China displaces old foe Japan in South Koreans' minds ahead of vote
China displaces old foe Japan in South Koreans' minds ahead of vote
SEOUL - Shops selling steaming snacks line the streets of Seoul's Daerim neighbourhood, home to thousands of ethnic Chinese, some feeling the pressure from mounting anti-Beijing sentiment ahead of South Korea's election.
China has displaced longtime foe and former colonial power Japan in many South Koreans' minds as the country's most distrusted neighbour in recent years.
And ahead of June 3's vote, anti-Chinese feeling has spread among South Koreans – online, at right-wing rallies and in Seoul's Chinatown.
Many of the quarter's Chinese residents, such as 74-year-old Yu Shunzi, flocked to South Korea seeking economic opportunities in the 1990s and 2000s.
'A lot of Koreans still think China is a very backward country and discriminate against Chinese a lot,' she told AFP.
Ms Yu, who arrived in 2007 from the north-eastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, said the situation is so bad that she planned to move back when the economy allowed.
'I want to go home, but with the exchange rate being this low, I'd lose a lot of money,' she said.
While former colonial master Japan has long had a difficult relationship with South Korea, Seoul's ties with China have increasingly come under the spotlight.
In 2022, polling conducted by Hankook Research showed for the first time that South Koreans distrusted China more than they did Japan – a trend that has continued in recent years.
Former leader Yoon Suk Yeol referred to vague allegations of Chinese spying when he tried to justify his declaration of martial law, which led to his ousting.
Conspiracy theories have since run rampant among the South Korean right, fuelling the distrust.
But analysts also say that a series of clashes between Beijing and Seoul in recent years over history, territory and defence are the deeper cause of the schism.
'China's growing assertiveness is the main reason behind South Korea's negative views about the country,' said Professor Ramon Pacheco Pardo from King's College London.
'Most South Koreans have no affinity towards today's China,' the international relations professor told AFP.
Seoul has long trodden a fine line between top trading partner China and defence guarantor the United States.
Relations with China nosedived in 2016 following the South's decision to deploy the US-made Thaad missile defence system.
Beijing saw it as a threat to its own security and reacted furiously, imposing a string of restrictions on South Korean businesses and banning group tours as part of sweeping economic retaliation.
A series of public spats about the origins of Korean cultural staples such as kimchi, which China had claimed as its own, also left a bitter taste.
Yoon's administration deepened that divide, cleaving close to the United States and seeking to improve ties with Japan.
'Under his leadership, Seoul made its position unmistakably clear: it stood with Washington and its allies, not Beijing,' Assistant Professor Claudia Kim from City University of Hong Kong told AFP.
Opposition leader and election frontrunner Lee Jae-myung has publicly hinted that a softer line might be in the works if he wins.
Beijing won't 'miss the opportunity to improve relations with the South' if Lee wins, Dr Cheong Seong-chang at Seoul's Sejong Institute told AFP, suggesting a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping could even take place.
Lee has also raised alarm bells by saying that a future conflict between China and Taiwan would not be South Korea's concern.
That could put him on a collision course with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has made containing China a cornerstone of its bid to reshape the international order.
'Trump's focus on deterring China may lead to a mismatch of foreign policy priorities with Lee,' Dr Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford, told AFP.
People visiting a market in Seoul's Daerim neighbourhood, home to thousands of ethnic Chinese.
PHOTO: AFP
Fake news thrives
Compounding deepening distrust of China has been a surge of conspiracy theories.
Analysis by AFP revealed many of the most widely-circulated pieces of misinformation tap into fears of meddling by China.
Rallies in support of ex-president Yoon have featured calls to oust alleged 'pro-Chinese Communist Party' forces, as well as posters with anti-Chinese slurs and slogans advocating for Chinese nationals to be deported.
A recent editorial in Beijing's state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times condemned 'far-right' forces in South Korea for 'stirring up xenophobia' against Chinese people.
In Seoul's Chinatown, Ms Li Jinzi, 73, complained about a culture of 'misinformation' that was breeding negative feelings towards her home country.
'Fake news breeds misunderstandings,' she said. AFP
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
War between China, US inconceivable and avoidable, says top Chinese official
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Mr Liu Jianchao, head of the Communist Party of China's International Department, speaking at the World Peace Forum in Beijing on July 3. BEIJING – War between China and the United States is not inevitable and even unthinkable, a senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official has said, in one of Beijing's clearest rejections yet of the notion of conflict between the world's two largest powers. 'People often say that a war between China and the US is inevitable, but I don't think so,' Mr Liu Jianchao, head of the party's International Department, told an international audience of current and former foreign policymakers and scholars at the World Peace Forum in Beijing on July 2. He described the Chinese and Americans as peace-loving people, and said it would be 'inconceivable' that China and the US would want to meet on the battlefield. 'So we advise those politicians who advocate force and admire muscle-flexing to give up their belligerent rhetoric and stop instigating conflicts and contradictions,' he said. Earlier in his opening remarks, he criticised US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, which marked the first comprehensive articulation of the US' Asia policy under President Donald Trump's second term. In that speech in June, Mr Hegseth had emphasised America's commitment to the Indo-Pacific region and warned that China poses a real and potentially imminent threat to the region. Mr Liu described Mr Hegseth's message as a 'new incarnation of a hegemonic mindset'. 'What he really wants is force, not dialogue, and to provoke confrontation, not peace and harmony,' Mr Liu said of Mr Hegseth. 'If we are still obsessed with zero-sum games and absolute security,' he warned, 'the people of the world may face a predicament that is not about who loses and who wins, but about destruction for all – a price that human civilisation cannot bear.' The strategic rivalry between the US and China has intensified in recent years, especially after Mr Trump returned to the White House in January . Competition spans from trade and technology to security and ideology. Mr Liu, who is the CPC's equivalent of foreign minister, stressed that China wants to develop peacefully. He pointed out that a secure and stable external environment is essential for the party's ability to rule the country. 'Hence, China will never export turmoil and strife, as that will lead to a self-destruction of the wonderful opportunities to develop,' he said. He called on leaders to act with responsibility and conscience in choosing a shared future over zero-sum games. 'History will judge our generation not by how many wars we have won, but by whether we have kept the peace and brought happiness to our people,' he said. Speaking at the opening of the forum, China's Vice-Premier Han Zheng reiterated that as a responsible big power, China has always been 'a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and defender of international order'. At another session at the forum, Mr Cui Tiankai, a former Chinese ambassador to the US, stressed that China never set out to compete with the US. 'Our developmental goal is not to put anyone down or to replace anyone, but to surpass ourselves,' he said. Pointing to China's stance against Soviet hegemony in the 1960s, Mr Cui argued that Beijing's opposition to hegemonic power is not limited to the US. 'It is a mistake to think that Sino-US rivalry means that China is competing with the US for supremacy. We do not compete with anyone for supremacy, we are in fact against hegemony by any country,' he said. Speaking at the same panel as Mr Cui, Singapore's former foreign minister George Yeo did not hide his disdain for the pressuring tactics of Mr Trump. 'The US is no longer strong enough to be a global supremo. But it is strong enough to be a bully, especially to those who are weak,' he said. He cited how Mr Trump pressed Ukraine to sell minerals to the US and Japan to buy its rice. 'He is threatening people he can threaten,' he said. 'He is nice to Xi Jinping, because he knows he cannot bully Xi Jinping,' said Mr Yeo, referring to the Chinese President. Earlier Mr Liu said, when asked by a journalist about the future of US-China ties: 'I'm optimistic.'
Business Times
4 hours ago
- Business Times
Trump aims to shut trade loopholes China uses to evade tariffs
[WASHINGTON] US President Donald Trump's two-tiered trade deal with Vietnam aims squarely at practices China has long used to skirt US tariffs: The widespread legal shifting of production to South-east Asian factories and the murkier and illegal 'origin washing' of exports through their ports. The agreement slaps a 20 per cent tariff on Vietnamese exports to the US and a 40 per cent levy on goods deemed to be transshipped through the country. With details still scarce, economists said much will hinge on the framework Washington establishes to determine what it sees as 'Made in Vietnam' and what it sees as transshipments. Complicating matters is the fact that Chinese businesses have rushed to set up shop across South-east Asia since Trump launched his first trade war back in 2018. The lion's share of Vietnam's exports to the US are goods like Airpods, phones or other products assembled with Chinese components in a factory in Vietnam and then shipped to America. That's not illegal. 'A lot will depend on how the 40 per cent tariffs are applied. If the Trump administration keeps it targeted, it should be manageable,' said Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. 'If the approach is too broad and blunt, then it could be quite damaging' for China, Vietnam and for the US, which will have to pay higher import prices, he said. The think tank estimates that 28 per cent of Vietnamese exports to the US were made up of Chinese content in 2022, up from 9 per cent in 2018. Pham Luu Hung, chief economist at SSI Securities in Hanoi, said a 40 per cent levy on transshipped goods would have limited impact on Vietnam's economy because they are not of Vietnamese origin in the first place. Re-routed exports accounted for just 16.5 per cent of Vietnam's shipments to the US in 2021, a share that's likely declined over the past couple of years amid stronger enforcement actions by both governments, Hung said. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am Asean Business Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies. Sign Up Sign Up 'An important caveat is that the rules of origin remain under negotiation,' Hung said. 'In practice, these rules may have a greater impact than the tariff rates themselves.' Devil in details Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said he's sceptical the latest deal will be effective in stamping out Chinese exports via Vietnam to the US. 'The devil is in the details, but I think China's exports will either go via other markets to the US, or some value-added will be done in Vietnam so the product counts as made in Vietnam, rather than a transshipment,' he said. As officials across Asia rushed to negotiate lower US tariff levels with their US counterparts this year, Chinese businesses have been just as quick to ramp up their exports through alternative channels in order to skirt punitive US levies. Shipments from China to South-east Asia have reached record highs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam this year. And there's been a 'significant increase in correlation' to the region's increase in exports to the US during the same period, Citigroup economists said in a recent report. Much of that is likely due to the shifting of legitimate production across the region. Goods destined for the US market may be sent from their factories in South-east Asia, and what they make in their factories in China will be sent to the rest of the world, said Derrick Kam, Asia economist at Morgan Stanley. 'If you try to represent that in the trade data, it will look exactly like rerouting, but it's not,' Kam said. 'It's essentially the supply chain working itself out.' But it's transshipment that's been a major concern for Trump's top trade advisers including Peter Navarro, who described Vietnam as 'essentially a colony of communist China' during an April interview with Fox News. And it has not just been happening in Vietnam. Not long after Trump unveiled his 'Liberation Day' tariffs on Apr 2, garment makers in Indonesia started receiving offers from Chinese companies to be 'partners in transshipment,' said Redma Gita Wirawasta, chairman of the Indonesian Filament Yarn and Fiber Producers Association. Chinese products would be rerouted to Indonesia, undergo minimal processing like repacking or relabelling, then secure a certification that they were made in the South-east Asian country, Wirawasta said. When the goods are then exported to the US, they'd be subject to the 10 per cent universal levy that Trump has imposed on nearly all countries, instead of the tariff for China that still equates to an effective level of over 50 per cent, even after a recent 'deal' that lowered levies from a peak of 145 per cent. With the huge scope for arbitrage, coupled with little policing, that process will prove tough to stamp out. 'Chinese exporters and their affiliates and partners in South-east Asia are highly skilled at adapting to changing rules, identifying loopholes, and sometimes overstating the extent of value-add by non-China countries,' said Gabriel Wildau, managing director at advisory firm Teneo Holdings in New York. Some final assembly or transshipment may shift to rival South-east Asian transshipment hubs like Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, or farther afield to Turkey, Hungary or Poland, Wildau said. 'Another possibility is that the definitions and enforcement mechanisms are fuzzy, rendering the latest deal cosmetic and toothless,' he said. 'Rigorous enforcement would also require a significant boost of resources to enable US customs to verify compliance with the tougher rules of origin.' There have been efforts across the region to at least be seen to be making an effort to curb the practice. Indeed, Vietnam has made a big deal about cracking down on trade fraud and illegal activity in recent months. In April, South Korea said it seized more than US$20 million worth of goods with falsified origin labels – the majority of which were destined for the US. The Airfreight Forwarders Association of Malaysia issued a warning in May as Chinese brokers promoted illegal rerouting services on social media. Malaysia has centralised the issuance of certificates of origin with its Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, while tapping its customs agency to help curb transshipment. Thailand has expanded its watch list for high-risk products, including solar panels, cars and parts, and is mulling stricter penalties for violators. Red tape Casey Barnett, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, is already seeing the changes in action. One factory that exports to major US retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe's, said that customs officials were very carefully reviewing their products before being sent to the US, he said. 'It's creating some additional paperwork and a little bit of red tape here,' Barnett said. A senior manager at a logistics company in Cambodia, who asked not to be identified because the matter is sensitive, said export processing time has now stretched to as much as 14 working days – double what it was before. But in Indonesia, getting a certificate of origin is fairly quick and painless when goods are marked for export, often just requiring a product list and a letter to the provincial trade office, according to Wirawasta. Authorities prioritise checking products that enter the country to ensure they pay the right duties and comply with regulations, he explained. It's rare for them to inspect factories where an export good was supposedly made. So much so that sometimes, Chinese companies don't even need to muster up some local processing. 'The T-shirt could be finished in China, with a 'Made in Indonesia' label already sewn on,' Wirawasta said. 'Some traders won't even bother to unload the goods from the shipping container,' he added. 'Unloading costs money.' BLOOMBERG
Straits Times
6 hours ago
- Straits Times
Hong Kong legislative council considers local registration for same-sex couples
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox FILE PHOTO: People take part in the annual LGBT pride parade in Hong Kong, China November 26, 2016. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo HONG KONG - Hong Kong's legislative council began discussion on Thursday of a government proposal to allow local registration for same-sex couples who have registered their marriage or relationship overseas, amid strong opposition from pro-Beijing legislators. The Hong Kong government is proposing to establish a registration system to give legal recognition to same-sex couples who have registered overseas, according to an official document released on Wednesday. Hong Kong's top court in September 2023 partially approved a landmark appeal by LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham for recognition of same-sex marriages. Although not then granting a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, judges gave the government two years to develop a legal framework to meet basic social needs. Many pro-Beijing legislators have expressed strong opposition to the proposal and asked the government to seek a delay from the court. They have also urged for public consultation before any legislative change. Holden Chow, a member of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said approving the proposal would encourage people to enter into same-sex marriages overseas, effectively granting the marriages recognition. The legislative council has "the responsibility to uphold traditional Chinese family values and the institution of marriage between one man and one woman," Chow said. "I oppose the indirect recognition of same-sex marriage and firmly oppose this alternative proposal." Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore $500 in Child LifeSG credits, Edusave, Post-Sec Education Account top-ups to be disbursed in July Singapore PAP questions Pritam's interview with Malaysian podcast, says politics should stop at water's edge World Liverpool's Portuguese forward Diogo Jota dies in car crash in Spain Sport Liverpool star Diogo Jota dead at 28: What you need to know about the footballer Business 60 S'pore firms to get AI boost from Tata Consultancy as it launches a new innovation centre here Singapore Scoot launches flights to Da Nang, Kota Bharu and Nha Trang; boosts frequency to other destinations Singapore Electrician who bit off part of coworker's ear during fight gets 6 months' jail Asia 4 dead, 30 missing after ferry sinks on way to Indonesia's Bali Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang told the legislature the government has to respect the court's ruling, and said it was "crystal clear" the court and the government have no intention to shake the foundation of marriage between a man and a woman. "I want to stress again, from the beginning till the end, including the court and the government, we did not intend to recognise same-sex marriage," Tsang said. Sham and other LGBTQ groups have criticized the requirement that same-sex couples must first be married or registered overseas, arguing that it creates significant barriers for those who cannot afford to travel to another country to register. Sham and other activists have attended the legislative council meeting, which is open to the public. Tsang dismissed Sham's objection and the difficulties of registering overseas. "There are currently over 30 countries or regions around the world that offer same-sex marriage or partnership registration, some even allowing online registration," Tsang said. "We believe that for most people, this should not pose a significant challenge. Ultimately, it is a matter of choice." After the meeting, Sham told reporters outside the legislature that more than 60% of Hong Kong residents had supported same-sex marriage in past surveys. "I have heard that the main reason to oppose the proposal is to uphold the traditional family values. I would like to say that each of us grew up in a traditional family," Sham said. "We do not want to destroy traditional family values. We only wish to have a safeguard of our life." REUTERS
