Joe Biden boasted that the US, Japan and South Korea “made history” when the leaders of the three countries held their first-ever trilateral summit at Camp David last year.
The meeting would not have been held without the South Korea meeting Yoon Suk YeolHe is a staunch supporter of the United States who has led rapprochement with Japan while taking a harder line than his leftist predecessors toward China and North Korea.
With yon He now faces accountability After trying and failing to implement martial law, there are questions about whether a new government in Seoul — likely from the other end of the political spectrum — might complicate Washington's efforts under Donald Trump to counter China's rise as a military superpower, according to diplomats, officials and analysts.
“Creating a trilateral security cooperation structure with the United States and Japan is the most likely goal of the next leftist government, and I think it is very likely to be reversed,” said Daniel Snyder, a lecturer on East Asia affairs. He studied at Stanford University.
“The fact that Trump has shown no interest in this type of allied effort will make it easier for the left in South Korea to undo this structure.”
Yoon's stance on foreign policy has been strongly criticized by the opposition leftist Democratic Party and its leader, Lee Jae-myung, the most likely candidate to replace Yoon in the event of the president's early departure.
Lee, who is also expected to take a more conciliatory line with North Korea and Russia and rule out the possibility of sending weapons to Ukraine, described South KoreaHe described the diplomatic rapprochement between Japan and Japan under Yoon's leadership as “the most shameful and disastrous moment in our country's diplomatic history.”
The opposition leader also courted controversy last year with his joint public appearance with China's then-ambassador to South Korea when relations between the two countries were in crisis following Yoon's suggestion that Beijing was responsible for tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
In March, Yoon's conservative People Power Party accused Lee of taking a “subservient” stance toward China when he told an election rally that South Korea should say “Shih Shih— “thank you” in Mandarin — to China instead of annoying Chinese consumers with aggressive diplomacy.
“Lee and the Democratic Party of Korea can be described as pro-China because they view improving relations with Beijing as a prerequisite for improving relations with the North,” said Jayo Cho, head of the China Center at the Korea National Security Research Institute, a think tank. In Seoul.
A senior Japanese government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that “good and improving” relations between Tokyo and Seoul have only been in place for about two years. They added that the Japanese side does not want to return to the tense relations that characterized most of the five years under Yoon's leftist predecessor Moon Jae-in.
“We consider what happened over the past few days in South Korea to be very negative,” the official said.
Snyder said that although there was “broad support” in South Korea for restoring normal relations with Japan, Yoon's diplomatic breakthrough with Tokyo, which included Seoul paying reparations to Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor practices, was based on fundamental principles. Fragile.
“Yon chose a unilateral compensation plan when the Japanese government refused to contribute to that settlement,” Snyder said. “This has fueled the perception that Korea made concessions without Japan making a reciprocal effort.”
Yoon, whose approval ratings have often reached historic lows at home, was feted in the United States after performing “American Pie” at a state dinner in Washington last year. Speaking at a “Summit for Democracy” in Seoul in March, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described South Korea as “the world’s champion of democracy.”
Diplomats and foreign officials are now wondering whether they ignored Yoon's anti-democratic tendencies. “Conservative politicians in Asia tend to get a pass in Washington because they embrace the language and identity of being pro-American and pro-alliance,” said John DeLury, an expert on Asian politics and a visiting professor at Lewis University in Washington. Rome.
The issue now is what will happen under Trump, who analysts note has often annoyed the two US allies by threatening to withdraw US forces from Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
“As a conservative leader of a very important country who speaks good English, Yoon . . . He was in an ideal position to build a productive relationship with Donald Trump.
“His potential departure, or internal weakness if he stays, will now leave Seoul in a difficult position,” Cooper added. “I think this opens the door to significant reductions in US forces in South Korea.”
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based academic and expert on Sino-Korean relations, said China does not necessarily expect significantly warmer relations under a different leader, including Lee. He noted that Moon, Yoon's predecessor, eventually reneged on his campaign promises to prevent the deployment of the US high-altitude anti-ballistic missile defense system, which China opposed.
A former US military adviser in South Korea said the US-led “reshaping” of economic, defense and technology supply chains in the region away from China will continue regardless of who takes power in Seoul next.
“The reality is that the geostrategic environment we live in today will constrain the historical tendencies of South Korea’s political left to move too far away from the United States and like-minded countries to ally more closely with China,” they said.
