ROK should work to improve ties with China

The Russia-Ukraine conflict, apart from creating more challenges for the world, seems to have signaled the end of the unipolar global order centered on the United States and the emergence of a new international order marked by intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, which prompts strengthening of security and economic cooperation between China and Russia.

The US subprime crisis that caused the 2008 global financial crisis, the Chinese economy overtaking the Japanese economy in 2010, the Crimea incident in 2014, the US launching a trade war against China, and Russia's warning to NATO in 2018 to stop expanding eastward, and the refusal of NATO to do so, leading to the Ukraine crisis are some of the important developments that point to the gradual decline of the US-led West.

NATO's continued eastward expansion and the US' efforts to build a trilateral alliance with Japan and the Republic of Korea reflect the geopolitical changes. Western countries insist on maintaining the West-centric liberal world order based on the international rules set by the US-led West. But many countries, especially the emerging market and developing countries, want to reform the West-led world order, not least because of the tendency of the US to use its self-set rules to interfere in the internal affairs of, and use the dollar as a weapon against, other countries.