President Lee Says There Has Been “Misunderstandings” Between South Korea and China
It seems to me that if China wants to promote positive relations with South Korea how about they apologize for destroying the ROK during the Korean War?:
President Lee Jae Myung has said that South Korea and China should work to ease negative public sentiment toward each other and develop “good neighborly, friendly” relations to help expand economic cooperation.
Lee made the remarks at a welcome dinner hosted by Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining after arriving in Shanghai on Tuesday — the second and final stop of his state visit to China.
“I believe building good neighborly, friendly relations is essential when it comes to resolving economic issues,” he told Chen.
He noted that “unfounded and unnecessary misunderstandings” have long hurt public sentiment in both countries and have become a factor hindering the development of bilateral relations.
“We need to minimize those misunderstandings and encourage more goodwill between our peoples,” Lee said. “If there are areas of conflict or confrontation, we should minimize them and maximize the areas where we can benefit each other so that we can truly become good neighbors.”
You can read more at the link, but there is no misunderstandings; China almost completely destroyed the ROK during the Korean War. After they were unsuccessful in that venture they have continued to back the North Korean regime which has launched countless provocations against the ROK over the past 7 decades leading to the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of Koreans. China has also on multiple occasions tried to economically bully South Korea with the THAAD issue being the latest example.
Or how about China apologize for what they did in 2008 when the Chinese Embassy bussed in Chinese students to attack and beat down Koreans protesting in Seoul for Tibetan freedom? Or how about apologizing for the Chinese fishing boats that continue to loot South Korean waters and have attacked and murdered Coast Guard personnel? China is even trying to claim Korean territory as their own. The Chinese then even fly bombers in coordination with the Russians through the Korean ADIZ to intimidate the ROK. None of this seems like a misunderstanding to me, it is bullying and I don’t expect it stop no matter how many nice things President Lee says about China.
After last Saturday, China might be much more willing to be friendly…
As a political realist:
– there is no gain in antagonizing China in public. Korea needs China.
– if you speak nicely in public, you have a bit more room to install fancy radar and lean on fishing boats. Like real life, be nice and polite and do what is reasonably best for yourself. If you get called on it, be nicer and more polite and keep taking care of yourself.
– the Korean war was a long time ago and neither China nor South Korea are the same countries with the same values and motivations. An American strength is forgiveness, or forgetfulness, instead of self-destructive multi-generational grudges. America does business with Vietnam instead of whining about the Tet Offensive.
– Of course, we must keep an eye on Lee to ensure there is no promotion of collectivist ideology¹, destruction of the middle class, actions damaging to Korea, following the bidding of globalist interests, true entanglements with the Chinese, etc., but on this trip, his speaking was reasonable.
¹collectivist ideology is only acceptable for beneficial programs that cannot or should not make a profit, e.g. returning to the dark days of private firefighting companies. It is not acceptable to take surplus labor from the productive class to subsidize the lifestyle of the willfully worthless class.
@Chickenhead, I don’t disagree with what you said, but if Lee is going to continue play nice with the Chinese then he should see some results from it. Like stopping the illegal fishing boats, stopping intimidation bomber flights, and stop banning Korean entertainment in China. These are simple things that if China wanted to be friendly in response to Lee’s outreach could do, but have not. Maybe they will in time, I hope so for Korea.
Notice I did not mention help with North Korea because I think that is a waste of time, which Lee is spending too much time trying to get the Chinese to help him with.
Also I should not ever hear President Lee bring up any anti-Japanese issues. To his credit so far he has been playing nice with the Japanese. However, when some inevitable domestic political crisis comes up will he be able to suppress the urge to play the anti-Japan card to deflect attention like most other ROK Presidents have done? I guess we will see.
Stop entertaining, trading with or any other connection to a communist country that wants to kill you and take you over.
@Flyingsword, I think at this point the Chinese do not want to kill or take over the ROK. They just want them to be a subservient client state like they historically have been to China. I support the ROK having positive relations with China, but the ROK should not have to be a subservient client state to have friendly relations with Beijing. I think this is why the Kim regime pulled away from China and have now cozied up to the Russians, they got tired of being pushed to be a subservient client state.