hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee of South Korea walk along the Korean War Memorial in Washington on April 25 with US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden. (EPA/Yonhap)

After previously insisting ahead of this week’s South Korea-US summit that it was up to Seoul to decide on whether to accept potential burdens related to Ukraine and China, Washington has been visibly working to persuade it to accede to its demands.

With some speculating the US may have issued even more overt demands on weapon aid to Ukraine and participation in the containment of China during the final negotiations before the two sides’ summit on Wednesday, many are increasingly concerned that South Korea may be forced to take on more than it can cope with in the summit’s wake.

During a briefing on Tuesday, a senior US administration official was asked exactly what Washington meant when it said it was hoping for more support from South Korea toward Ukraine. In response, the official drew analogies between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.

Recalling South Koreans’ experiences during the war, the official said no other country was more aware of the importance of the international community uniting to support Ukraine.

The official went on to say there were no limits to what the Ukrainian people will need as the war continues, adding that the US wanted to know what form of additional support South Korea plans to provide.

The official also said the two leaders would hold practical discussions later on what support South Korea can offer.

The remarks conveyed US demands for active assistance with lethal weapons from South Korea in an even more direct way than the comments made in a briefing the day before by White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who said that Ukraine was “obviously” going to be “an important topic of conversation.”

US officials had been expressing “gratitude” to South Korea for US$230 million in assistance since April 8, when it became known through a leak of confidential documents that the South Korean National Security Office had discussed the possibility of providing shells as aid to Ukraine. On the question of whether the support would continue and what the nature of support would be, it had maintained that the decision was South Korea’s to make.

But as the summit approached, the latest remarks hinted more explicitly at the US’ real intentions, with the mention of specific types of support to be discussed. While the term “lethal weapons” did not come up directly, the context of the remarks fueled speculation that the two leaders will indeed be holding “practical discussions” on the matter.

This aligns with the approach described in an April 23 report by the Financial Times, which said the US had requested that South Korea not allow its companies to make up for any Chinese shortfalls that arise if Beijing sanctions the US semiconductor company Micron.

When asked about the report on Monday, NSC coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said that he “would let the ROK Government speak to that themselves.”

Similarly, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a briefing Tuesday that it was “ultimately a decision for the Republic of Korea to make” on whether to participate in semiconductor export controls targeting China.

But in remarks to the South Korean press on Tuesday, Kirby defined “economic security” cooperation between South Korea and the US as including efforts to coordinate semiconductor investment and protect key technology against economic pressures. This too read as a step beyond leaving the matter for South Korea to decide — and as a message calling on it to actively join in pressuring China.

In that sense, analysts saw Washington’s stance of ostensibly leaving two matters of South Korean diplomatic and economic autonomy up to Seoul to “decide” as being less a case of respecting its choices and more a signal that the US plans to wait and see whether its demands are accepted.

This places Seoul in an awkward position where accepting Washington’s demands spells unavoidable friction with Beijing and Moscow, while refusing them could cause a rift in the alliance with the US.

By Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]