Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

S. Korea warms to China as views on U.S. cool

If China is truly planning a buffer regime in North Korea the mindset of young South Koreans is of extreme importance.

China has stationed an estimated 30,000 troops on the North Korean border and is pressing Kim to respond to Bush administration's renewed demands that he abandon his nuclear weapons.

130 North Korean generals defected to China, about 10 percent of the military elite.

Of this group, the most significant, he said, are four who have been integrated into active duty with the Chinese military in the Shenyang district, along the Korean border.

Now, the South Korean editor speculated, China may be forming a fallback plan should Kim Jong Il prove incapable of reforming or holding on to power. "The scenario the Chinese are looking into is to make a buffer regime through such North Korean general defectors," he said.
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-Am

S. Korea warms to China as views on U.S. cool

By TIM JOHNSON

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Posted on Sun, Dec. 05, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea — Ask university students here about the practical way to get a job these days, and the answer comes back quickly: Study Chinese.

“A few years ago, the most popular major was English language and literature. Now it's Chinese language and literature,” said Kim Seoung-hoon, 25, a student at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Relations between South Korea and China were frosty barely a decade ago. But they now bloom on the economic, diplomatic and tourism fronts.

Trade between South Korea and China has climbed at least tenfold, to more than $60 billion a year, in the decade since the nations established diplomatic relations. The main destination for South Korea's exports used to be the United States. Now it is China.

South Korean companies poured $1.42 billion into China in the first nine months of this year to build auto, electronics and other manufacturing plants. More than 2,600 South Korean companies have operations on the mainland.

“The role of China is getting more and more important — but not large enough to replace the United States,” said Lee Doowon, an economist who specializes in regional trade. “It is always good to have large, prosperous neighbors next door.”

South Korea's thawed relations with China often are seen through the prism of its relations with the United States, which have grown somewhat testy. Some in South Korea resent U.S. pressure to deploy soldiers to Iraq, where 2,800 Korean troops are the third-largest contingent, behind American and British troops. Others still simmer over a June 2002 accident in which two American soldiers in a large Army vehicle killed two teenage girls in Seoul. The two were acquitted, sparking anti-American protests.

Some young advisers to the center-left president, Roh Moo-hyun, view China as a potential alternative to the five-decade-old U.S. dominance in South Korea.

“Some young guys in our ruling party have been saying, ‘China is our favorite,' but that is not true,” said Moon Chung-in, a Yonsei University professor who advises Roh on regional matters. The U.S.-South Korean alliance “is the backbone of our development,” he said.

Thousands of American troops have been stationed in South Korea for five decades, providing a security umbrella that has contributed to the nation's prosperity.

But recent polls show that South Koreans, especially young ones, think the United States is a bigger security threat than neighboring nuclear-armed North Korea.

“The U.S. is looked at as a source of friction and an obstacle on the North Korea issue,” political analyst Lee Jung-hoon said, noting that many South Koreans are unsettled by Washington's veiled threat to strike North Korea if it doesn't give up its nuclear program.

The North Korean nuclear crisis also has pulled South Korea closer to China, which is the host of six-nation talks on the issue.

While diplomats fly between Beijing and Seoul, the South Korean influence in China also is becoming more noticeable.

To handle the tide of arriving South Koreans, new Korean restaurants open almost weekly in China's cities. About 2 million South Koreans traveled to China last year. Of the 78,000 foreign students at Chinese universities this year, about half are South Korean.

Reach Tim Johnson at

[e-mail].


http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/10340948.htm