The hours-long detention of Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn by thousands of angry residents of Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, last week was a serious incident. The unruly crowd temporarily incapacitated the prime minister while he was heading the government on behalf of President Park Geun-hye who was then attending the Asia-Europe Meeting in Ulan Bator.

Surrounded by the unruly, violent crowd who were throwing eggs, water bottles and other objects in the county office compound, the prime minister was physically obstructed from performing his mission to explain how the government chose the location for the THAAD installation.

There was again a blame game that ensued following the commotion on July 15. Some said that the prime minister was too hasty in visiting Seongju just hours after the announcement that it had been chosen as the site for the advanced antimissile system. Others said that the residents had resorted to violence out of excessive fear and concern. Meanwhile, political groups were criticized for agitating the public in their pursuit of partisan interests.

Some even pointed fingers at the U.S, claiming that it was trying to take advantage of the situation on the Korean Peninsula to consolidate its global missile defense system through the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries in its Far Eastern outposts.

Still, whatever arguments you may make, it cannot refute the fact that THAAD is one of the most dependable antimissile systems that can protect us against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat.

China’s interference in the matter is unfortunate. Beijing’s objection to the decision to deploy THAAD here leaves us largely disappointed, as the country is partly responsible for nuclear proliferation in this part of the world.

When Beijing arranged the six-part talks to tackle North Korea’s nuclear program in the early 2000s, we appreciated it and had much expectations. However, after four nuclear tests by the North so far, can Beijing assert it has done its best?

By now, we are convinced that China is unwilling to stop Pyongyang’s development of weapons of mass destruction, which Beijing regards as no threat to its own security, other than possibly prompting a nuclear arms race in the region.

Coincidentally, the past two decades when North Korea spurred its nuclear and missile armament was the time of China’s rise to global superpower status. The new G2 member in Asia must now have different priorities on regional security involving the two Koreas.

Despite U.S. assurances of limiting the THAAD radars’ scope of detection so as not to include areas beyond the China-North Korea border, Beijing has threatened retaliation, implying military and economic actions.

Its reaction disregards the stake we hold in THAAD’s deployment, which was made as a choice between life and death. The friendship we believed we had built with China over the past decades seems to be crumbling.

China’s objection, and Russia’s opposition -- to a lesser degree -- has resulted in opposition politicians and a few government party members taking ambivalent attitudes toward the THAAD issue. Some still doubt the tactical efficiency of the measure against the North’s vast arsenal of rockets and others express concerns about the huge cost that we will have to bear in the future. They also generally question whether THAAD is worth risking a rupture of relations with China.

With the China factor seriously affecting public opinion here, the THAAD controversy has led South Koreans to fundamentally rethink what China means to them.

Since 1992, when Seoul and Beijing normalized relations four decades after the Korean War, bilateral ties have developed so rapidly in all areas that strategists as well as common people wondered where the nation should stand between China and the United States as they contest for global hegemony.

China has entered deeper and deeper into our awareness with so many tourists from the country roaming Seoul’s streets, diverse Chinese imports in stores and Chinese money flowing into local industries and the real estate market.

China has even emerged as a key player in the area of security, but unfortunately not as a trusted arbitrator. 

A few days ago, a journalist friend of mine sent me a historical text picked up by an ex-diplomat who wanted to share his concerns about our future relations with China.

It was a lengthy inscription on the Samjeondo monument erected in what is now Songpa in southeastern Seoul at the end of the 17th century Manchu invasion of Korea. It was to eulogize the second Qing Dynasty ruler Hongtaiji who received the surrender of King Injo after a 50-day siege of the Namhan Fortress in the winter of 1636.

The text was written in three languages, Mongolian, Manchu and Chinese, and it began with how benevolent the Qing emperor was to offer life in return for surrender instead of death following resistance by Joseon troops from the provinces, who were all crushed.

“The King (Injo) told generals and retainers, ‘I alone should be blamed for inviting heavenly conquest and causing tribulation to the people by being so unwise. As the (Qing) emperor spares us from slaughter and offers redemption, I will respectfully comply in order to preserve the lineage of the kingdom and maintain the lives of the people.’ The King went to the Qing camp, accompanied only by a few tens of retainers, and asked for punishment whereupon the Qing emperor treated him graciously.”

King Injo blamed himself in the inscription, but he and his predecessor, the deposed King Gwanghae, were the victims of failed diplomacy in the period of transition from the Ming to Qing dynasties, which historians attribute to the chronic factional strife in the Joseon court.

“If the big power uses its force exhaustively without leniency, we, the little state under extreme situation cannot but be determined to fight to death. We are respectfully awaiting your instruction,” said King Injo in a letter to the Qing ruler Hong Taiji as recorded in the Joseon Dynasty Annals’ Injo chapter.

Korean history over the millennia records interactions with China, with each chapter providing painful lessons for the posterity of today and tomorrow.

Good diplomacy is the best weapon in the current situation which requires total empowerment with economic, military and political capabilities.

The exposure of our country’s internal division does the worst damage to us, as shown recently by the video that spread worldwide showing our prime minister plastered with egg yolk.
 
By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. – Ed.