Written by: Luke Wagner; Edited by: Diya Jain
During a Wednesday phone call with South Korea’s top diplomat Cho Tae-yul, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi vowed to uphold “stability and continuity” in its national policy. Yi said that he hoped South Korea would pursue a “positive, objective and friendly” policy towards Beijing.
Chinese-South Korean relations have deteriorated in recent years as Seoul has grown closer to the United States in an apparent effort to counter China and North Korea’s (NK) longstanding security alliances.
Wednesday’s call was the first time that the countries’ two top diplomats have personally spoken to each other. Foreign Minister Cho took this opportunity to request that Beijing play a “constructive role” in curbing NK’s recent aggressive behavior.
This request may be tested sooner than either minister would have expected. A day after the call, NK Supreme People’s Assembly voted to scrap all economic and cooperative agreements with South Korea. On Friday, NK Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un declared that its southern neighbor remains “enemy No. 1” and that he would not hesitate to use every power at his disposal to wipe out all enemies that threaten NK.
These recent tensions reflect what regional expert Scott Snyder from the Council on Foreign Relations has called “an escalatory dynamic between the two Koreas following North Korea’s successful satellite launch last November.”
If China heeds Cho’s request and works at de-escalation, it will likely be away from the public eye. However, South Korea and its partner Japan may have the chance to bring this issue up with China again soon; during the call, Beijing and Seoul agreed to accelerate preparations for a China-Japan-South Korea summit. Although China hopes South Korea would adopt a positive policy towards Beijing, that will remain complicated while NK’s Kim Jong Un is left unchecked.