Biden is once again focusing on US alliances in Japan and South Korea

But on Wednesday, when the two officers arrived in Seoul, the pines had not passed, a recognition that the issue has less weight in a South Korea that currently prioritizes commitment to the Kim Jong Un regime.

After four years of relative inattention to American allies, President Biden has pledged to rebuild ties with foreign friends, choosing two central partners in Washington’s challenges with a rising China and an increasingly North Korea. nuclear.

“It simply came to our notice then [South Korea] for the first trip abroad from the Biden-Harris administration cabinet, along with Japan, “Blinken said Wednesday in Seoul.

Japan and South Korea, both relying heavily on the U.S. military for their defense, place an unusually high emphasis on receiving U.S. diplomatic affection and note whether any of the parties ever receive more. For decades, Tokyo and Seoul have been betting on becoming Washington’s favorite ally in the region.

This has meant worrying about every word spoken by US officials, about which the Asian ally has been awarded for the first time with a presidential phone chat and which side is gaining US support in disputes that have gone on since history to national security.

When the U.S. last week invited Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House, becoming the first world leader to be called to Washington, South Korean media convened and urged President Moon Jae -in to drive your own journey.

“President Moon must also visit the United States on a date not far away,” an editorial in the Sein Shinmun newspaper, a government-owned newspaper more than a century old, said.

Getting two countries to be very different, albeit intertwined, is an important task for the United States. Both Japan and South Korea host tens of thousands of American troops. The two U.S. allies play a central role, but they must coexist alongside some of Washington’s challenging foreign policy issues that include China, North Korea and Russia.

“We are working to strengthen America’s relations with our allies, as well as relations between them,” Sung Kim, acting secretary of state for East Asia, said last week. “And none is more important than Japan and the Republic of Korea.”

Biden, despite running for president last year, wrote an editorial for South Korea’s semi-official news agency praising the two countries’ alliance. After taking office in January, Mr. Biden’s administration organized a three-way meeting with Seoul and Tokyo to discuss North Korea. In recent weeks, the United States has agreed military cost-sharing agreements with South Korea and Japan, moves that had been difficult under former President Donald Trump, who often attacked the two allies for not paying enough.

This week, Tokyo and Seoul have avoided publicly broadcasting their disputes between them. An adviser to the Seoul government said South Korea was not offended by the choice of the United States of Japan as the first stop on the trip.

“We accept that Japan is a stronger country than us,” the adviser said. “This is an international order, and that’s just the truth.”

But ties between Tokyo and Seoul remain grudges. The two are fighting a trade dispute that the World Trade Organization is reviewing. Tensions erupted after a series of South Korean court rulings uprooted the problems of forced labor from World War II to the present day.

The Japanese have refused to even talk to South Korea, officials and advisers from both countries say. Suga refused to meet with the South Korean ambassador leaving Tokyo earlier this year and has not yet met with the new ambassador.

On March 1, Moon repeated a proposal to Japan, offering to revive the talks to resolve their disagreements. So far, the gesture has gone unanswered in Japan.

The acronym of the two countries has created security problems. In 2019, Japan’s unexpected trade sanctions prompted South Korea to threaten to withdraw an intelligence-sharing pact that had been backed by the Obama administration and could help coordinate a response during a military crisis.

Over the decades, the United States has often found itself in the middle or in the cause of disputes between Japan and South Korea.

When then-President Barack Obama met with South Korean leader during his first term, the two leaders described their alliance as the “starting point” of Northeast Asia. The United States had described its alliance with Japan as the “cornerstone” of the region.

Then a former U.S. officer began receiving several calls from Japanese officials to ask if it was “more important than” the cornerstone “than” the cornerstone, “said Brad Glosserman, a senior adviser to the group. thoughts Pacific Forum, based in Hawaii, who had spoken to the officer.

“That’s proof of how silly this rivalry can be,” Glosserman said. The United States has not since changed the way it refers to each ally.

Last year, when Mr. Trump made an invitation to South Korea for the group meeting of the seven countries, Japanese officials stepped back. Suga, then the top spokesman for the Tokyo government, stressed the importance of maintaining the current G7 framework. An official at the South Korean presidential office accused Japan of shamelessness.

The only shortcoming has even included the sequencing of Mr Biden’s phone calls to world leaders after his inauguration in January. Following the tradition of American leaders, Suga connected first, while Moon received a call a week later.

But South Korean officials gave a positive result: they have noted in private that Moon’s exchange lasted two minutes longer than Suga’s.

– Alastair Gale contributed to this article.

Write to Andrew Jeong to [email protected]