Hopefully President Moon doesn’t have any summits in China anytime soon because it sounds like they CCP is not too happy with him right now:
China is aware that part of a joint statement from last week’s summit between South Korea and the United States is targeted at Beijing, though it made no mention of the country, the top Chinese envoy here said Monday.
Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming made the remarks amid expectations that the statement following the first in-person summit between Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden on Friday could stir unease in China, as it touches on sensitive issues involving the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
“There was no mention of China, but it’s not that (Beijing) is unaware it is targeting China,” Xing told reporters after a forum, noting he watched the summit between Moon and Biden unsatisfactorily.
“For instance, the Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese affair, but that was brought up. There exists no problem with the South China Sea as free transit is guaranteed. That’s a matter involving China and its neighboring countries,” he added.
The joint statement stressed “the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the first time the Taiwan issue has been included in a joint summit statement between Seoul and Washington. Still, it included no mention of China.
The statement also mentioned the freedom of navigation and overflights in the South China Sea, the lion’s share of which is claimed by China.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the CCP is also unhappy with South Korea increasing the range of their missiles and statements about the Quad.
The Chinese had made their viewpoint known to Bangladesh on any dialogue with “The Quad”:
A U.S. State Department spokesman rebutted a Chinese diplomat’s warning for countries to stay away from the U.S.-led regional forum, Quad, on Tuesday, saying the Quad is an informal but essential mechanism to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Ned Price made the remark after the Chinese ambassador in Bangladesh, Li Jing, said in a statement that the South Asian country should not join the Quad or its relations with China will “substantially be damaged.”
“We have taken note of that statement from the PRC ambassador to Bangladesh. What we would say is that we respect Bangladesh’s sovereignty and we respect Bangladesh’s rights to make foreign policy decisions for itself,” the department spokesman said in a press briefing.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The anti-China sentiment has always been there in the Korean public; it is just incidents like this bring it out publicly:
The Chinatown issue comes on the back of Koreans’ protesting claims made by some Chinese influencers and media that kimchi is their traditional food. After Beijing received an international certification for its pickled vegetable dish, “paocai,” in November, China’s state-run Global Times reported that this certification amounted to “an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China.” Since then, the nationalist newspaper has been running articles containing the implication that Beijing is leading the kimchi industry and that the dish originated in China.
Korea Times
These articles led to an online spat between the internet users of both countries, with Koreans arguing that China was now attempting to steal Korea’s cultural legacy.
You can read much more at the link about why the anti-China sentiment is rising in Korea right now.
Here is another example of the Chinese using their auxiliaries to push around a weaker neighbor in the South China Sea. The Philippines is in a tough spot because if they send in Coast Guard and Naval assets to remove the auxiliaries than that gives the Chinese military the excuse to move in and protect them. This is a fight the Philippines cannot win thus why they are turning to the international media:
The Philippine defense chief on Sunday demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarizing the area.”
“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” Lorenzana said in a statement, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights.
A government watchdog overseeing the disputed region said about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef, which Beijing also claims, on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Increasingly more foreigners are choosing to not travel to China for fear of being detained:
The dramatic detention of a handful of foreigners in recent years has instilled a deep fear in some people, especially those with politically adjacent occupations. As President Xi breeds a culture of nationalism and forges increasingly hostile relations with Western governments, some fear that if a diplomatic spat between their government and Beijing occurred while they were in China they could become a target.
CNN
You can read more at the link, but depending on ones occupation or viewpoints people should legitimately be concerned about being detained.
Here is the latest strategy to counter China by the Biden administration:
The Biden administration is moving to put semiconductors, artificial intelligence and next-generation networks at the heart of U.S. strategy toward Asia, attempting to rally what officials are calling “techno-democracies” to stand up to China and other “techno-autocracies.”
The new framing for the U.S. rivalry with China has been given added urgency by the sudden global shortage of microchips needed in products such as cars, mobile phones and refrigerators. The strategy would seek to rally an alliance of nations fighting for an edge in semiconductor fabrication and quantum computing, upending traditional arenas of competition such as missile stockpiles and troop numbers.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but the article says there is a global shortage of microchips because China has been stockpiling them. The theory is that if major microchip producers like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan restrict sales of technology to China it will quash large Chinese companies like Huawei.
Of these three nations I would expect there would be little pushback from Taiwan or Japan on such a strategy, but the Moon administration in South Korea may be a tougher sell. Samsung is the world’s largest producer of semiconductors so restricting sales to China would be a huge loss for them. Additionally the Moon administration has arguably a policy of not upsetting China or the U.S.; siding against China on this issue they know will lead to severe retaliation far worse than what they experienced on the THAAD issue. This is not an easy policy decision for the Moon administration and I would not be surprised if they just delayed any decision on this as long as possible to see if it goes away.
