earticle

영어

This paper aims to study how Korea and China tried to settle the Hijacking case of 1983 China Airplane and identify its impact in establishing diplomatic relations between two countries. Traditionally, China had held on to the friendly position towards North Korea and antagonistic position towards South Korea due to the Cold War, separation of the Korean peninsula, and the Korean War where China supported the North. The two countries had showed political antagonism, no economic cooperation and military confrontation for a few decades. However, the Hijacking case of China Airplane, which took place in May of 1983, marked a significant turning point for changing the hostile relations of the two countries because the countries had direct negotiation for the first time in order to settle the dispute and, ultimately, this led to the diplomatic ties with each other. As a result, Korea and China have improved their relationship in all sectors including economics, trade, sports, etc., escaping from the past antagonistic one. This change also had an impact in the China-North Korea allegiance. China stepped up relationship with South Korea in the principle of separation of economics from politics while it tried to be considerate of North Korea’s position via the so-called explanation diplomacy. So far, the studies on case of China Airplane have made mainly focusing on the change in Korea-China relation or Korea’s diplomatic approaches to China. This paper attempts to make a different analysis from the previous studies. Firstly this study reassesses the Chinese policy towards Korean peninsula since its Openness by a thorough analysis on the process of the negotiations between two countries. Secondly this paper examines the Chinese policy towards South and North Korea following the Hijacking case of China Air plane and the significance has on the diplomatic relation between Korea and China.