Photo source: Reuters By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront When South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, was sworn into office in 2022, the chances for a bilateral relationship with China had gotten low. After all, Yoon in his campaigns talked tough about China. The conservative South Korean politicians typically have wanted to deepen the US alliance and are suspicious of Chinese support for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea). Yoon and his government, to some extent, have also taken a harder stance on China for a while. For example, Yoon became the first South Korean leader to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit, during which he criticised not only Russia but China as well. In April 2023, before his state visit to Washington for a summit at the White House with President Joe Biden, Yoon inveighed any ‘attempt to change the status quo by force’ in the Taiwan Strait. He further assured that South Korea would cooperate with the inte