Korea's spate of gold medals, which started on the day after the opening ceremony, stopped on Aug. 14. Korean woman archers, who captured first, second and third place in preliminaries, were beaten by their Chinese counterparts in quarter- and semi-finals and finals. A considerable number of the Korean public wished to attribute the defeats to Chinese spectators' whistling and jeering while our archers stretched the bowstring. Local Netizens vented their anger in the homepages of Chinese residents here appearing on our TV programs.

Table tennis player Dang Ye-seo, a Chinese woman naturalized in Korea, won bronze in the table tennis group matches. The Singaporean team captured a silver medal, and teams of the U.S., Australia, Austria and the Netherlands all contained ethnic Chinese athletes who were naturalized. But Dang alone was denounced as a “traitor" by the Chinese.

Of course we were indignant. But hostility runs two ways, and sometimes we gave them cause. When a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan in May, some thoughtless Korean Netizens commented China was punished for suppressing Tibetan independence. That online comment is said to have fanned China's hatred of Korea. Just prior to the opening of the Olympics, a Korean broadcaster committed the discourtesy of showing part of the opening ceremony rehearsals in advance. The Chinese people, who reportedly dreamed of hosting Olympics for 100 years, were enraged, saying Korea was trying to ruin their big moment.

The three Northeast Asian countries -- Korea, China and Japan -- have achieved miraculous economic development at more or less a 20-year interval. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics registered their respective success in the international arena. If it were possible to integrate the energy of the three countries, Northeast Asia would be the promised land, an engine for the prosperity of the entire world.

But distrust of Japan in Korea and China is too deep to heal in a short time. New hatred is sprouting and growing between Korea and China. Koreans feel China is behaving arrogantly. The Chinese grumble that Korea boasts of having achieved economic growth ahead of them. Both indulge in a sense of victimhood and each holds the other in contempt. A kind of negative Korea-China-Japan axis based on narrow-minded nationalism may take roots in place of the Korea, the U.S. and Japan tripartite cooperative alliance.

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Seoul the day after the closure of the Beijing Olympics and President Lee Myung-bak welcomed him in a manner comparable to the reception he extended to the American president. The two leaders confirmed their "strategic cooperative partnership" and adopted a joint statement containing 34 ways of achieving it. But before their grand rhetoric, the two heads of state should look to the roots of the uncomfortable feelings between the two peoples revealed at the Olympics. The two countries have no reason to hate each other if China, after hiding its strength and biding its time, is to peacefully stand upright on the international stage, and Korea, forever the developing country, is to cross the threshold to becoming an advanced nation.