Seoul-Beijing ties may get friendlier under Xi

Throughout the year, concern has risen over how current political changes will affect Northeast Asia, stirring the threat of new uncertainty in the region. With elections underway in Seoul and Washington and a new North Korean regime, such concerns are well-founded.

Add a new element to the mix: A month from now, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will convene its 18th congress and hand power to a new generation of leaders, paving the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to replace Hu Jintao as the country’s paramount leader.

Experts say the current leaders have already settled on future policy directions and that Beijing, facing a host of challenges at home, will seek continuity in foreign affairs. Still, the once-in-a-decade handover may offer Seoul the chance to recalibrate ties with the world’s second-largest economy.

“This leadership transition is because the 10 years are up and it is time to find new guys to play the roles,” John Delury, assistant professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University said. “It is not a referendum on policy. Continuity is the default.

“But there could be a window of opportunity for the new leaders of South Korea and China to nip some issues in the bud that have been dragging the relationship down.”

Watchers say the congress, beginning Nov. 8, will seek to bring order to Chinese politics ㅡ rocked by a corruption and murder scandal surrounding former politician Bo Xilai ㅡ and institutionalize mechanisms to transfer power. Expected to last a week, the tightly-scripted event will retire many of the party’s senior figures and usher in a “fifth generation” of leaders.

The change comes at a time of intensified regional tension. China and Japan are trading barbs over a disputed archipelago and nuclear North Korea remains enigmatic. While Beijing is Seoul’s biggest trade partner, five years of Washington-focused diplomacy by the Lee Myung-bak government have seen little progress on a host of thorny matters.

Watchers say the transition is notable because it marks the first not set in place by the CCP’s revolutionary generation. The new leaders are said to have greater diversity in their political backgrounds than their predecessors and experienced the hardships of the Cultural Revolution first hand, though it remains to be seen if this will affect policy.

The congress will bring focus to the Politburo Standing Committee, the CCP’s top decision-making body. Watchers say the party will name between seven and nine members to the committee, all but certain to be helmed by Xi and Li Keqiang, who is slated to be the premier.

Other members of the standing committee will comprise of senior figures belonging to one of two major camps within the party: followers of Hu Jintao and those of former President Jiang Zemin.

Status quo on peninsula

The new generation will take power at a time of uncertainty: not only will the party have to deal with a tarnished image but also problems from public concerns over corruption to an increasing wealth divide, as well as economic slowdown and an aging population.

The Bo scandal may continue to reverberate as well because observers said it revealed deep divisions within the CCP, as the politician is said to have a following among left-leaning members.

But foreign policy, especially toward the Korean Peninsula, is another matter.

“The fourth generation’s policy, especially on North Korea, has been stability and peace across the peninsula. This is directly connected to its top priority of economic development,” said Kim Han-kwon, a China expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “Since there has been no game-changing event, this will be continued into the new generation.”

Kim said that the groundwork for the policy was laid by Deng Xiaoping, who prioritized economic development and reform. Jiang followed this initiative. In 2009, after North Korea put the region on edge with its second nuclear test, Hu embraced the stability principle by throwing Beijing’s full support behind Pyongyang, seeking to stem off instability on its borders.

“China will continue to promote economic reform in North Korea and ensure there is stability,” said Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It is likely to be more reactive than proactive.”

Analysts are also watching to see when Hu will hand the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to Xi, a move that would complete the transfer. Jiang temporarily held the position after Hu became president. Until then, the new leaders will be “very careful and accept the influence of their predecessors,” making policy shifts highly unlikely, Kim said.

Improved ties?

The greater variable in bilateral ties may be the outcome of elections here. Analysts say regardless of who wins, the next Seoul administration is likely to seek greater engagement with China.

“The liberal candidates want China’s help with the North but also want to reverse Lee’s heavy reliance on Washington,” Yoo Ho-yeol, an international relations expert at Korea University said. “Park Geun-hye (a conservative) will keep the strong ties with the U.S., but may seek to balance it.”

The winner of the election, whether it is Park, Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party or liberal independent Ahn Cheol-soo, will face several nagging issues with Beijing. The two sides have disagreed over how Beijing should handle North Korean defectors as well as South Korean detainees and the delimitation of maritime boundaries, leading to clashes over fishing protocols.

The sides also sharply diverged over how to handle North Korea, with China protecting Pyongyang from international censure over its two deadly provocations in 2010 while Lee advocated a tough line.

Though little is known of Xi, he is said to be more approachable than Hu. Delury said this could create an opportunity for a warmer top-level relationship.

“Xi is warmer, connects more and that could have an impact,” he said. “There will always be some problems. When the leaders get along, it allows the whole chain of command to work more actively to resolve disputes where possible, because there is this political capital. It can help.”

One looming question, analysts say, is how the new leaders will handle the bolstered presence of the United States in the region, which Washington hopes will shape China’s rise as an economic and military power.

While some speculate the fifth generation may be realists who might not want to compete with U.S. power, they also note that the leaders will face rising nationalistic demands.

“The fifth generation has to strike a balance between the reality of international society and its internal demands,” analyst Kim said, adding domestic politics may force Beijing to criticize South-U.S. security cooperation.

Glaser concluded it was difficult to speculate on how the Beijing administration under Xi will act and that more dialogue was needed. “The U.S. and Korea should try to coordinate with China and develop a more effective strategy to shape Chinese choices,” she said.

Despite a recent two week absence that sent the rumor mill into overdrive, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, 59, is poised to become Communist Party general-secretary Nov. 8 during a party congress to select new leadership. The promotion positions him to replace Hu Jintao as president when the Chinese legislature meets in March.

Xi’s offices ­ which include vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and highest-ranking member of the party secretariat ­ clearly suggest he is the next leader. But despite his rise to the top of the party with some 80 million members, little is known of the man.

Analysts say Xi has a rare combination of being from a powerful family but also having “grassroots” experience. His father was Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary and former vice premier who was purged by Mao Zedong in 1962. The younger Xi was sent to work as a farm laborer in a rural area of Shaanxi Province, researchers say.

As a young government official, Xi sought reassignment to a poor rural area in Hebei Province, where he worked to implement economic reforms, according to reports. The experience would allow him to appeal to party values rooted in peasantry. While serving in the countryside, Xi reportedly implemented a crackdown on crime and strictly enforced the one-child policy.

“He experienced the bottom as well as a high-class lifestyle, so he may have the ability to see China’s society from high to low,” Kim Han-kwon of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies said.

Xi also has some military experience, which sets him apart from his predecessor, having served as an active-duty officer of the People’s Liberation Army in the early 1980s.

His emergence at the 17th party congress as the leader of the fifth generation of party leaders came as a surprise to some observers, who thought other senior figures might take the helm. Analysts say he may have been a compromise choice between the so-called Shanghai Clique and followers of Hu Jintao.

Little is known of Xi’s policy preferences, but some reports, including those after his recent trip to the United States, paint him as a personable figure. Despite having resurfaced, questions linger about Xi’s disappearance from public that raised questions over his health, though analysts point out that most of Chinese politics takes place out of public view. <The Korea Times/Kim Young-jin>

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