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| Deputy National Security Officer Kim Hyun-chong talks on the phone before the Korea-Ethiopia summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Out of focus in the foreground is Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. Kim said after Korea's termination of an intelligence-sharing pct with Japan that Korea did not listen to repeated U.S. pleas to maintain the pact. Kang was obviously not in the know, indicating to her counterparts from the U.S. and Japan that the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) would be preserved. Korea Times |
By Oh Young-jin
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It marks a major departure from the role of junior partner that Korea plays in its alliance with the U.S., coming as U.S. regional stewardship is being challenged by a growing China and undermined by its isolationist leadership in Donald Trump turning increasingly "beggar-thy-neighbor-ly."
Signs of an alliance rift were captured by a briefing after the Aug. 22 announcement of the termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).
The following day, Kim Hyun-chong, President Moon Jae-in's deputy national security officer, said three things that indicated where Korea was heading regarding its U.S. ties.
No. 1: It is nothing extraordinary that the United States was disappointed because we didn't follow its wish to extend the Korea-Japan intelligence agreement.
Rarely has Korea objected as strongly to U.S. leadership in the ROK-U.S. alliance and even rarer is making an unrestrained disclosure of a rift with the U.S. Kim's remarks followed a U.S. expression of "concern and disappointment" about Seoul's "no more GSOMIA" decision. Preceding it were U.S. warnings that Seoul should stick to it.
No. 2: We have been in constant contact with the U.S., especially through the two countries' presidential national security offices in the lead-up to our GSOMIA pullout.
This remark is a rubbing-salt-into-the-wound kind of statement, revealing that the U.S. had secretly been persuading or pressuring the presidential office to preserve the pact on top of what had been reported but Seoul still did not listen.
No. 3: This decision will serve to upgrade the two countries' alliance.
The U.S. obviously does not want to change the status quo based on the current trilateral structure involving the ROK, the U.S. and Japan against the emergence of a China-led axis with North Korea and Russia. What upgrade Kim says would be made possible as a result of the GSOMIA decision is not clear but it is safe to say Korea wants to have a greater say in its alliance with the U.S.
Clueless as she may have been about the decision until the last moment, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha only reinforced Kim's points when she told reporters that Korea had been consulting the U.S. about GSOMIA, leaving ample impressions that Seoul pressed ahead without Washington's consent.
When there were no questions about the superiority of American power, Seoul's outright rejection would not have been possible in the first place.
For the U.S.-China rivalry, Washington has failed to force Beijing to its knees in the U.S.-initiated trade war.
With the protracted standoff, Pax Americana is being chipped away, presenting to the world the possibility of a new world order in which China is equal to the U.S., if it doesn't become No. 1.
Trump calls Korea a freeloader and demands it should pay more for U.S. troops stationed against the threat of the North and China. Europeans are under pressure to cough up more for their defenses.
Under the mercantilist commander-in-chief, U.S. troops are becoming mercenaries that Koreans feel will be at their service if they pay enough. The trust and respect of the U.S. military has been greatly compromised.
Some experts understand these winds of change. Evans Revere, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Seoul, recently sounded an ominous warning: "Years from now, when historians look back on this day, they will probably conclude that the unraveling of the U.S.-centric defense and security architecture in Northeast Asia began with this Korean (GSOMIA) decision."
Maybe it will turn out to be a storm in a tea cup, all things reverting to where they were: Korea doing its duty as a docile partner that is attentive to American demands.
I wouldn't bet on that scenario.
For one, it is quite possible Japan will raise its voice in its relationship with the U.S. If Washington does allow Japan a greater say, as expected, it would be viewed as a lessening of U.S. power, in turn adding to Korea's centrifugal force away from the U.S. orbit. Or Koreans may think that Japan and the U.S. are colluding as they did before Japan's 1910 annexation of Korea.
What would stop Koreans leaving the U.S. orbit are dismal alternatives: Pax (peace) or Bellum (war) Sinica. I believe both would be not much more enticing as Pax Americana that we have had so far.
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