South Korea’s Tepid Response to Hong Kong

Widespread appeals for outside support from protesters in Hong Kong have largely gone unanswered since demonstrations began this spring. While the relative quiet of South Korea’s Moon administration falls within this broader reaction, its unique foundations in large-scale democratic movements make its lack of an enthusiastic response stand out more so than others.

The 2016-2017 Candlelight Revolution in South Korea, which culminated in the impeachment of conservative president Park Geun-hye, played a key role in Moon Jae-in’s election. After months of protests against corruption in the Park government, Moon’s platform of reform under a progressive banner resonated with a disgruntled populace looking for sweeping change. Moon in turn openly embraced the movement, hoping to sustain its momentum early into his time in office through efforts such as a proposal – though it failed due to security concerns – to move his office from the Blue House closer to the center of the protests in Gwanghwamun.

Moon’s own political origins and that of this party can also be traced further back to South Korea’s democratic uprisings in the 1980s. The 1980 student-led protest in Gwangju, brutally suppressed by the newly self-imposed military leader Chun Doo-hwan, catalyzed the democratic movement in South Korea, which Moon and many in his administration played a key role in advancing. Chun’s failed promise of direct elections upon declaring confidant Roh Tae-woo the next president triggered mass protests in June 1987, resulting in Chun’s resignation and elections later that year.

The parallels between South Korean history and what protesters in Hong Kong are hoping to secure for their future have not gone unnoticed. In October, Joshua Wong, a prominent leader in the Hong Kong protests, posted a photo of police suppressing demonstrators in Hong Kong alongside a similar photo taken during the Gwangju uprising in 1980. Protestors have additionally adopted South Korean protest songs and found inspiration in the recent film “1987: When the Day Comes,” depicting the June 1987 South Korean democracy protests.

Some South Korean civil society groups and even the opposition Bareunmirae Party in the National Assembly have expressed their support for the protestors, but no endorsement has come at the official government level. Seoul is certainly not an outlier in this regard, as business and world leaders alike are foremost concerned with the financial hit they could take from getting on Beijing’s bad side. However, in the context of the country’s democratic trajectory and the Moon government’s corresponding involvement, the tepid response is suggestive of the extent of the China-related geopolitical structural constraints facing Seoul.

The last time Seoul ruffled feathers in Beijing it likely cost the economy upward of $10 billion in retaliation over the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system starting in 2016. Concerned with the system’s ability to see into its territory through X-band radar, despite claims to the contrary from Washington and Seoul, Beijing curtailed Chinese tourism to South Korea, certain cultural content, and went after Lotte, the company that provided the land for THAAD. Lotte’s experience has proven to be a particularly foreboding warning to other South Korean companies as it has been forced to close its chain of lucrative convenience stores in China.

The Moon administration has since been cautious to avoid similarly arousing Beijing’s ire. Perhaps the most notable example of this is when the Trump administration was asking allies to not include Huawei components in building their 5G infrastructure earlier this year, citing security concerns. With LG U Plus – one of the country’s three leading mobile carriers – looking to utilize Huawei parts in its nascent 5G network, the government stated its position was to let carriers decide for themselves. LG U Plus has further developed ties with Chinese companies, creating a strategic partnership with China Telecom.

Unlike on 5G and other areas where Washington is looking to push back against Beijing, the White House has taken a more restrained approach on Hong Kong. Trump has vacillated from claiming the U.S. would not get involved in early August to only a few weeks later expressing concern that violence in Hong Kong could make a deal to end the ongoing trade war more difficult. While this has not added to Washington’s pressure on Seoul that could create more friction with Beijing, outside of the context of the alliance, South Korea still faces its own limitations in the form of economic dependence on China.

With exports constituting over 40 percent of South Korean GDP and China representing nearly 27 percent of total exports last year, the South Korean economy is at least in part structurally dependent on the Chinese economy. Even though this dependence seems to be weakening due to the U.S.-China trade war – export numbers through July show that China as a destination has dropped to 24 percent of exports – it seems unlikely that a major structural move away from the Chinese economy will happen in the short-term.

Although the Hong Kong government has withdrawn the extradition bill that sparked the protests from consideration, the demonstrations, at least initially, don’t seem as if they will subside. The South Korean government will almost certainly continue to closely monitor the situation, but will likely just as surely be cautious before taking a more involved position on the protests.