Dynamics of South Koreans' Perceptions on China: Interactions among regime, region and political ideology

Abstract

This paper has empirically studied how the South Koreans' perceptions on China change according to regime, region, and political ideology. It endeavored to capture the dynamic changes of the perception on China that emerge when the regime, which is an exogenous variable, interacted with region and political ideology, which are endogenous variables. In addition, it attempted to prove that the Koreans' perception on China can be influenced greatly by the attitudes and positions of China over inter-Korean relations as well as the above-stated variables by analyzing the effects of the Cheonan ship sinking and Yeonpyeong Island Shelling incidents in 2010 on perception on China. In spite of the increase of interchange between South Korea and China after the diplomatic relations between Korea and China, conflicting perceptions of opportunities and threats repeatedly appeared between South Korea and China, and this study made an effort to emphasize once again that it is an important task to study 'perception' in discussing the diplomacy towards China for the development of South Korea-China relations. <br/> As research methodology, it set the target of the perception on China as 'the general public,' and set the research period as the past decade from the political period of Roh Moo-hyun to that of Park Geun-hye's. It uses the data from 'Unification Perception Survey (2007~2016)' which consist of survey questionnaires related to coherent perception on China surveyed for 10 years conducted by the Institute for Unification and Peace at Seoul National University. Through multinomial logit analysis methodology, it analyzes Koreans' perception on China objectively. It compares the effects of regime, region, and political ideology that are set as the important variables in Koreans' perception on Korea, and analyzes their interactions. Moreover, it scrutinizes the period effect of the effects of Cheonan ship sinking and Yeonpyeong Island Shelling incidents in 2010 on Koreans' perception on China. <br/> As a result of the study, Koreans' perception on China showed a different aspect by the interactions between regime, which is the exogenous variable, and region and political ideology, which are endogenous variables. Also, it was observed that the significant events affecting South Korea-China relations have a great impact on Koreans' perception on China. <br/> First, it was examined that the stereotypes 'conservative regime – China is a threat' and 'progressive regime – China is a friend' are not always accurate. Koreans' perceptions on China are dynamic due to the changes in policies toward China and the Korea-China relations that change according to the change of regime. Koreans' perception on China showed differing trends between the Lee Myung-bak's political period and that of Park Geun-hye's before the deployment of THAAD, even though the two regimes are both conservative. This can be interpreted as depending on what policies each regime implement on China, and it can also be explained that the regime has an important influence on general public's perception on China. Koreans perceive China as a competition, negation, and cooperation target in turn, and this is a combination of complex elements such as changes in the international environment, China's rise, inter-Korean relations, changes in domestic regime and policies, etc. <br/> Furthermore, region and political ideology, which are endogenous variables in perception on China, appear to interact with regimes that are exogenous variable. There is a difference in Koreans' perception on China according to region and political ideology. Compared to the people in the Yeongnam area, the people in Honam area were confirmed to perceive China more favorably. Looking at ideological differences, the progressive group perceived China more favorably than the conservative group, but the regression analysis revealed that these differences were not statistically significant. It was confirmed that the influence of regime is more influential than political ideology in Koreans' perception on China. Also, it was appeared that the regime interacts with region and political ideology. In particular, the people in Youngnam region and the conservative group did not maintain consistency in perception on China but were able to change dynamically according to the regime. They are influenced by the policy direction and changes of South Korea-China relations of their supporting regimes of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, which have a tendency for conservatism, and the perception on China also changes at that time according to the codes. Furthermore, in perception on China, there is no interaction between the regime and political ideology, and the progressive group in Honam and conservative group in Youngnam had little difference in the perception on China. The difference of the perception on China based on region and political ideology can be attributed to the imbalance of development in South Korea due to historical, political, and economic factors, as well as the root of ideological formation such as "pro-US, anti-North" and "anti-US, pro-North." Likewise, it is deduced that the perception on China changes according to the policies of the party and government that one supports as well as the situation of the South Korea-China relationship. <br/> Lastly, it was confirmed that period effect is abserved in South Koreans' perception on China and it does not only due to regime, region, and political ideology, but also when major events incur related to North Korea issues, such as the Cheonan Ship sinking and Yeonpyeong Island Shelling incident. The period effect was found to affect the perception on China for most of South Koreans regardless of the differences of region or political ideology. The reason why the two incidents affected the perception on China is due to the difference in the North Korea policy that the two countries took. South Koreans expected that China would take a neutral stance when these incidents occurred, but China took a different approach to South Korea than their expectation, which made South Koreans change their existing perception on China. <br/> Taken together, regime, region, and political ideology interact with each other and influence Koreans' perception on China. Koreans' perception on China is not consistently coherent, and it can be seen that it depends on the different government's policies on China and the bilateral relations. In addition, by confirming that China's attitude toward the Cheonan ship sinking and Yeonpyeong Island Shelling incidents in 2010 had a great impact on the Koreans' perception on China in this period, the events and incidents related to North Korea and China's position on them in particular have shown that they have an enormous impact on the South Koreans' perception on China beyond the regime, region, and political ideology analyzed above. This phenomenon shows that South Korea-China relations have not yet established a stable cooperative relationship, that Koreans do not have a firm trust on China, and that there is a great uncertainty in South Koreans' perception on China. <br/> <br/> Keywords: Perception on China, South Korean, Regime, Region, Political ideology, Period effect <br/>