This episode discusses the potential for improvement of relations between South Korea and China after the election of President Moon Jae-in. As President Moon begins his term, Beijing and Seoul will need to find ways to manage their differences over THAAD in order to continue to work together on North Korea and keep relations moving in a positive direction. Professor Delury traces the recent history of China-South Korea ties and analyzes the stresses and challenges of the South Korea-China relationship under Park Geun-hye. The episode also considers how relations might be reset under new leadership but also highlights how certain controversies may persist in the long-term.
John Delury is a senior fellow of the Center on U.S.-China Relations and Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University. He has previously taught Chinese history and politics at Columbia, Brown, and Peking University, and received a PhD in Chinese history at Yale. Professor Delury is an accomplished historian of modern China and expert on North Korean affairs. He is the author, with Orville Schell, of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century (2013).