Cho Tae-yul, foreign minister nominee, addresses the media in front of his office building in central Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap

Speaking to journalists soon after being nominated as the next foreign minister, Wednesday, Cho Tae-yul made clear what his priority would be: improving South Korea-China relations, which he said "are as important as" the Korea-U.S. alliance.

The former Korean ambassador to the U.N. then added that the new Cold War climate, accelerated by Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the intensifying Washington-Beijing competition, is “not good for South Korea's diplomacy” and expressed his intention to seek a “harmonious” balancing act between the two superpowers.

That will be a vexing challenge, according to experts contacted by The Korea Times, Thursday. Asked whether there would be any meaningful shift in the country's relationship with China under him, they expressed skepticism.

They said it will likely remain practically the same as long as South Korea's “values-based diplomacy” remains in place because one of Beijing's unswerving diplomatic goals is to substitute those values with its own.

Since President Yoon Suk Yeol was inaugurated in May 2022, South Korea's relationship with China has gone from bad to worse. The very same month, China vetoed a U.S.-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea over missile launches in its first attempt to block a united council response to the regime's provocations since 2006.

More recently, the Chinese government approved the forcible deportations of hundreds of North Korean escapees on Oct. 9, just two weeks after Prime Minister Han Duck-soo met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing and urged him not to send those detained back over concerns of human rights violations.

The Yoon administration does not deserve the blame for all the problems between the two countries, given that their relations started to deteriorate years before his rise to power. But analysts said it is also true that the administration's diplomatic focus on reinforcing the alliance with the U.S. and following its lead in promoting certain values, such as democracy, has not been helpful in terms of improving ties with China.

“There has been apparent dissatisfaction in Beijing over the diplomatic direction under the current administration, which appears to have abandoned its long-held strategic ambiguity and sided with the U.S.,” said Lee Jae-young, an expert on China at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank. “It is positive news that the foreign minister nominee will do more to improve the country's relations with China. But with its fundamental diplomatic policies and its direction expected to remain unchanged, I think China's response would not be so welcoming.”

Foreign Minister Park Jin shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at the ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Phnom Penh in this Aug. 4, 2022, file photo. Reuters-Yonhap

With Beijing now less cooperative on resolving issues regarding North Korea, the minister nominee said it has become much more difficult to handle the North's increasing nuclear threats. Lee said it is very possible that China will not join any U.N. moves to approve additional sanctions on the North even if it conducts another nuclear weapons test in the near future.

Experts believe China would also be uncomfortable with a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons. But China, unlike South or North Korea, views the issues on the peninsula more as part of its hegemonic rivalry with the U.S. in the region — its challenge to the U.S.-led global order. Lee said the best years for Seoul-Beijing relations may be behind us.

“The good years are gone, and probably have been for a long time, since South Korea allowed the U.S. to set up the THAAD missile defense system. That was an inflection point,” he added.

Chung Jae-heung, a China expert at the Sejong Institute, a think tank, said he is worried that the Yoon administration's seemingly inflexible diplomacy may not be in the best interests of the country.

“I think Busan's recent failure in its bid to host World Expo 2030 has an important message,” Chung said. “Look at how few votes Busan and Rome received. It was less than 50. Look at how many countries have actually been participating in sanctioning Russia over its war. It's about 40. We should think more about what could be lost by making a big bet.”