Hyeon Geuntaek: "The Cause of Deterioration in Korea-China Relations is the Yoon Administration... China Has Not Changed"

Amid controversy over Chinese Ambassador to Korea Xing Haiming criticizing the South Korean government's diplomacy for 15 minutes at a dinner hosted by Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 8th, Hyun Geun-taek, deputy director of the Democratic Research Institute, raised his voice, saying, "The cause of the deterioration in Korea-China relations is the Yoon Seok-yeol administration."

On the 12th, Deputy Director Hyun said on CBS's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' "China has not changed. China has remained the same. But now the Yoon administration keeps mentioning the Taiwan issue and the South China Sea, moving towards Japan and the United States," he said.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

He added, "In fact, China has not changed or taken any particular measures. If that were the case, it would be natural to talk about it. The current policy is wrong. I think it is problematic for the Chinese ambassador to talk about it, but the opposition party leader can certainly speak out. Why can't he?"

Deputy Director Hyun pointed out, "It seems the ruling party is trying to blame all issues with China on Representative Lee. The first cause of the problems with China was President Yoon Seok-yeol's continuous mention of the South China Sea issue, especially the Taiwan issue," adding, "China strongly opposed that. They even said things like 'burn to death'."

He continued, "Regarding the Taiwan issue, there had been no comments until now. Not commenting on the South China Sea issue was, in a way, a diplomatic convention for about 30 years, but that was broken and the issue started to be mentioned," adding, "Then China reacted strongly, and that caused the deterioration in Korea-China relations."

Kim Byung-min, Supreme Council Member of the People Power Party, said, "As you just mentioned, when the Democratic Party approached, Ambassador Xing Haiming said at the very place where Representative Lee was seated that the responsibility for the deterioration of Korea-China relations lies not with China but with South Korea," adding, "Looking back, economic retaliations such as the ban on Korean culture starting from the THAAD retaliation in 2016 have been ongoing, but the Democratic Party has not even mentioned this. So, isn't the Democratic Party just setting the stage and supporting China's claims?"

He added, "Since such remarks were made publicly at the meeting with Representative Lee, even if the Democratic Party has something to say, I think there needs to be a time when our South Korean government and nation raise their voices together against China's rude behavior towards South Korea."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.