The South Korean right has traditionally been more hawkish on neighboring dictatorships North Korea, China and Russia. Although North Korea, of course, is the primary challenge of South Korean foreign policy, China is now a close second.
When Joe Biden met South Korea’s new leader, Yoon Suk-yeol, last week, the U.S. president almost certainly pushed the new conservative president to take a tougher line on Beijing. South Korea has generally demurred from tough language on China.
But this is becoming untenable as China’s regional behavior under its current president, Xi Jinping, gets more belligerent and as the country has charted an increasingly bullying course over the last decade.
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