Give and Take for Stronger U.S.-South Korea Alliance

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is concentrating on Indo-Pacific security as a tool to keep China in check.

Much attention is being paid to how the KORUS alliance and its efforts for the denuclearization of North Korea will change under the Joe Biden administration.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in had his first phone conversation with the new U.S. president-elect on Nov. 12, expressing his hope for even closer cooperation for further development of the alliance, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and permanent peace in the peninsula. The U.S. president-elect remarked that the United States will maintain its defense commitment and work very closely with the South Korean government to achieve the denuclearization, saying South Korea is a linchpin for Indo-Pacific security.

In short, it can be said that the South Korean president is focusing on the denuclearization in Korean Peninsular and the U.S. president-elect is concentrating on Indo-Pacific security as a tool to keep China in check.

The U.S. think tank Center for a New American Security also commented in its recent report that the new administration needs to make South Korea play an essential role for its vision in the Indo-Pacific region. The report contains a wide variety of advice on South Korea’s bigger role in checking China, such as a bigger role of United States Forces Korea and South Korea’s participation in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Under the circumstances, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously adopted two resolutions on Nov. 18. One is to revalue the importance of the alliance and Korean Americans’contribution to American society and the other is for global partnership formation based on the alliance and in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War. The bipartisan support of the resolutions is highly meaningful with the new administration focusing on alliance restoration unlike the previous one.

The KORUS alliance has been the main war prevention mechanism in the peninsula since the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954. For the past several years, however, the U.S. administration jeopardized it by calling the Special Measure Agreement into question and demanding more defense costs. The resolutions, however, mention the necessity of an early conclusion of a mutually acceptable multi-year agreement, which means it can be reasonably concluded in the early days of the new government.

In the meantime, Beijing sent State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi to Seoul on Nov. 25 with tension rising against Washington. His three-day visit was to forestall Seoul’s lopsidedness to Washington and strengthen Seoul-Beijing relations with President Xi Jinping unlikely to visit Seoul within this year contrary to President Moon Jae-in’s expectations. The state councilor made no direct comment on U.S.-China tension and Washington-Seoul relations, and yet he did remark that the United States is not the only one in the world.

With the new U.S. administration predicted to rebuild its alliance with South Korea and Japan to keep China in check, the state councilor particularly stressed the importance of China’s cooperation with South Korea and Japan as well as bilateral cooperation with South Korea. This implies that China will continue to check the U.S. alliances in Northeast Asia while mentioning the development of collaboration with South Korea and Japan.

South Korean enterprises, meanwhile, are in a catch-22 situation with the superpowers increasingly vying for hegemony. We hope the new U.S. administration will seek measures to alleviate the diplomatic burden of South Korea, which has had the dilemma of economic reliance on China and security reliance on the United States. If so, the South Korean government will have to positively consider joining Quad Plus as a way of strengthening the KORUS alliance.