Gangwon Province, Pocheon City Cancel Chinatown Projects

South Koreans’ anti-China sentiment is peaking. Gangwon Province and Pocheon City recently canceled their Chinatown construction projects amid extremely strong objections. These days, more and more South Koreans are showing negative reactions to everything related to China and the examples include food imported from China, Chinese capital-based TV dramas and games, and so on.

The sentiment came to the surface in August 2016, when the U.S. THAAD system was decided to be placed in South Korea. In response, the Chinese government banned travel to South Korea along with K-pop singers' concerts and TV appearance in China. Shamelessly, the Chinese government denied the implementation of the ban itself while devastating South Korean game companies, travel agencies, retail stores, etc.

China’s prolonged and extensive history distortion has added to the sentiment along with the outbreak of COVID-19. China is where the pandemic originated, and yet it has acted as if it were a victim. Complaints and discontent have simmered on enterprises’ part, too. This is because the Chinese government is extremely overbearing. For example, Lotte Group, which offered the THAAD site, became a target of its retaliation and had to withdraw from China after an investment of more than 10 trillion won from 1994 to 2016.


Nowadays, the anti-China sentiment in South Korea is taking the form of boycott campaigns targeting domestic companies doing business with China. The companies are in a dilemma in that China is the largest market in the world. The campaigns are affecting the content industry, where Tencent is the third-largest shareholder in Netmarble and second-largest in Krafton. It has invested in YG and many other entertainment companies as well.

South Korean kimchi manufacturers, including CJ CheilJedang, Pulmuone and Daesang, are being affected, too. This is because they have used the word of paocai instead of kimchi in marketing their products in China, where the latter cannot be registered as a trademark at all.

In addition, an increasing number of South Korean companies already doing business in China are undergoing a decrease in sales with Chinese companies catching up with them and Chinese consumers shunning them.

One typical example is Hyundai Motor Group. It sold 664,744 cars in China in 2020, the lowest figure since 2009. The group’s annual production volume was 5,338,048 last year, down 13.3 percent from a year earlier. This is mainly because of its difficulties in the Chinese market.

The group used to be one of the top three in the market with Volkswagen and GM. However, things began to get worse in 2016, when the THAAD retaliation was initiated and Chinese automakers boosted their product quality. Although the group is striving to regain its market share, it is showing no signs of rebounding at all.

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