Category: US-ROK Alliance

I think it is probably wise that Secretary Esper is trying to stay out of the cost sharing negotiations issue and not speculate on what if scenarios from the media:

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper refused to speculate when asked Tuesday whether the U.S. would consider reducing troops in South Korea short of a deal on defense cost-sharing.

Esper was asked the question during a briefing with reporters near Manila, the Philippines, after the U.S. walked out of defense cost-sharing negotiations with South Korea in Seoul.

The U.S. is reportedly seeking an increase of Seoul’s contribution to $5 billion from the current $870 million for this year to support the upkeep of 28,500 American troops stationed in the Asian ally.

“I’m not going to prognosticate or speculate on what we may or may not do,” Esper said when asked what steps the U.S. would take if no deal is reached before the end of the year, and whether the U.S. would consider reducing forces in the South.

“The State Department has the lead in these discussions, and I’m sure they are in capable hands. We just take this one step at a time,” Esper continued, in footage of the press conference posted on the Pentagon’s website.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Ambassador Harris has always been a straight talker and he is letting the Moon administration know how he feels about their upcoming withdrawal from the GSOMIA with Japan:

The top U.S. envoy in South Korea said Tuesday that Seoul has elevated its long-simmering historical conflict with Tokyo into the security realm, redoubling calls for it to reverse the decision to end its military information-sharing accord with Japan. 

Amb. Harry Harris made the remarks, warning that the termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) would affect America’s ability to defend South Korea, which is “our treaty obligation to your country.”

The military pact, which the U.S. sees as a symbolic yet crucial tool to promote trilateral security cooperation with its two Asian allies, is set to expire on Saturday unless Seoul reverses its decision to terminate it.

“Korea elevated it into the security realm and that security realm affects us. So, now it affects the U.S. and our ability to defend Korea, and puts our troops at risk … so that is why we reacted quickly and strongly in expressing disappointment at Seoul’s decision,” he said in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is a hit piece from the Hankyoreh describing a USINDOPACOM strategy that doesn’t exist:

A South Korean government official said, “The reason so many senior US officials are visiting South Korea and campaigning hard for a GSOMIA extension is because GSOMIA is just that important to the Indo-Pacific strategy.”

Indo-Pacific Strategy gives Japan priority over S. KoreaThe US’ previous strategy for East Asia positioned the US itself at the center with South Korea, Japan, and Australia acting as “spokes.” Fundamentally, South Korea and Japan were on an equal footing. The Indo-Pacific strategy, in contrast, involves a framework where the US, Japan, India, and Australia form a “quad” hemming China in from all sides, while South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and others are included as lower-level partners.

Under this framework, the US-Japan alliance becomes upgraded to a global alliance. In pushing through security-related legislation, Japan’s Shinzo Abe administration increased its potential for intervention on the Korean Peninsula by concocting the concepts of “situations of major influence” and “existential threat,” with an eye on direct intervention if war breaks out. Under this system, Japan would need to receive initial military information on North Korean nuclear missile launch activity through GSOMIA to attack preemptively in a scenario of imminent armed attack by the North.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link, but if Japan was about to face a nuclear missile attack they don’t need the GSOMIA because the US would inform them. The biggest attribute of the GSOMIA is creating a mechanism where the ROK and Japan can work together.

As far as what the Hankyoreh describes as the USINDOPACOM strategy, I have read their strategy and it mentions nothing of what the Hankyoreh is claiming. You can read the USINDOPACOM strategy at this link.

I wonder if the U.S. negotiators have learned a few techniques from the North Koreans to pressure the ROK on the cost sharing issue. Storming out of negotiations as the media is describing it comes off as very North Korean like and not a good look for U.S. negotiators in my opinion:

 Defense cost-sharing talks between South Korea and the United States were abruptly cut short Tuesday as the U.S. negotiators walked out of the meeting and accused Seoul of making proposals falling short of “fair and equitable burden sharing.”

The unexpected ending underlined wide differences between the two sides after Washington’s reported demand for a fivefold increase in Seoul’s sharing of the cost of the upkeep of about 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea.

The latest round of negotiations, which began Monday, was supposed to last through Tuesday. But Tuesday’s second day of talks ended in about an hour as the U.S. negotiators left the meeting, South Korean officials said.

“Unfortunately, the proposals that were put forward by the Korean team were not responsive to our request for fair and equitable burden sharing,” James DeHart of the U.S. State Department told local media shortly after the talks ended.

“As a result, we cut short our participation in the talks today in order to give the Korean side some time to reconsider and, I hope, to put forward new proposals that would enable both sides to work towards a mutually acceptable agreement,” he said. “We look forward to resuming our negotiations when the Korean side is ready to work on the basis of partnership on the basis of mutual trust.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it appears what is going on is that the ROK is refusing to include payment for the deployment of strategic assets to the ROK like aircraft carriers, submarines, etc. that support exercises as well as show of forces against North Korea.

The Moon administration is probably liking this because politically it will help them in upcoming parliamentary elections early next year if they are perceived to be standing up to the Trump administration who is trying to fleece the hard working Korean taxpayer. This is good politics for them and likely why there will be no movement on this issue unless the U.S. side gives up the big increase in ROK contributions.

An anonymous presidential aide from the Blue House is criticizing the Trump administration’s attempt to get South Korea to pay more for the upkeep of USFK:

Political analysts said the exit of Mattis, who had once been described as one of the “adults in the room,” meant there were no people in the administration protecting the country from Trump’s worst impulses.

“South Korea was ready to pay more; however, Trump was asking too much. Also, Washington seemed to pay less attention to the U.S.-South Korea alliance, from Seoul’s standpoint, because South Korea wanted it to play some role in resolving the ongoing feud with japan. Trump has been treating its key allies as a piggy bank with his demands, which I believe is not a good thing,” a presidential aide told The Korea Times, last week.

The aide said the South Korea-U.S. alliance was at a major crossroads as Trump’s continued insistence that Seoul should pay more for the U.S. military presence as a key deterrent to North Korea has “tested Seoul’s confidence” in the U.S.

Some civic groups are calling for a drastic shift in the alliance with the United States including a possible withdrawal or a drastic reduction of the USFK. 

A recent survey by the Korea Institute for National Unification released last week showed 96 percent of South Koreans were against paying more for the U.S. military presence. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the civic groups calling for the withdrawal of USFK are the usual leftist groups. These groups want USFK to withdraw because that is part of the master strategy they seek of a confederation with North Korea. This won’t happen as long as the US-ROK alliance exists.

If North Korea is going to start a provocation cycle after the New Year as the Kim regime has vaguely indicated, it appears that the Trump administration is not going to give them an easy excuse to point at for the provocation:

South Korea and the United States decided to put off their wintertime combined air exercises to support diplomacy with North Korea, the two sides said Sunday, with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper urging Pyongyang to reciprocate the goodwill by returning to nuclear talks.

Esper and South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo announced the surprise decision during an impromptu joint press conference in Bangkok on the sidelines of a regional defense ministers’ meeting led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“We have made this decision as an act of goodwill to contribute to an environment conducive to diplomacy and the advancement of peace,” Esper said after announcing that the allies decided to postpone the Combined Flying Training Event set for later this month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As I predicted there was no way that the Moon administration was going to reverse course on withdrawing from the GSOMIA. Promoting anti-Japanese sentiment is literally the only issue his party has to run on for the parliamentary elections coming up early next year. Reversing the decision on the GSOMIA would have been a major loss of face for the Moon administration:

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday he will try to persuade Japan to “smoothly” resolve the dispute over the two neighbors’ military information-sharing arrangement, according to the presidential office.

During a 50-minute meeting with Esper at Cheong Wa Dae, Moon explained his government’s basic position that it’s “difficult to share military information” with Japan, which has imposed export restrictions against South Korea for a stated reason that Seoul is not trustworthy as a security partner, Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said.

In late August, the Moon administration decided not to renew the General Security of Military Agreement (GSOMIA) and it’s slated to expire as of next Saturday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As I have been saying the Moon administration needs an issue to run on in Parliamentary elections coming up early next year and really the only thing they got is the anti-Japan issue. From their point of view there is currently no reason to resolve this issue:

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.” 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration is blaming Japan for the trade dispute when it was the Moon administration that threatened to seize the assets of Japanese companies to pay World War II forced laborers even though an agreement was signed in 1965 that settled this issue and normalized relations between the two countries.

In General Abrams’ remarks he say that he believed the GSOMIA showed that Japan and the ROK had put aside their historical differences. I think it is more accurate to say that the Korean right under the prior Park Geun-hye administration were able to put aside the historical differences, but the Korean left never did. They fought this and other political arrangements with Japan from the beginning. It was clear that when ever they regained power they would reverse all gains made politically with Japan which is what they are doing. The GSOMIA is just the latest change they are making:

The looming termination of the military information-sharing pact between South Korea and Japan, if realized, could send the wrong message that the U.S. and its two Asian allies are not strong enough to ensure security in the region, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Robert Abrams said.

The General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) is set to expire on Nov. 23, following South Korea’s decision in August to terminate it after Japan imposed export curbs on Seoul in a row over wartime forced labor.

“The fundamental principle of the information-sharing agreement was a clear message to the region that the ROK and Japan put aside perhaps the historical differences and put at the forefront stability and security of the region,” Abrams said in a press interview held on Tuesday to mark his first year in office. ROK is the acronym of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea. 

“Together, we are much stronger for providing for stable and secure Northeast Asia. And without that, there is a risk of sending the wrong message that perhaps we are not as strong,” he said during the interview held at his office at Camp Humphreys, a sprawling U.S. base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the real people benefitting from the end of GSOMIA is China and North Korea.

I will be highly surprised if the Moon administration keeps the GSOMIA in place because they need to feed anti-Japanese sentiment for next year’s parliamentary elections. Plus the Moon administration can use the GSOMIA as a bargaining chip with the US in the ongoing cost sharing negotiations:

Against this backdrop, a Cheong Wa Dae official said Sunday, Korea can’t cooperate with Japan “as long as they deem us an untrustworthy partner and continue to impose export curbs.”

Speaking before the National Assembly, Friday, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, also said Japan’s removal of the export control should be a precondition for Korea’s possible change concerning the GSOMIA decision.

On whether Beijing and Pyongyang will benefit most from the termination of GSOMIA, Kang said “Such assessment is possible.”

Shin speculated the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Seoul from Nov. 15 to 16, and G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Nagoya, Japan, from Nov. 22 to 23 may be the “last chance” to settle the GSOMIA dispute.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.