An Olympic Boycott for South Korea? How South Korea Should Respond to U.S.-Sino Competition

► For South Korea’s Moon Jae-in government, a diplomatic boycott would come as a major disappointment, especially as President Moon seeks to re-engage North Korea in his final months in office.

► Although Seoul need not follow suit on every position and stance Washington takes in response towards Chinese actions in the region, it would be in the next South Korean government’s interest to build a broader foreign policy that strategically complements the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

► South Korea can leverage the U.S.-South Korea alliance and its middle power status, pooling its risk with other “like-minded” countries even as it continues to maintain diplomatic relations with China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As US-China competition heats up, U.S. allies, including South Korea, face increasing pressure to follow suit in adopting a harder stance towards Beijing. The latest issue to emerge is the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in January with President Biden and other countries currently mulling over a possible diplomatic boycott. For some allies and partners, such as Australia and India, the shift to a more hawkish position towards Beijing follows logically in response to Chinese coercive actions directly affecting the state. For other allies, including Japan and the United Kingdom, close ideological and political affinities that have traditionally aligned these allies tightly to Washington have also made their strong tilt towards the U.S. unsurprising.

 

With the South Korean presidential election approaching in a few months, greater scrutiny has turned to Seoul and its position in the strategic rivalry between U.S. and China. In this briefing, I address current and upcoming pressures facing the South Korean government. Although Seoul need not follow suit on every position and stance Washington takes in response towards Chinese actions in the region, it would be in the next South Korean government’s interest to build a broader foreign policy that strategically complements the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

 

 

An Olympic boycott?

Just three days after holding a virtual summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping in which many hoped for a pause, if not a reset on escalating U.S.-China competition, President Biden publicly stated that the U.S. was considering a diplomatic Olympic boycott in response to ongoing human rights violations in China, including genocide in Xinjiang. Up until that point, the Biden administration had remained coy on whether it would bar U.S. government officials, including the President, from attending the Olympics. Since then, however, calls for a boycott have picked up steam in the aftermath of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s disappearance following her post on Weibo that she was sexually assaulted by a top Chinese party leader.

 

Other countries including Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom have also stated that they are considering a diplomatic boycott. U.S. allies are most likely waiting to see how the Biden administration first decides on the boycott before making their decision. If the U.S. implements a boycott, it would likely do so in a coordinated response with allies and partners to provide broader political cover against Chinese diplomatic backlash.

   

For South Korea’s Moon Jae-in government, a diplomatic boycott would come as a major disappointment, especially as President Moon seeks to re-engage North Korea in his final months in office. As with the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, President Moon sees the Beijing Olympics  as another opportunity to rekindle diplomatic ties between the two Koreas. A diplomatic boycott, however, would make that political reality more difficult, even if President Moon decides himself to attend the opening or closing ceremonies in Beijing. It is also unclear if North Korea would send a high-level delegation to Beijing given North Korea’s strict pandemic border lockdown.

 

As of now (late November), it is unlikely that the Moon government would join the diplomatic boycott, as the stakes for South Korea are higher than most U.S. allies due to Seoul’s geostrategic proximity to China and greater dependence on Chinese investment and trade than European countries. Moreover, a diplomatic boycott would be at odds with Moon’s call for Korean peace and jeopardize the potential role the South Korean government hopes China might play in encouraging the Kim regime to return to the negotiating table.

 

 

Picking and choosing battle

There will be some pressure on South Korea to join a diplomatic boycott if the U.S. and other allies decide not to send government officials to the Olympics. To not join the boycott would certainly perpetuate perceptions that Seoul is attempting to strategically balance itself between the two great powers. Domestically, the move may also be more costly for the ruling Democratic Party at the election polls given current anti-China sentiment among the South Korean electorate. The ruling party’s decision to not join other “like-minded” states in a boycott might be interpreted by Korean voters as their government being too deferential or soft on China.

 

In the grand scheme of things, however, not joining the diplomatic boycott, which is more symbolic than substantively punitive, would not necessarily undermine faith in the U.S.-South Korea alliance or Korea’s commitment to global governance. More significant is how the next South Korean government shapes its broader foreign policy strategy in the region, and what efforts will be made to integrate Korea’s national security strategy within the framework of an Indo-Pacific strategy.

 

 

South Korean strategic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region

South Korea understandably does not want to upset China by going all in on the Quad. The current Moon government has for the most part managed to sustain good relations with the U.S. while carrying out its own diplomatic agenda including inter-Korea engagement and the New Southern Policy. However, if South Korea remains disengaged from the broader strategic dialogue, there is a risk that it may become further marginalized in setting the region’s strategic agenda. Staying in the middle of the U.S.-China rivalry may help South Korea in the short run avoid Chinese economic coercion. But in the long run, decisions made by the U.S. and it allies through regional groupings like the Quad, or strategic decisions made by Beijing in response to U.S. actions, may also impact South Korean national interests due to the networked nature of security, trade and finance, and technology.

 

South Korea can leverage the U.S.-South Korea alliance and its middle power status to play a more constructive role in shaping its strategic environment. It would be better for South Korea to pool its risk with other “like-minded” countries, even as it continues to maintain diplomatic relations with China. Conversely, the adoption of a more neutral position in the Indo-Pacific will not necessarily prevent China from undercutting Seoul’s regional interests in the future. To protect its own maritime and commercial interests, Seoul must continue to cultivate bilateral and multilateral partnerships with “like-minded” regional actors. By remaining fully engaged in Asia’s regional architecture, the next South Korean government can signal to Beijing and Washington its support for rules, norms, and laws that enhance, not undermine, regional governance.

 

 

AUTHORS

Andrew Yeo is a Professor of Politics and Director of Asian Studies at The Catholic University of America and the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of is State, Society and Markets in North Korea (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Asia’s Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century (Stanford University Press, 2019) and author or co-editor of three other books: North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (Cambridge University Press 2018); Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests (Cambridge University Press 2011); and Living in an Age of Mistrust: An Interdisciplinary Study of Declining Trust in Contemporary Society and Politics and How to get it Back (Routledge Press 2017). His research and teaching interests include international relations theory, Asian security, narratives and discourse, the formation of beliefs, ideas, and worldviews, civil society, social and transnational movements, U.S. grand strategy and global force posture, Korean politics, and North Korea. Dr. Yeo’s scholarly publications have appeared in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Journal of East Asian Studies, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific among others.