Xi Jinping’s foreign policy agenda for the next ten years envisions a “new type of major power relations” (xinxing daguo guanxi) and proactive, “peripheral diplomacy” (zhoubian waijiao) with neighboring countries. What do these initiatives mean for China’s relations with South Korea? Chinese official and scholarly assessments of the Xi leadership’s current policy directives elucidate possible emerging patterns in China’s external orientation as a rising power. They suggest how Beijing’s major power diplomacy and peripheral diplomacy are linked in the China-ROK relationship. South Korea offers a promising test because it is the US ally most vulnerable to Chinese pressure—due to Sino-North Korean relations, high economic dependence on China, and historical expectations about a close, vassal state. The patterns we may uncover include: pressure to draw closer in views of history; attempts to get agreement on a multilateral approach to North Korea different from the US one; silence on values that reinforce the US approach to the region; efforts to distance Seoul from joint military actions that strengthen the US alliance system; and insistence against cooperation with Japan that could be construed as helping it to elude the isolation Beijing is seeking. In writings on the themes of major power and peripheral relations as presented in China, the evidence about such patterns is not clear-cut, but we can begin to appreciate the linkages.

Read full article at www.theasanforum.org.