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Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (left) speaks with former President Moon Jae-in at the Blue House on May 9. (Yonhap News)

China seems to be looking upon South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s inauguration on Tuesday with a mix of courtesy and unease. On one hand, the country has remained civil toward South Korea when necessary, as can be seen by the Chinese special envoy’s congratulatory message to Yoon and commentaries in Chinese state media. But on the other hand, Beijing is demanding that South Korea keep up the diplomatic line of the Moon Jae-in administration, which maintained a balance between the US and China.

Such moves by China indicate that the country is worried Yoon will pursue foreign policies thoroughly devoted to the US — such as the strengthening of the South Korea-US alliance and trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the US and Japan — that were a staple of his rhetoric on the campaign trail, leading to discord between South Korea and China.

While in Seoul to attend Yoon’s inauguration ceremony as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan met with Yoon and talked about the importance of relations between South Korea and China as they mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Wang told Yoon, “The two countries of China and South Korea are friendly neighbors and cooperative partners to each other.” He added, “Amid global turmoil, it is becoming more and more important that China and South Korea strengthen cooperation with each other for each other, the region, and the world. China hopes to strive together [with South Korea] so that its strategic cooperative partnership with South Korea advances and continuously reaches new heights.”

Wang further said that South Korea “should strengthen cooperation with [China] in regard to problems concerning the Korean Peninsula and appropriately take care of sensitive issues.” The “sensitive issues” seem to be referring to strategic issues, including the Yoon administration’s stated basic diplomatic line of strengthening the South Korea-US alliance and trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the US, and Japan, as well as concerns that the Moon administration’s China policy of “three noes” may be scrapped.

As if these remarks weren’t enough, Wang wrote in the guest book at the reception room of the South Korean presidential office, “The friendship between China and South Korea shall be handed down for generations.” Xi seems to have sent Wang, the highest-ranking Chinese official to have attended a South Korean president’s inauguration ceremony, in order to stabilize relations between Seoul and Beijing. Wang is one of Xi’s closest aides and has been considered Xi’s right-hand man.

Immediately following his election victory, Yoon met with Chris Del Corso, charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in South Korea, on March 11, telling the latter that “the South Korea-US alliance should be reestablished as a blood alliance.” On the same day, Yoon promised “the strengthening of the South Korea-US alliance and trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the US and Japan” to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a phone call.

But with the dawn of the new Cold War following the intensifying strategic competition between the US and China and the war in Ukraine, a sudden change in South Korea’s existing diplomatic line may prompt the country’s relations with China to rupture. To make matters worse, China has been on edge recently due to the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown within its borders and ongoing preparations for the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party scheduled for November, when Xi’s bid for a third term will be decided.

As last November’s urea shortage in South Korea demonstrated, South Korea and China are firmly bound by the tight-knit global supply chain. As such, if the Yoon administration makes a rash decision early in its term, it will have to shoulder significant losses.

Chinese state media were much more straightforward in expressing Beijing’s inner workings. The state-run Global Times, a sister newspaper of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, stated in an editorial that ran on Yoon’s inauguration day that previous South Korean governments had a “clear understanding” of the importance of maintaining ties with China, and had “always shunned ‘taking sides,’ and strived to achieve a complicated and delicate balance.”

It added that “China will not make any changes or concessions on sensitive issues involving major interests and concerns.”

Still, the Global Times’ editorial board stated it had “noticed that additional deployment of THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] was not included in the Yoon administration’s key policy tasks,” hinting at its hopes that the South Korean government make the pragmatic choice of inheriting the Moon administration’s China policy of “three noes.”

Meanwhile, some harsh words were issued toward South Korea as well. Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times who’s been called the “unofficial spokesperson” of the Chinese government, wrote on his Twitter page on May 5 that “If South Korea takes a path of turning hostile against its neighbors, the end of this path could be a Ukraine.”

This remark may have reflected in part the views of Chinese hard-liners worried about South Korea shifting its diplomatic course.

By Choi Hyun-june, Beijing correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]