After Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, South Korean President Moon Jae-in became the second major guest Biden received at the White House after his election. Moon’s five-day U.S. visit officially kicks off the schedule from the 20th, with a visit to the White House on May 21. The White House said in a previous announcement that the meeting with President Biden highlighted the “unwavering alliance” between South Korea and the United States. The two leaders will reaffirm the solidity of their alliance and look forward to expanding comprehensive and mutually beneficial cooperation based on the friendship between the two countries, the South Korean side said.
The two sides are meeting face-to-face for the first time after two phone calls and a video meeting at the leaders’ climate summit after Biden’s election. It is reported that the ROK and US heads will seek cooperative solutions on fighting the new crown epidemic. In particular, whether the two sides can form a consensus on establishing a vaccine partnership has raised concerns. It is expected that the issue of ensuring vaccine supply through vaccine swap agreement and building a global vaccine production hub will be discussed. The two sides are also likely to discuss proposals to deepen cooperation in new industrial fields such as semiconductors and batteries, and thus expand their economic alliance. In addition, the Korean Peninsula will naturally be the main topic of the talks. The two leaders will also meet with reporters after the meeting to introduce the results of the talks.
The fact that Biden invited the leaders of two important allies in East Asia to the White House after he came to power shows the importance of the Asia-Pacific region in the U.S. strategic layout, with China following in his footsteps.
How do you view this high-level South Korea-U.S. meeting? What is the significance of the South Korean president’s trip in the context of the escalating confrontation with China? Will the talks lead to surprising decisions? In this program, Antoine Bondaz, a French expert on North Korea and the Asia-Pacific and a researcher at the French Foundation for Strategic Studies, gives his analysis.
A. Bondaz: President Moon Jae-in’s visit to the U.S. is not a surprise in itself; it is only natural that a U.S. ally would want to maintain contact with the U.S. president at the highest level. One could say that there is a so-called “competition” between the leaders of Japan and South Korea over who will be the first to meet with the U.S. president. It is logical that the Japanese prime minister would go to Washington first to meet with Biden, since the U.S. has priority over South Korea in terms of cooperation with Japan in both trade and military fields.
But it is worth emphasizing that the fact that the South Korean president went to Washington before the European president or prime minister (PM) also shows an important point, which is that for the US, Asian partners occupy a very important place in the current US strategic deployment. In addition, after Biden came to power, the U.S. has already been working very closely with South Korea on this presidential-level summit, including a visit by Secretary of State Blinken to Japan and South Korea, a meeting of U.S., Japanese and South Korean security advisors in Washington in early April, and other very high-level close contacts ……
RFK: China is South Korea’s top trading partner and the U.S. is an important security guarantor for South Korea, was it a difficult decision for the South Korean president to choose to go to Washington in the face of China in the current context of U.S.-China tensions?
A. Bondaz: Yes, it was a dilemma that South Korea had faced in the past: economic dependence on China and security dependence on the United States. South Korea has long actually wanted China to play an important role in the Korean peninsula, especially on issues like inter-Korean relations, peace agreements, etc. For 20 years, Seoul has been careful not to move closer to the U.S. when it comes to criticism of China, and just recently, South Korea did not sign an open letter against China’s criticism of human rights issues like Xinjiang, but Japan did; South Korea did not ban Huawei from its own 5G construction facilities …… South Korea is actually reluctant to offend China, hoping that China will play an active role in the Korean Peninsula issue, but I think there have still been some subtle changes in recent years, or in recent months: first of all, in terms of Korean public opinion, a recent Pew Research Center survey shows that South Koreans who do not have a favorable opinion of China The percentage is 75%, especially among young people, which is a major feature of South Korea, and the number of young people in South Korea who hold a negative view of China is quite high compared to the United States or Europe, and this is something that certainly has political consequences and puts political pressure on those in power; the second point is that since there are currently no negotiations between the two Koreas, the role of China has diminished accordingly compared to 2018, when we remember that there was high-level meetings between the two Koreas, and five summits between China and South Korea. The third point is that there is also increasing pressure from the United States, not to have South Korea join the “four-nation dialogue” mechanism of the United States, Japan, India and Australia, but to have South Korea cooperate in some way.
As an expert on North Korea, what do you think will be the key points to note in this meeting?
A. Bondaz: What is worth noting is the place of China in the joint statement, if it is issued by both sides, and how China is mentioned in this announcement. South Korea is more awkward on the issue of mentioning China openly and openly with the United States, so the way he pengdasi will use to mention China will be a point of interest. On the North Korea issue, I don’t think there will be a big surprise, Moon hopes that the new crown vaccine can be moved to North Korea in a safe way, and it would be interesting if this issue is mentioned in the announcement, but as it is, North Korea will also get the vaccine in the framework of the international vaccine implementation program.
Beyond that, the thing to watch is whether the talks will be restarted in the next few weeks, and it is clear that there can be no agreement on the denuclearization of the peninsula right now, but that does not stop that there will be some small push to restart the talks. There is currently no cooperation between the two Koreas, there is no cooperation between the U.S. and North Korea, North Korea’s cooperation with the international community is at a minimum, and all the NGOs have pulled out of North Korea because of the epidemic.
Thank you very much to Mr. Antoine Bondaz for the exclusive interview with RFE.
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