OPINION:
To the north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the Korean Peninsula lies a cautionary tale of what a “no-limits” partnership with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks like in practice. Total isolation. Rampant poverty. Horrific human rights abuses.
A no-limits partnership with the CCP means there are no limits to how much they can exploit you. As journalist Barbara Demick’s interview with a defector summed it up: “Dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.” To say that North Korea has been rendered a hermetic tributary state to the Middle Kingdom is an insult to other historical hermetic tributary states.
Over 90% of North Korea’s imports come from China. The export stats are nearly as lopsided. China is not a trading partner— it is a trade dictator to North Korea, whose dependency is so acute that it has no leverage.
North Korea relies on political and economic support from the CCP to shield its nuclear weapons program from the worst effects of international sanctions. There has been evidence People’s Republic of China (PRC)-origin technology has assisted North Korea’s missile program, and North Korea relies on China’s internet infrastructure for its cyber attacks. Many of North Korea’s cyber agents are even located within the PRC.
For 70 years, China has underwritten North Korea militarily, technologically, and economically. And perhaps most egregious of all, the Chinese Communist Party has prevented the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, standing in the way of the deep desire of the Korean people.
In stark contrast, to the south of the DMZ lies a nation who sided with the free world, and the United States, instead of the Chinese Communist Party. Its economy is booming, and its culture is the envy of the world.
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South Korean TV shows top the streaming charts, South Korean music shakes dancefloors from Bangkok to Boston, and South Korean movies win Hollywood’s biggest prizes. Not to mention, one in four smartphones in the world is made by Samsung and much of the world’s trade floats on South Korean-built ships. South Korea’s success is one of the greatest reproofs to the arguments of totalitarian apologists.
That is the choice at hand. Peace and prosperity or utter poverty and the constant threat of war.
The Chinese Communist Party might not be sending soldiers across the Yalu River as they did in 1950, but they, unquestionably, are on the march. Today, CCP aggression comes in the form of economic coercion, propaganda, and political warfare. It comes in the form of elite capture and United Front work. The low-interest loan for a dam or airport today is the seed for tomorrow’s no-limits partnership.
The CCP’s goal is to make it too costly to resist their control. They also seek to use their economic leverage to drive a wedge between the United States and South Korea. But we’re not going to let that happen.
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol understands the dangers of becoming too economically reliant on the Chinese Communist Party — and is taking action to reduce critical dependencies on China while maintaining trade ties. He is continuing to work with the United States to improve the bilateral trade relationship, which will help reduce our mutual dependence on China while boosting our resilience to CCP economic coercion.
In 2022, an aide to President Yoon saw the future and declared, “We need supply chain alliances.” Less than a year later, the “Fab 4” semiconductor alliance, comprised of the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan held its first senior officials meeting on supply chain resilience in Taipei.
President Yoon has also stood up to Beijing’s military demands, refusing to go along with Xi Jinping’s “three no’s”: no deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD), no participation in the U.S. missile defense network, and no trilateral military alliance with the United States and Japan.
South Korea is grappling with the same challenges as the United States and most freedom loving countries: how to maintain non-threatening economic ties with China while ensuring that this commerce does not result in a dependence that risks our national security nor our independence as a nation.
Supply chain alliances should also be a forum to resist economic coercion; ensuring that the United States, South Korea, and others discourage their companies from undermining each other if the PRC chooses to engage in economic retaliation. South Korea itself has been a victim of PRC economic coercion, with the PRC announcing restrictions on PRC tourists going to South Korea and restricting the import of certain South Korean consumer products. Only by standing together can we resist CCP-directed economic coercion.
Above all, South Korea and the United States must stand united to ensure that Xi Jinping does not shatter the stability in the Indo-Pacific that has allowed so many countries like South Korea to prosper over the last seventy years. That means deterring People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aggression in the Taiwan Strait as well as North Korean nuclear brinkmanship. We should expand cooperation across our militaries, supply chains, sanction and export control regimes, and other areas, to generate the maximum deterrent effect.
President Yoon has made it clear how ardently he hopes for a better lot for the people of North Korea, and how ready he is to meet any turn towards disarmament with an outstretched hand of friendship. We in Congress hope that our two countries, together with other allies and partners, can work to strengthen the increasingly fragile supply chain for the most critical export of all: peace.
• U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher serves as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, as Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, and on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District and served for seven years on active duty as a U.S. Marine, including two deployments to Iraq.
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