Avoiding Being a Crushed Prawn and Becoming a Dolphin Swimming between the Two Fighting Whales? South Korea’s Strategic Choice in the Face of the Intensifying Sino–US Competition

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of South Korea’s strategic choices over the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in light of the Sino–US competition in post-Cold War East Asia. South Korea’s puzzling behavior here represents Seoul’s hedging strategy against the uncertain future of the Sino–US competition in East Asia. The driving force of South Korea’s hedging behavior is Seoul’s dual concerns about being excessively dependent on the USA for its security at the time of China’s rapid rise on the one hand and being pulled into a growing China’s sphere of influence at the expense of traditional US–ROK security ties on the other. Reflecting Seoul’s prudent balancing acts between the two superpowers, South Korea’s hedging often results in apparently indecisive and underdetermined strategic choices in the face of the intensifying Sino–US competition. Nevertheless, South Korea’s hedging strategy allows Seoul to deepen extensive economic ties with Beijing while maintaining a traditional security alliance with Washington. The hedging behavior of South Korea, which is uniquely positioned as a strategic partner of rapidly rising China as well as a key security ally of the rebalancing USA, sheds important light on the behavior of middle powers in alliance politics, which has largely been neglected in the current literature.