Did Korea succumb to US pressure?

President Moon Jae-in closes his eyes during a ceremony prior to his official lunch with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at Cheong Wa Dae, Saturday. Two persons behind is Kim Hyun-chong, second deputy at the presidential National Security Office, the "rebel" that has reportedly pushed to gain Korea a greater say in the ROK-U.S. alliance. Yonhap

By Oh Young-jin

What has taken place in the lead-up to Korea's last-minute decision to extend "conditionally" its general security of military information agreement (GSOMIA) or military intelligence sharing pact with Japan?

An equally important question is how this decision will affect the ROK-U.S. alliance.

First of all, speculation is that Washington pushed a vulnerable pressure point for Korea, forcing it to retreat and make an extension. That President Moon Jae-in blinked under U.S. pressure was a natural causal logical observation.

But there are other circumstantial considerations. One is that the decision came only six hours before the deadline, which says something other than such simple logic indicates.

The decision was made at a national security meeting presided over by Moon himself with Cheong Wa Dae quoting him as saying, "It is well taken care of with a few loose ends."

Before that, the U.S. visit by "Korean rebel" Kim Hyun-chong, presidential National Security Office second deputy, was "leaked," an indication that efforts were under way to save the alliance.

Kim with his boss, Chung Eui-yong, NSC chief, during the Korea-Brunei summit Yonhap

Kim declared Korea's willingness to exercise its sovereignty over its security when he openly said that whether the U.S. was pleased or not was not Korea's primary concern. He made this remark the day after Korea decided to stop exchanges of intelligence under GSOMIA and threatened to let the pact expire.

After the 11th hour decision, Chung Eui-yong, Kim's boss, went out of his docile way and made a damning "try us" reaction to Japanese reports, surely fed by its government, calling Korea's decision a "perfect game" victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The baseball metaphor is not fit because it means a pitcher allowing no hitters from the opposing team to go to the first base by a hit, error, hit by a pitched ball or base on balls or whatever. But for the past several weeks, Abe and by extension Japan have suffered more than bruises for retaliating against Korea for an historic issue, but pretending otherwise.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha asked her Japanese counterpart during their meeting to lift Japan's trade embargo and put Korea back on the white list for preferential trading partners. Plus, the meeting of Moon and Abe in China on the sidelines of a Korea-China-Japan trilateral summit is officially being brought up.

So there appears to be other explanations than a simple matter of who-blinks-first.

American deal: US always has its way, so far

2019-11-22 17:26

Kim talks with Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong during a dinner for the visiting ASEAN leaders in Busan, Monday. Kim worked as head of Samsung's legal department. Yonhap

My take is that Kim went to the U.S. not to succumb to its stay-on GSOMIA demand, but to convey for the last time Korea's stance that there would not be any change in its position.

When Korea and U.S. settled their free trade agreement, Kim, trade representative, did not blink until the U.S. side did first to extract key concessions on agriculture and other areas. Kim may have done it again.

If so, it would mean the U.S. was the party to buckle, breaking from its official line of non-interference and putting pressure on Japan to make a deal.

That can explain why Kang made a sanctions-lifting demand and Chung got angry when Japan did not act according to the agreed timeline. Of course, what happened was not as clear-cut as I have described. The way Chung stressed that the extension was conditional, it may be inferred that a deal was the result of U.S. mediation with Korea and Japan being reluctant to be part of it.

If Kim remains pigeonholed for long, it would be one indication that those who believed Moon blinked was right. I would be wrong. Any U.S.-mediated deal looks as flimsy as ever ― perhaps being comparable to the 2015 Korea-Japan agreement on comfort women. That agreement lacked a national consensus and was one of the first to be mothballed as soon as the Moon government took over.

Perhaps more important is where the ROK-U.S. alliance will go from here after so much disagreement has been exposed in the lead-up to that conditional deal.

In my opinion, the alliance has been so damaged that a reset cannot be delayed any longer.

The U.S. made a massive bipartisan onslaught on Korea on GSOMIA. It signifies that Korea does not see its national security priorities as dictated by the U.S. and that it wants "security sovereignty" as French President Emmanuel Macron recently said.

A lot of other factors are in the mix as well.

First and above all, it is transactional U.S. President Donald Trump who has wreaked havoc on the alliance as we know. Trump's predilection to put a dollar figure on everything has turned away a lot of friends, representing a typical case of penny wise and pound foolish.

Trump's legacy will not just outlast his presidency ― it will surely alter the relationship for good, with returning to the era of Pax Americana unlikely.

The (perceived) decline of U.S. power will likely continue, making away for a real multi-polar world order ― China, U.S., Europe minus Britain and India, among others.

In this brave new world, everything can be up for grabs. It could be a chance or a challenge for middle powers like Korea and Japan.

One key element is the clash of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific strategy ― a military-oriented containment chain against China ― and China's Belt and Road initiative, typical of Beijing's gambit to bring the world under its influence. Maybe, we are already seeing an appetizer to the main course that comes with U.S. diminishing centripetal force allowing Korea, Japan and other Asian countries out of its orbit. There should be more evidence to make a realistic guess, but GSOMIA and the U.S. call for Korea to pay five times more for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and Korea's resistance indicate the direction of the future relationship between the two allies.

This column was first posted on the comments section in the website of The Korea Times in answer to readers' comments on Oh Young-jin's previous column, entitled "American deal: U.S. always has its way, so far." ― ED.