moon administration allowed the U.S. to host a THAAD missile defense battery, a deployment Beijing rejected for its own reasons. Having lost that fight, China responded strongly, closing down the stores of one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates (Lotte) and saddling the entity with bureaucratic red tape and safety inspections. Beijing banned Chinese travel agencies from selling package tours to South Korea, resulting in a 33% decline in Chinese tourists to the South over a three-year period and perhaps as much as $15 billion in lost South Korean tourism revenue over a one-year period.
Both nations managed to climb out of their spat over time. But the sanctions China imposed cast a spell over Moon’s government and serve as a constant reminder of the pain Beijing can inflict.
The lessons of the conflict over THAAD weren’t lost on Washington, either. To most, this was a reconfirmation that China was willing to exert its economic power over small neighbors. The other lesson was that the U.S. shouldn’t expect other countries, even decadeslong allies such as South Korea, to sacrifice their largest trading relationships to meet U.S. preferences. To do otherwise would be to jeopardize the very relationships U.S. officials want to preserve.
Friday’s summit will likely be a smooth and relatively ordinary event. But it could go haywire if the White House pressures South Korea to make a choice. Washington wouldn’t accept a foreign power dictating policy options to it. Neither will South Korea.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
