If the front-runner for the presidential election on Tuesday wins, South Korea is likely to enter a major course correction in its diplomacy to improve ties with North Korea and China.
South Korea’s relations with North Korea and China became increasingly strained under former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was expelled from office in April following his short-lived imposition of martial law. Under Mr. Yoon, South Korea became more confrontational toward North Korea, shunning dialogue and encouraging the spread of outside information into the isolated country. North Korea abandoned its long-held policy of supporting reunification with South Korea, redefining the South as an enemy that must be subjugated, if necessary, with its nuclear weapons.
Mr. Yoon also disturbed a delicate balance South Korea had always struggled to maintain between Washington and Beijing. While China emerged as South Korea’s biggest trade partner in the post-Cold War decades, the United States remained as its only military ally. Mr. Yoon not only openly sided with the United States in the strategic competition between Washington and Beijing, but he also antagonized Beijing by raising suspicions that it has sent spies to South Korea and may have manipulated its elections.
“The relations between South Korea and China became the worst ever,” said Lee Jae-myung, the candidate most likely to win the presidential election according to pre-election polls. He has criticized Mr. Yoon’s policy toward China. “I will stabilize and manage the relations,” he said.
In many ways, the foreign policy platforms of Mr. Lee and his main rival, Kim Moon-soo, share similarities.
Both vowed to deepen their country’s alliance with Washington, reaffirming it as the foundation of South Korean diplomacy. They pledged to invest more in South Korea’s defense capabilities and strengthen a joint deterrence with the United States to counter North Korea’s growing nuclear threat. And they supported trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan for regional security.
Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim also recognized an urgent need to establish a rapport with President Trump, who is asking South Korea to pay more for 28,500 American troops based on its soil while imposing steep tariffs on cars, steel and other exports that are key for its ally’s export-driven economy.
But there are sharp differences too. Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim represent opposing views of a country deeply divided over North Korea and China.
Mr. Kim and his right-wing People Power Party, which had supported Mr. Yoon, called his left-wing Democratic Party opponents “pro-North Korea” and “pro-China” forces, saying they would undermine Seoul’s alliance with Washington for the sake of improving ties with Beijing and Pyongyang.
During the campaign, Mr. Kim tried to tap into widespread sentiments against North Korea, and especially against China, among older South Koreans and young male voters. He called Mr. Lee an irresponsible fence-sitter in the geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing, while describing himself as staunchly pro-American.
“China was our enemy, whose Communist Party invaded our country during the Korean War,” Mr. Kim said during a TV debate last month. “Then how can we treat China at the same level with the United States?”
Mr. Lee and his party called such accusations part of a witch hunt that South Korean conservatives have used to “demonize” their liberal rivals ever since the Cold War era.
He reiterated that he would prioritize the alliance with the United States, if he had to choose. But he accused Mr. Kim of “unnecessarily antagonizing” China, North Korea and Russia. He said he would seek “pragmatic diplomacy” and try to improve ties with those countries, within the framework of its alliance with Washington, to ease tensions around the Korean Peninsula.
“Cooperation with the United States and Japan is essential,” he said. “But we should not put all our eggs in one basket.”
Mr. Lee is saying “many of the right things,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. But the question, he said, was: “Are those statements coming out of the candidate’s camp a policy preview or are they campaign clichés?”
Officially, both Mr. Lee and Mr. Kim support dialogue with North Korea. But they diverge sharply over how to deal with the North’s nuclear threat.
Mr. Kim appealed to growing calls among South Koreans for their country to build its own nuclear weapons, promising that if elected he would negotiate with Mr. Trump to be able to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel from South Korea’s nuclear power plants. That is what is needed to produce materials for an atomic bomb.
He even vowed to “accumulate technologies for designing nuclear weapons, if necessary, through close cooperation with the United States.” Another option, he said, was to ask the United States to redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea.
Mr. Lee called such suggestions foolish and infeasible, noting the decades-old U.S. policy of nuclear nonproliferation. He supported enriching uranium to secure a stable supply of fuel for South Korea’s nuclear power plants but not to build nuclear weapons.
”If we reintroduce American tactical nuclear weapons, we cannot demand that North Korea denuclearize,” he said.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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