S. Korea confirms intent to join IPEF, prompting fears of backlash from China

Posted on : 2022-05-19 16:42 KST Modified on : 2022-05-19 16:42 KST
Yoon’s office has said it will carry out discussions with both US and China to prevent a repeat of China’s response to THAAD deployment in South Korea
Kim Tae-hyo, first deputy chief of the National Security Office, delivers a briefing on May 18. (Yonhap News)
Kim Tae-hyo, first deputy chief of the National Security Office, delivers a briefing on May 18. (Yonhap News)

The South Korean government has officially confirmed its intention to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), a US-led regional initiative for economic cooperation that is largely designed to contain China. That creates a diplomatic challenge for the newly minted Yoon administration amid concerns about a backlash from China.

Officials in the South Korean presidential office told the Hankyoreh on Wednesday that Yoon intends to tell US President Joe Biden that he means to support and join the IPEF when they meet in Seoul for their first summit on May 21. Yoon will also remotely attend the summit in Japan on May 23 at which the IPEF is likely to be unveiled.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during a video briefing on Tuesday that Biden will be launching the IPEF during the Quad summit in Tokyo next week. Raimondo is supposed to accompany Biden on his trip to Korea and Japan.

The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is an unofficial strategic forum between the US, Japan, Australia and India that is also part of the US’ containment of China.

The IPEF, which Biden first announced during the East Asia Summit last October, seeks cooperation in four areas: fair and flexible trade; supply chain resiliency; basic infrastructure, clean energy and decarbonization; and taxation and anti-corruption. Significantly, the Biden administration hopes to use the IPEF to reorganize crucial high value-added industries — such as semiconductors, batteries and electric vehicles — around the US.

The US has two reasons for pursuing the IPEF. First, it hopes to counterbalance the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a massive free trade agreement spearheaded by China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Second, it hopes to make up for the Trump administration’s decision in 2017 to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the forerunner of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The strategic assumption behind the US’ initiative is that as participating countries frame joint standards for trade practices and the critical industries of the future, the natural consequence will be China’s exclusion and isolation. Considering that the Quad is a multilateral diplomatic and security forum aimed at quashing the rise of China, the IPEF can be considered the Quad’s counterpart in the area of trade.

That helps explain the irritation that Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi showed in a videoconference with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin on Monday. During their conversation, Wang said that maintaining regional openness and engagement and opposing bloc confrontations would serve the interests of both countries and stressed the need to keep global supply chains stable while combating the negative tendency toward decoupling and eliminating supply chains.

If Taiwan is allowed to join the IPEF, as it reportedly wants to do, Chinese pushback would likely be even more severe. Just 10 days after becoming president, Yoon is already diving into the waves of US-China strategic competition as they grow choppier. There are even concerns that China could hit Korea with retribution even worse than what it used after Korea OK’d the US’ deployment of a THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense battery.

Yoon's office took exception to this perspective, asserting that the IPEF isn’t aimed at excluding China.

“The IPEF need not be seen as merely being a hostile recoupling between great powers. We’re currently in discussions with China about updating our FTA as we prepare to smoothly open up not only the service sector but other markets as well,” said Kim Tae-hyo, first deputy chief of the presidential National Security Office.

When asked to elaborate, an official in the presidential office told the Hankyoreh, “We’ve instructed the trade officials at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy who are negotiating the Korea-China FTA to set up a cooperative mechanism to stabilize our supply chains with China.” That suggests that the government is trying to minimize pushback from China.

When asked whether China could retaliate as it did with THAAD, Kim Tae-hyo said, “The IPEF, which is being deliberated by at least eight countries, is fundamentally different from the THAAD deployment. We’ll keep alternating discussions with the Americans and Chinese about what’s on the agenda as a preemptive measure to ensure that we don’t see a repeat of what happened before.”

“We need to highlight the fact that we’re not initiating this multilateral forum, but rather participating in it to defend our national interest. We need to make clear that our goal is not to exclude any particular country and also meticulously consider the words and terms that are used in the [IPEF] launch statement,” said Min Jeong-hun, a professor in the Department of American Studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.

In a related development, the policy deliberative delegation that Yoon had hoped to send to China before his inauguration was reportedly called off because of the COVID-19 outbreak in China.

“The Chinese had reviewed the delegation with interest, but the delegates would have had to spend three weeks in quarantine in Dalian or Qingdao before being allowed to enter Beijing. The Chinese understood [that the delegation couldn’t go ahead],” said a senior official in the president’s office.

By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter; Seo Young-ji, staff reporter; Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

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

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