China welcomes President Park as an `old friend`

Chinese media Thursday called visiting South Korean President Park Geun-hye a "lao pengyou (old friend)." They did not use that expression for former South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Roh Moo-hyun who also visited China.

○ Old friend to China

It was Chinese President Xi Jinping who first called the South Korean president an old friend. When he had a telephone conversation with Park in March, he called her "an old friend of the Chinese people`s and mine." The two leaders first met in Seoul in 2005. Hua Chunying, China`s foreign ministry spokesperson, also recently called Park "an old friend of the Chinese people." It seems that "lao pengyou" has become Park`s unofficial nickname in China.

China`s reference to foreign guests as "lao pengyou" carries a special meaning. Chinese weekly magazine Nanfang Zhoumo analyzed the Renmin Ribao, the organ of the Communist Party of China, published between 1949 and 2010 and found that the state daily called 601 people from 123 countries "lao pengyou."

China used "lao pengyou" for significant figures whom it needed to maintain strategic bonds with as well as those who had close relationships with its leaders. Chinese newspaper Shinjingbao reported Thursday that Zhang Xinsen, the Chinese ambassador to South Korea, called Park a "lao pengyou" of the Chinese people when he paid a courtesy call on her in December soon after she won the presidential election.

○ Reasons for `Park Wind` in China

So where is the Park wind in China blowing from? Experts attribute it to Chinese people`s interest in her life, in which she overcame hardships and became president, and her emphasis of Seoul-Beijing friendship during her various visits to China where she built connections with Chinese leaders.

When Park visited China and met with the then Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2005, she left a strong impression by saying Chinese greetings articulately. Back then, former Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan showed goodwill, saying that he felt Park was a politician that China needed to keep paying attention to. When , head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, received a Korean traditional food platter from Park, he said, "It is really beautiful. I think of you whenever I see it." When Park visited China in November 2006, Wang expressed hope that she would become president of South Korea.

Park also impressed many Chinese people by stressing "partnership" and a "sense of kinship" with China whenever she visited China. During a lecture at the Beijing University in 2005, she said that there were so many Chinese restaurants in South Korea and many Korean pop stars grew up eating Chinese food. She stressed that young people of the two countries should open a new future on the basis of such cultural kinship and bonds. She opened and closed her lecture in Chinese.

Some analysts say that Park owes much of the Chinese people`s high interest in her to Park Chung-hee, her later father and former South Korean president who orchestrated Seoul`s rapid industrialization.