South Korea’s Strategy toward a Rising China, Security Dynamics in East Asia, and International Relations Theory

Kim, Min-hyung

doi:10.1525/as.2016.56.4.707

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…South Korea was unintentionally under the influence of China's gray operations. The 1998–2003 Korea's Kim Dae‐jung administration was more enthusiastic to cooperate with China while endorsing Beijing's key policies, including One China Policy (Kim, 2016, p. 714). The 2003–2008 Roh Moo‐hyun administration became much more divergent in terms of threat perception with its America's ally.…”

Section: Rok‐us Relations and China As A Gray Actormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Jammed Allies: The Ironclad ROK‐U.S. Alliance and China as a Gray Actor

Ban¹

2020

Asian Politics and Policy

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What drives alliances to tremble? Even longstanding alliances could be frustrated by the jamming mechanism by a gray actor. When an enemy pretends to take a friendlier posture, a state under alliances seems likely to regard its posture as a window of opportunity towards better relationship and wishfully permanent peace. Too much emphasis on this window prevents a state from recognizing how four characteristics of a gray actorresourceful, ambiguous, temporal and gradual-could risk throwing even an ironclad alliance into chaos. This analysis sheds light on how the ironclad ROK-U.S. alliance could be jammed by China as a gray actor. These insights contribute to the alliance literature in international relations by focusing on an exogeneous variable to explain weakening alliance cohesion. These outcomes also encourage policymakers to develop a fine counterstrategy efforts to offset jamming by a gray actor and even alliance decoupling.

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Section: Rok‐us Relations and China As A Gray Actormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 2003–2008 Roh Moo‐hyun administration became much more divergent in terms of threat perception with its America's ally. The Roh government sought “a strategy of tilting toward China,” revealing pro‐Chinese, anti‐American, and pro‐North Korea (Kim, 2016, pp. 714–715).…”

Section: Rok‐us Relations and China As A Gray Actormentioning

confidence: 99%

Jammed Allies: The Ironclad ROK‐U.S. Alliance and China as a Gray Actor

Ban¹

2020

Asian Politics and Policy

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“…However, Park's government has also been pressured to either deploy THAAD or develop their own "indigenous nuclear arsenal", as they could not always be under U.S.' security umbrella (Kim, 2016). If Seoul decided to develop nuclear arsenal, they would bleach 1992 Joint Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsular and the country would have been economically pressured instead.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

THAAD Installation in South Korea: Analysis Through Rational Actor Model

Bunnak¹

2020

UCLR

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South Korea and China established their diplomatic relations in 1992. The relation has always been positive, despite their different ideology, even better during Park Geun Hye and Xi Jinping presidencies since 2013, from having the same historical enemy. The two leaders wanted to make East Asia become peaceful and worried-free. Yet, North Korea has always been a main topic in the talks between ROK-PRC on security, from the weapon of mass destruction. During Park's early period, she decided to tilt toward China, for trading, and moved away from US, but still kept relation at the arm-length. However, from mid-2015, the relationship started to show friction as South Korea accepted U.S.' defensive weapon, THAAD. The act showed that South Korea did not trust China, despite their cooperation on economy that they decided to accept U.S.' security shield. Park's decision was not based on security dimension alone, as economic benefit also gives a big impact, for going back to traditional ally. This paper aims to find Park's reason for accepting THAAD, despite knowing it would hurt economic relation with China, which is not based on security reason alone, as economic benefit also plays a big part on changing Park's decision.

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“…China is still a main ally and key patron of North Korea, South Korea’s major security threat. Despite China’s rapid ascendance, however, South Korea has not really pursued a hard balancing strategy against China (Kang, 2009; Kim, 2016a). Rather, Seoul has actively engaged China and sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Beijing since the diplomatic normalisation of the two countries in 1992.…”

Section: Irt and East Asia Irmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, the sharp division of studies between international security and international political economy still exists in prominent IRT. As Kim (2016a) notes, the dichotomy as a research strategy reflects the division of labor with which IR’s two subfields of international security and international political economy have developed in the postwar world. During the Cold War, for example, the bipolar rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union dominated the security agenda.…”

Section: Suggestions For the Irt Modificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

East Asia International Relations and International Relations Theory: Where Does a Poor Fit Exist, and What to Do about It

Kim

2018

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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This article seeks to critically assess the relevance of International Relations Theory (IRT) for East Asia International Relations (IR). After identifying the shortcomings of IRT in explaining East Asia IR, the article provides several ways to modify it with a goal to make it more suitable for East Asia IR. Its central claim is that the IRT’s bias toward European experiences and great power politics generates unsatisfactory accounts for and inaccurate predictions about East Asia IR. This does not mean, however, that we should treat IRT as completely irrelevant and develop an indigenous theory of East Asia IR. Given that no single theory is complete and perfectly relevant across time and space and that many core concepts and key variables of IRT are also pertinent for East Asia IR, our efforts should instead be made to refine the existing IRT and make it more suitable for East Asia IR by problematising its major assumptions and central claims on the basis of East Asian experiences. This will save IRT from being a region-specific and a country-specific theory of IR.

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South Korea’s Strategy toward a Rising China, Security Dynamics in East Asia, and International Relations Theory

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Jammed Allies: The Ironclad ROK‐U.S. Alliance and China as a Gray Actor

Jammed Allies: The Ironclad ROK‐U.S. Alliance and China as a Gray Actor

THAAD Installation in South Korea: Analysis Through Rational Actor Model

East Asia International Relations and International Relations Theory: Where Does a Poor Fit Exist, and What to Do about It

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