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| President Moon Jae-in at an event at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Do Je-hae
Washington is putting pressure on Seoul to renew the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Tokyo ahead of the Nov. 22 notification deadline to terminate the pact, which was signed at the U.S. initiative in 2016. Washington has sent key defense officials to Seoul this week ahead of the deadline.
President Moon Jae-in will meet U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper this afternoon, according to Cheong Wa Dae. During the meeting, Moon is expected to explain the need to terminate the pact owing to Japan's unchanged position on its trade restrictions against Korean companies. He is also expected to reiterate "equitable" cost-sharing for U.S. troops stationed in Korea amid ongoing negotiations on this issue.
With the GSOMIA termination deadline only days away, there is intense media attention particularly on whether Cheong Wa Dae, which has adamantly called on Japan to reverse its trade restrictions first, may shift its stance, given the escalating pressure from the United States to maintain the agreement for the sake of "trilateral security cooperation."
However, it is unlikely that the presidential office will reverse its decision in light of Japan's ongoing trade restrictions and its relentless stance on historical disagreements between the two countries, according to sources. During a Nov. 10 press conference, Chung Eui-yong, chief of the National Security Office (NSO), reiterated that Japan should make the first move and justified Korea's decision to end the pact. "From our point of view, the recent difficulties in Korea-Japan relations were fundamentally caused by Japan," Chung said. "I believe the Korean people understand that we could not extend the GSOMIA after Japan said that it carried out the trade restrictions because bilateral trust for security cooperation had been harmed."
Chung also stressed that contrary to rising criticism, there will be no impact from the GSOMIA termination on the Korea-U.S. alliance. "The impact on our national security from ending the GSOMIA will be limited. Also, this is a problem between Korea and Japan, and it does not have anything to do with the Korea-U.S. alliance."
But international relations experts say otherwise. "It may serve as an opportunity for Japan and the U.S. to draw closer to each other in the absence of Korea, and will raise the question of whether Korea will/should take part in the U.S. and Japan's vision for the Indo-Pacific," Gi-wook Shin, a professor at Stanford University said.
There are also rising concerns among the conservative Korean media and the general public that going against strong encouragement from the U.S. to maintain the GSOMIA will result in negative outcomes for the Korea-U.S. alliance. A Chosun Ilbo report, citing an unspecified source in the U.S administration, said Thursday that the White House was preparing a statement containing a very critical view of the Moon administration if Seoul does not reverse its decision on the GSOMIA.
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| Protesters shout slogans at a press conference held in central Seoul, Thursday, to demand the termination of GSOMIA. Yonhap |
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul said that it could not comment on the possibility of such a statement when contacted by The Korea Times, Thursday. "We don't have anything to offer on that particular story," U.S. Embassy spokesman William M. Coleman said. The embassy also declined to comment on reports that some Koreans see the U.S. "pressure" as a sign of Washington siding with Japan and disregarding Korea's interests.
The embassy instead underlined the need to find "creative solutions" to the disagreements between Korea and Japan, and reiterated the importance of the GSOMIA as a "demonstration of the maturity of their bilateral defense relationship that improves our ability to coordinate trilaterally."
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