Trump lashes out at Seoul, accusing it of appeasing Pyongyang

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(Asia Today Tuesday 5 September 2017)

Trump lashes out at Seoul, accusing it of appeasing Pyongyang

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Published: 4:00 AM, September 5, 2017

WASHINGTON — While the world agonised over the huge nuclear test in North Korea this weekend, President Donald Trump aimed his most pointed rhetorical fire not at the renegade regime in Pyongyang, but at the United States’ closest partner in confronting the crisis: South Korea.

In taking to Twitter to accuse Seoul of “appeasement”, Mr Trump was venting his frustration at a new liberal South Korean government he sees as both soft on North Korea’s atomic programme and resistant to his demand for an overhaul of trade practices that he views as cheating US workers and companies.

But experts warn that a dangerous divide appears to be opening between Washington and Seoul, a development that, if not halted, could hand Pyongyang and Beijing an easy but significant strategic victory.“A chasm in the South Korea-US alliance, longed for by Kim Jong-un, is being realised,” said Mr Nam Sung-wook, a professor of politics and diplomacy at Korea University.

Mr Trump has vowed repeatedly that “all options are on the table” for dealing with North Korea, but officials in Seoul are adamant that dialogue and engagement with the North is the only way forward, with President Moon Jae-in ruling out the prospect of war on the peninsula.

“South Korea and the US have different stakes in dealing with North Korea,” said Mr Koo Kap-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. “Mr Moon cannot allow any military options ... because South Korea would be the biggest victim, while Washington seems to worry that Mr Moon’s offer of dialogue may prompt North Korea to keep up its military provocations.”

The emerging split became public on Sunday when Mr Trump tweeted: “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!”

It was an embarrassing dressing down for a crucial ally that hosts tens of thousands of US troops and acts as a strategic regional bulwark for the US against China.

The atmosphere has also been exacerbated by reports that the White House is considering a withdrawal from its trade deal with Seoul — a move that would cause significant pain to South Korea’s export-oriented economy.

“Instead of reassuring our democratic allies in East Asia, Trump has done the opposite,” said Mr Colin Kahl, a former adviser to ex-president Barack Obama. “Undermining alliance solidarity at this moment is dumb and dangerous. It emboldens Pyongyang.”

South Korean media also warned of the potential consequences.

Terminating the trade deal would “send the wrong message to North Korea about the alliance”, the JoongAng Ilbo said in an editorial yesterday, “at a time when North Korea has pushed brinkmanship over nuclear and missile programmes to the limit”.

More than 24 hours after Pyongyang shook the world with what it said was a hydrogen bomb test, the US president had yet to speak to Mr Moon.

Mr Trump’s greatest frustration with Mr Moon, White House aides said, is an escalating dispute over South Korea’s chronic trade surplus with the US, a topic very much on Mr Trump’s mind as his poll numbers slide in industrial Midwestern states.

Such discord is likely to be welcomed by Beijing, which has long sought to pull Seoul out of Washington’s orbit. China and South Korea have deep historical and economic ties, although relations have been hit in the past year amid a dispute over Seoul’s deployment of US-owned missile shield.

“From the Chinese point of view the most important thing is to prioritise negotiations (with North Korea); therefore we will see South Korea and China getting closer,” said Dr Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

The South Korean presidential Blue House yesterday denied there was a split with Washington, saying it had received a letter from the US National Security Council emphasising there was no divergence in their strategies. AGENCIES