The United States is expected to pile pressure on South Korea for increased burden-sharing of defence costs in a coming summit between the leaders of both countries, with Seoul’s role in a potential Taiwan conflict set to be excluded from the agenda.
The cautious stance on China also aligns with the office of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung stressing the importance of fostering ties and engagement, as it downplays comments by his foreign minister labelling Beijing a “problem”.
Discussions are still under way to finalise the agenda for the first summit between Lee and US President Donald Trump , tentatively set for later this month in Washington.
US representatives have reportedly informed Seoul during working-level talks that Washington does not plan to raise the Taiwan issue at the summit, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Instead, the summit was likely to yield only a broad agreement to elevate the bilateral alliance into a “comprehensive strategic alliance” in response to an evolving regional security environment, it said.
The progressive Hankyoreh daily, citing a senior government official, also reported that South Korea’s role in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would not be broached at the summit. “That is a hypothetical situation, so we will not talk about it,” the official said.