South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae-in, on May 9th, after months of build-up and amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The new President faces a complex balancing act: on the campaign trail, he promised to expand inter-Korean relations, pledging to sign a peace treaty with the North and reopening shuttered economic cooperation projects – all plans that may clash with the more hardline administration of Donald Trump.

But Moon also faces pressure from China. South Korea has moderately friendly, if sometimes tense, ties with Beijing: not least because of the sheer volume of trade between the