Trade Tensions And Spying Scandal Loom Over South Korean President's White House Visit
South Korean President Yoon Sok Yul received the red carpet this week as Washington and Seoul celebrated the 70th anniversary of their alliance. Yoon's weeklong trip includes a high-level summit with President Biden, a lavish state banquet honoring America's closest ally, and a joint address to Congress.
But behind all the pomp and ceremony, a thorny issue is at stake: South Korean companies worry about how they will be affected by Biden's efforts to boost US manufacturing and stem the growth of China's high-tech sector. And earlier this year, leaked classified Pentagon documents revealed details of US spying in South Korea, embarrassing both countries and giving Yun a political headache.
Both countries hope to counter North Korea's missile tests. On Wednesday, the two leaders unveiled a new deal promoting enhanced deterrence, the idea that the United States would use all of its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend its allies in response to increasing threats from North Korea.
Dubbed the Washington Declaration, the deal will give South Korea more insight and influence over US military planning and promote training between the two countries in exchange for Seoul's commitment not to produce its own nuclear weapons. The United States will also send a ballistic missile submarine on a routine visit to South Korea for the first time since the 1980s, as a visual demonstration of America's military power.
Biden called the alliance "tough" and issued an urgent warning to Pyongyang at a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday afternoon.
"A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will topple any regime forced to take such action," he said, adding that the United States was open to diplomatic talks "for stabilization assistance." buy the peninsula."
Yun vowed to respond to any nuclear attack "swiftly, massively, and decisively with all coalition forces, including US nuclear weapons."
The two leaders have launched a number of other cooperative initiatives in cybersecurity, economic investment and other areas to further strengthen the alliance amid a record number of North Korean nuclear missile tests this year.
Yoon's visit is "a springboard for connecting Korea to a wider network of alliances in the region, whether on security cooperation [or] economic security issues... and for engaging with other stakeholders in the region, including Southeast Asian nations." ." ." "The Pacific Islands," said Nicholas Cecchini, deputy director of the Asia division of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Yoon, a conservative politician who took office last year, has made strengthening military and diplomatic ties with the United States one of the pillars of his foreign policy. He continued joint military exercises in coordination with the United States to reduce reliance on China in global supply chains and, more importantly, cool relations with Japan despite the bitter historical conflict over forced labor in Korea during Tokyo's colonial rule; local response.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Biden thanked Yoon for his "political courage and personal commitment to diplomacy with Japan".
Victor Cha, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Korea, said that while North Korea is a priority for the United States and South Korea, it is an ongoing issue where the two countries come together.
However, Cha said, "The context is China."
As Washington escalates its economic confrontation with Beijing, Biden is working to strengthen American influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Next week he will welcome Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the White House and travel to Japan for the G7 summit, to be held in Hiroshima from May 19-21.
Biden is trying to allay South Korean companies' concerns about not receiving subsidies under the Inflation Control Act, which provides tax breaks for electric vehicles that are assembled in North America or have major components sourced locally. South Korean companies are not currently eligible. Ahead of Yoon's arrival at the White House, South Korea's General Motors and Hyundai announced a new multibillion-euro investment to work with US battery makers to manufacture electric vehicle batteries.
However, Biden will face controversy over the $50 billion CHIPS and Science Act. The law will provide federal funding to semiconductor makers who agree to limit manufacturing of advanced chips in China for the next 10 years. US export controls on computer chip sets designed to restrain China's access to cutting-edge technology also worries Seoul. Japan and the Netherlands have similar restrictions.
South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix have been exempt from a year-long US export ban, but a solution will need to be negotiated when it expires in October.
"South Korea relies heavily on the semiconductor industry as part of its broader economic power, and that industry is investing heavily in China," said Frank Ohm, Northeast Asia expert at the US Institute for Peace.
Yoon is under pressure to return after a visit to the White House to convince Washington of its commitment to Pyongyang's nuclear arms trade and defense deal as it seeks to restore ties after classified documents were leaked.
Intelligence leaks suggest that senior South Korean officials fear that munitions sold by South Korea to the United States could be diverted to Ukraine, in violation of that country's policy of providing non-lethal assistance to countries of conflict. The revelations drew criticism at home, but White House officials downplayed the tension caused by the breach.
Yoon told reporters the two countries would "communicate and exchange necessary information", but declined to say whether Biden had given him assurances.
Today's relationship with Seoul should be "an alliance driven by chips, batteries and clean technologies," said Scott Snyder, senior fellow in Korean studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, but there are issues complicating the relationship, including the recent publication . in the Pentagon Papers and South Korea's reluctance to become involved in Ukraine.
"It's a bit ironic because I think the coalition is probably at the pinnacle of [70 year] coalition history in terms of intensity and depth of coordination and ... breadth of coverage," Snyder said. The same goes for underlying trust issues that could get in the way and negatively impact Chef Yoon's overall approval rating."
Yoon began his six-day visit Tuesday with a tour of NASA facilities with Vice President Kamala Harris, and then laid a wreath at the Korea Veterans Memorial with his wife Kim Kyun-hee, Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.
He also met with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, who announced that the streaming giant will invest $2.5 billion in the Korean entertainment industry over the next four years. Yoon is expected to meet with Disney, Sony Pictures and other studio executives from Motion Picture Assn. headquarters in Washington on Thursday.
"This is a new frontier for the alliance that goes beyond the traditional security and free trade elements of the relationship," said Cha.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
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