The real lessons South Korea should learn from an EV fire

There is rising alarm in Seoul over industrial groups losing their technological edge.

- Christian Davies

Senior Korean officials are traditionally reluctant to say anything that could be construed in Beijing as antagonistic or confrontational. So it came as a surprise to some when South Korean Finance Minister Choi San-mok told the Financial Times in 2024 that his country's economic relationship with China had transformed over the past decade from one of mutual benefit into a "rivalry".

Mr Choi's bluntness reflects a growing sense of alarm in Seoul that South Korea's leading industrial groups are losing or have already lost their technological edge over emerging Chinese rivals, and that the public remains complacent about the scale of the challenge and its consequences.

For about two decades after South Korea and China first established diplomatic relations in 1992, Korean companies were able to ride China's technology boom by offering Chinese tech companies more sophisticated components and products than they were able to produce themselves.