Category: US-ROK Alliance

It will be interesting to see if the ROK government gives into Trump administration demands on the cost sharing issue in return for concessions on the North Korean issue:

South Korea and the U.S. are narrowing their differences over the cost, contract period and annual increase rate in regards to sharing the cost of stationing American troops on the Korean Peninsula.

An official from the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said Monday the two sides are negotiating thorny issues and ways to improve the system as a package for the new Special Measures Agreement set to take effect next year.

Under the current five-year contract which will expire in December, Seoul’s cost-sharing for stationing the 28-thousand-500-member U.S. Forces Korea for this year is set at around 960 billion won or 856 million dollars.

As for Washington wanting Seoul to include costs for “operational support” of deploying strategic assets from outside the peninsula against North Korean threats, the official said he can not answer whether the U.S. continues to make such demands.  [KBS World Radio]

The anti-US groups already demand US troop withdrawal, despite majority #SouthKoreans supporting the US presence. The protests would become feverish a la candlelights if the "end of war" is declared, & Moon will say the "candlelights" ordered him for the US military withdrawal. https://t.co/CFZ7Xg9uMI

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) September 27, 2018

I would not be surprised that the price for South Korea to get President Trump on board with a possible 2nd Kim-Trump Summit was to agree to change the US-ROK FTA.  Usually when it comes to changes in the FTA there is a lot of pushback from the ROK where this went pretty smooth:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed the conclusion of negotiations to amend the countries’ bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday, vowing efforts to implement it swiftly.

“We, the Presidents of the Republic of Korea and the United States of America, hereby reaffirm our close alliance and the importance of maintaining strong, mutually beneficial trade and economic ties between our peoples,” the leaders said in a joint statement issued at the end of their bilateral summit in New York.

“We welcome the successful conclusion of negotiations between our governments that have resulted in amendments and modifications to improve the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement,” they added.

Under the revised FTA, the U.S. will extend a 25 percent tariff on imports of South Korean pickup trucks by 20 years to 2041, while Seoul will double the number of U.S. cars not subject to its local industry regulations to 50,000.

“South Korea will double the number of American cars sold …(to) 50,000 per manufacturer of cars,” Trump said in a joint press conference.

The changes, which come at a U.S. request, were approved by the South Korean Cabinet last week. The revised FTA was signed Monday by the countries’ trade ministers. It still needs to be ratified by the countries’ legislatures.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

The Moon administration’s Defense Minister nominee is advocating for an end to the Korean War:

Defense Minister nominee Jeong Kyeong-doo said in his confirmation hearing, Monday, that the military has bolstered defense readiness ahead of the upcoming inter-Korean summit.

He also said that formally ending the Korean War should be pushed forward according to the Panmunjeom Declaration.

Jeong, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a treaty to end the war will be “a political proclamation” to pave the way for denuclearization, but this does not mean disbandment of the United Nations Command or the breakup of the South-U.S. defense alliance.

When asked about the North’s aim of seeking the end of the war for this summit, Jeong said “it was aimed at building trust between the two Koreas and North Korea and the U.S. in order to achieve the perfect denuclearization.”  [Korea Times]

General Jeong is remaining on script with the rest of the Moon administration about the future of the US-ROK alliance after any end of the Korean War.  The North Koreans, Chinese, Russians, and South Korean leftists all want US troops off of the peninsula.  Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.

Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.

Possibly the future of USFK after a peace treaty could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju.  President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence and cause the US to withdraw troops on its own accord.

Below are excerpts from some more great analysis by Professor B.R. Myers about the state of Inter-Korean affairs and the United States.  This first excerpt shows how President Moon really feels about the US-ROK alliance:

This is in line with the remarkable discretion Moon Jae-in has sustained since the start of his election campaign. Never does he speak more guardedly than when around foreigners critical of the North. Shortly after he took office I asked two Americans who had talked with him on separate occasions what impression they had got: “well-rehearsed,” said one, “well-drilled” the other. Had he given vent to the sort of anti-American, pro-North remarks Roh Moo Hyun went in for (though Roh was conservative in comparison), his policies would have encountered more resistance.

His base knows how he really feels. During the presidential election campaign in 2012 the novelist Kong Chi-yŏng, a prominent supporter, tweeted cheerfully that the Yankee-go-home candidate Lee Jung-Hee sounded “like Moon’s inner voice.” The conservatives pounced, and she had to do a quick Prufrock: It wasn’t what she’d meant at all. Since then the Moon camp has shown remarkable discipline. Professor Moon Chung-in is an exception of sorts, since it’s his job to send up trial balloons.  [B.R. Myers]

I have long believed that President Moon is just a better polished, smarter, and more disciplined version of former President Roh Moo-hyun.  Remember Moon was Roh’s Chief of Staff during his presidency, so learned well from all of Roh’s mistakes.  This discipline and political smarts he learned has allowed Moon to sell himself as a centrist when he is in fact a leftist.

This next excerpt shows how the Moon administration plans to implement their confederation plans with North Korea:

To assume that the two Korean administrations do not already see each other as confederates, and behave accordingly, albeit discreetly, is like assuming that a man and woman planning a marriage are not yet having sex. When we ask for Moon’s help in getting the other half of the peninsula to denuclearize, we are in effect asking this fervent nationalist to help remove the future guarantor of a unified Korea’s security and autonomy. Why should he comply? The only remaining point of the US-ROK alliance is to ease the transition to a confederation — which would obviate that alliance altogether.

The recent news of South Korean violations of sanctions (and of a presidential award just given to the main importer of North Korean coal) is merely illustrative. It’s trivial in comparison to the basic truth staring us in the face: No true liberal-democratic ally of the United States would think of leaguing up with an anti-American dictatorship, let alone one still in the thrall of a personality cult. I’m not sure whether the Trump administration is unaware of this or merely pretending to be.

At any rate a peculiar pattern has repeated itself every few weeks or so since Moon took office. It goes like this. First the Blue House is caught in some statement or act of disloyalty to the spirit of the alliance — like appointing an unrepentant former enforcer of North Korean copyrights to the second most powerful post in the government. (I don’t mean the prime minister.) South Korean conservatives then shout in chorus, “The Americans won’t stand for this!” Whereupon the White House rushes to say, in effect, “Oh yes we will!” It seems to revel in making pro-American, security-minded South Koreans look foolish.  (…….)

It’s therefore easy to imagine Trump or Pompeo expressing support for whatever “peace system” Moon and Kim happen to agree on, so long as progress toward denuclearization is made first. Any significant step in that direction — which we can expect the upcoming Pyongyang summit to announce with great fanfare — would then compel the US to sign off on  confederation, thus encouraging the South Korean public to do likewise. Before we know it, the ROK could be locked in an embrace it might eventually need American help to get out of.  [B.R. Myers]

As always I highly recommend reading the whole article from Professor Myers at the link, but at some point you would think the Trump administration would start pushing back on President Moon’s pro-North Korean agenda.  Possibly the suspension of Inter-Korean railway inspections by the United Nations Command is the start of a push back?

It looks like the US will be making sure that all inter-Korean cooperation is being done by existing regulations:

The United Nations Command (UNC) for the first time disapproved plans for an inter-Korean railway inspection, amid a deadlock in denuclearization talks between North Korea and the U.S.

The plan was for a South Korean train to travel up to the North’s northwestern city of Sinuiju so officials of the Koreas could inspect the condition of the tracks in the North from Aug. 22 to 27.

The UNC holds authority to approve personnel and supplies crossing the Military Demarcation Line (MDL).

The government has stated the inspections do not go against sanctions imposed on the North by the U.N. and the U.S.

The UNC initially cited the reason for disapproval as South Korea not notifying it of its plan 48 hours in advance.

A unification ministry official said this was likely not the issue.

“There were many instances in which plans that were announced less than 48 hours in advance were approved,” he told reporters, Thursday.

The UNC, in an official statement, said it “required South Korea to submit details of the planned visit.” Calling for additional details is seen as unprecedented.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but considering the duplicity shown by the Moon administration allowing the North Koreans to violate sanctions this is probably a wise move.

I personally always thought the joint exercises would be restarted in time to execute Key Resolve 2019 because I never believed the Kim regime was were serious about real denuclearization:

The U.S. military will move ahead with all future military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Tuesday, suggesting that America’s brief suspension of the drills as a show of “good faith” toward North Korea has not paid dividends in the struggling denuclearization talks with Pyongyang.

“We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises,” Mr. Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, less than three months after President Trump labeled the U.S.-South Korean drills “provocative” and ordered them temporarily halted following his unprecedented face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Mr. Mattis made the announcement at a rare press conference with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, during which the two also weighed in on a range of other topics, including efforts to stamp out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the U.S. role in battling Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.  [Washington Times via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but supposedly the President received a hostile letter from the Butcher of the Cheonan, Kim Yong-chol that caused this announcement:

After the announcement it appears the ROK government may want to play delay games with restarting the joint exercises:

Resumption or suspension of joint military drills between South Korea and the United States is subject to discussions between the allies, an official from Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.

“As of now, the issue has not been discussed between South Korea and the United States,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a daily press briefing.  (……)

“It is an issue that should be discussed and decided by South Korea and the U.S. while reviewing the progress in the denuclearization of North Korea,” the Cheong Wa Dae official said.  [Yonhap]

I expect that the Moon administration will come out of his upcoming summit with Kim Jong-il offering some minor concession to entice the Trump administration to believe the Kim regime is serious about denuclearization.  Regardless I would be surprised if Key Resolve 2019 does not happen.  I guess we will see what happens.

I would argue that the fact the US has to voice confidence in South Korea’s willingness to enforce sanctions on North Korea shows there is some doubt and thus they need reminding:

The United States on Wednesday voiced confidence in South Korea’s implementation of sanctions against North Korea amid reports a shipment of North Korean coal docked at a South Korean port.

U.S. broadcaster VOA reported that a Belize-flagged ship docked at South Korea’s southeastern port city of Pohang over the weekend after being spotted at the Russian port of Nakhodka with black material believed to be North Korean coal.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 2371 bans North Korean exports of coal and other mineral resources that could generate revenue for the regime’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. U.N. member states are also required to stop and inspect vessels suspected of engaging in illicit activities with the North.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This article sent to me via a reader tip is a couple of months old, but it is yet another example of what the Moon administration really want to do with the US-ROK alliance even though officially they will say something different:

A top adviser to South Korea’s president says he would eventually like to see the U.S.–South Korea alliance end. In language that sounded almost Trump-like, Chung In Moon, a special adviser to President Moon Jae In for foreign affairs and national security, said in an interview that alliances in general are a “very unnatural state of international relations” and said that, “for me, the best thing is to really get rid of alliance.” In the meantime, he says, he “strongly” supports “the continued presence of American forces” in Korea, despite hoping for an arrangement that he thinks would better serve his nation’s interests.

It was a remarkable statement coming from a South Korean official who is playing a prominent advisory role in current negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea has relied on its U.S. alliance since the 1950s to deter threats from its north—and the fate of that partnership, which North Korea has long sought to end, has been a contentious question as a summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump approaches. U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly insisted that the alliance is not a bargaining chip with North Korea. And Moon, who presented his ideas as his personal views, was discussing the future of the alliance as a theoretical question about Asia’s security architecture, not as a matter to be determined in nuclear talks. But his comments nevertheless suggested that if those talks succeed and overhaul geopolitics on the Korean peninsula, the alliance could come due for a reckoning.  [The Atlantic]

You can read much more at the link, but President Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.

However, if a peace treaty is signed to end the Korean War do not be surprised if the Moon administration allows left wing groups begin to put pressure on the US to withdraw.  Think of it as a macro version of the current THAAD issue.  The left wing groups have protested and sealed off the THAAD site making life difficult for the soldiers there.  The Korean government could easily end the blockade, but choose not to.  What if in the future if these groups are allowed to blockade and make life difficult for US personnel at for example Camp Humphreys?

President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence.

The issue of signing a peace treaty to end the Korean War is one of the major objectives of North Korea and China to ultimately get USFK withdrawn from South Korea:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he wants to bring a formal end to the Korean War this year.

“The goal of our government is to declare an official end of the Korean War this year, which marks the 65th anniversary of signing the truce agreement,” he said in an interview with Singaporean media The Straits Times, according to Yonhap. Moon is on a three-day state visit in Singapore.

After the three-year war, China, North Korea and the U.N. agreed to an armistice in 1953.

“It will provide a milestone to the process for permanent peace along with denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and a peace treaty between the North and South,” said Moon.

He added that his country is discussing with the U.S. and North Korea about when and how the declaration for the end of the Korean War will be announced.  [UPI]

Here is what Moon had to say about the future of USFK:

Moon noted that the U.S. military presence in South Korea is irrelevant to the denuclearization negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.

“South Korea and the U.S. hold a firm position on the roles and importance of U.S. Forces in Korea for sustaining peace and stability in the Northeast Asian region and the Korean peninsula,” he said.

Remember that I have long believed that President Moon cannot publicly advocate against keeping USFK in Korea post-peace treaty because that will mobilize the conservative opposition against him.  However, Moon can use his surrogates to make life difficult for USFK to where the US could decide to withdraw on its own.  This gets Moon and his left wing base in South Korea what they ultimately want, USFK withdrawal without getting blamed for it.

It also gives North Korea and China what they ultimately want as well, but will the North Koreans agree to denuclearization if USFK was to withdraw?  I guess we will see what happens over the next year.