日時：2024年3月12日（火）15時～16時40分

オンライン（Zoom）

報告言語：英語（質疑は日本語も可）

報告要旨

Anti-China sentiment is on the rise in South Korea. It was particularly potent among younger voters during the 2022 presidential election, taking both leading candidates by surprise. If this trend continues, it has the potential to disrupt the equilibrium partisan divide on foreign policy, which had previously been roughly balanced between anti-Japan left and anti-North Korea right.
If China policy becomes a mobilizing issue for South Korean voters, we might expect such sentiments to tip the balance toward the right, simply expanding on existing threat narratives of communism and North Korea. But upon closer inspection, recent “China threat” rhetoric seems to borrow more from classic anti-Japan repertoires often deployed by the far left, focusing on military-economic bullying, history disputes, and alleged cultural appropriation, rather than the anti-communist, human rights-centric imagery typically directed against North Korea.
Through an analysis of rhetorical framing in political speeches, together with survey data and content analysis of competing activist repertoires deployed in social media, I will discuss the evolving “China threat” discourse in South Korea and its potential influence on the April 2024 General Assembly election.