Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1992, Korea and China have developed “strategic relationship” supported by close economic cooperation and people-to-people exchange despite their opposing political regime. Trade between the two countries has grown to about 301.5 billion dollars in 2021 from nearly 6.4 billion dollars in 1992, a 47-time increase. In addition, the number of visitors reached all-time high in 2016, standing at about 12.84 million. Going beyond the political cooperation through regular high-level meetings, the bilateral exchange and cooperation have been exponentially increased and expanded to society, culture and other areas. However, despite a significant increase in exchange and cooperation, Korea’s negative views of China have become so severe that ‘anti-China sentiment’ is now considered a social issue. A survey by Pew Research Center found that favorability of China in Korea decreased by 44.0%p, from 66.0% in 2002 to 22.0% in 2021. Korean experts in Korea-China relations are expressing great concerns about how the bilateral relationship will be changed in the future. Most dominant opinion is that the bilateral relationship has already become vulnerable before it achieves qualitative growth and internal stability due to external changes, such as US-China power competition and North Korea’s nuclear testing.

The problem lies in the significant disparity between reality and people's views of the Korea-China relationship, which remains substantial despite the presence of negative opinions. Surprisingly, according to a study, it turned out that there was no correlation between the Korea-China relationship

index and favorable views of China in Korea. The Korea-China peace index based on GDELT has not shown any significant change since 1992. Moreover, Furthermore, the data displayed that Korea's peace index towards China was higher than China's peace index towards Korea. Recognizing these problems, this study aims to analyze Koreans’ views of China from the two perspectives: expectations and anti-China sentiment. Major analysis results are as follows: First, Koreans’ favorability of China is moving downward in general despite recurrent rises and falls. According to a survey by

Pew Research Center, there were big falls in favorability of 28%p and 39%p from 2002 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2021, respectively. As of 2020, Koreans’ favorability of China was much lower than that of America and even lower than that of Russia.

Second, Koreans have started to recognize China as a country that they need to be wary of, not to compete with. A study by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies of Seoul National University showed that the rate of respondents who answered that China is a country to compete with decreased from 46.4% in 2007 to 23.0% in 2021, while the rate of respondents who consider China as a country to be wary of increased from 31.0% to 51.8% in the same period. Notably, the only country among four world powers that Koreans see as a cooperative partner was the United State.

Third, Koreans expected China to serve as a mediator in dealing with North Korean nuclear issue and furthermore in achieving reunification of the Korean peninsula. However, this expectation failed and even turned negative after a series of events occurred since 2010. Most critical events attributed to a fall in favorability were the Cheonan Sinking and the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong. China’s North Korea-leaning response to these events proved that Koreans’ expectations that its leadership in the six-party talks will be exercised in the real world were just a “wishful thinking.” A decrease in favorability from 61.0% in 2015 to 22.0% in 2021 was mainly attributed to the deployment of THAAD defense system, but other issues, such as illegal fishing and physical violence of Chinese fishing vessels, declaration of the CADIZ overlapping with Ieodo Island, entering KADIZ without notice and maritime conflicts, also had a negative impact.

Fourth, Korea’s opinion about political regime, including a development model issue, and economic development is quite conflicting. The impact of an economic issue between the two countries on Korea’s negative views of China was negligible before China imposed economic retaliation on Korea in respond to its THAAD deployment. However, Korea has shown a highly negative sentiment toward China’s dictatorial government and development model. Koreans do not trust Chinese leadership and think that China’s development model, so called “Beijing Consensus,” is not well matched with Korea. Also, there are prevailing concerns in Korea about China’s human rights policies in Hongkong’s democracy movement and human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang. Koreans have high expectations on China’s economic development while having very negative opinions about its environmental policies. They, in particular, have a great interest in global warming and fine dust issue. In this situation, the outbreak of COVID-19 gave a fatal blow to the worsening favorability of China in Korea. However, it was showed that Koreans still have great expectations on the emergence of China. More than half Koreans answered that they think China will be a superpower of the world, even stronger than the United States.

Fifth, strong nationalism of the two countries and Chinese cultural renaissance policies made their historical homogeneity a factor of conflict, not a catalyst of cooperation. China’s Northeast Project carried out in 2003 and 2006 was a representative historical conflict between Korea and China which is assessed to be the “first turning point” of the bilateral relationship. As a result, the favorability of China plummeted to 41.0% in 2009. This issue was settled with verbal consent between leaders of the two countries but cultural identity, devolvement and global culture standard issues repeatedly occurring every year keep reminding of the past.

Last, most of bilateral conflicts between Korea and China remain unsolved. More concerning is that these pending issues possibly reoccur or become a bigger new conflict combined with China’s emergence and consequential power competition with the United States in the future. We have witnessed that over the past 30 years, similar issues have been repeatedly making the negative views of China in Korea deteriorated. Expectations Koreans once had in 1992 disappeared and negative views escalated into a social issue, “anti-China sentiment.” The prevalence of this sentiment will hamper the development of the bilateral relationship and the Korean government might lose its diplomatic policy capacity to deal with China. To address this problem, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) needs to adjust its diplomatic strategy and the direction of its six-city diplomacy agenda. This adjustment should consider both 'what Koreans want' (expectations) and 'what they do not want' (anti-China sentiment). The SMG should prioritize between 'strengthening cooperation' and 'addressing the problem' through agenda-specific diplomatic strategies.