September 6, 2019

Report South Korea Wants to Break from US alliance!

Following Anonymous’s comments in Revolutionary Change in the US Alliance in Northeast Asia Coming of September 4, 2019 Anonymous has provided further comments below:

“As South Korea’s (SK) missile defense system depends on Japanese reconnaissance satellites, withdrawal by SK from the SK-Japan intelligence sharing General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) is nonsensical [1, 2] but is reasonably understandable in the context of elimination of US and SK alliance [3].


Surprisingly, SK will not have a reconnaissance satellite capable of detecting a North Korean (NK) missile launch until 2023. [This is noting THAAD’s long range radar for missile detection is part of a US (not) South Korean system]. Neglecting military common sense, SK asked Israel, France and Germany for rental of the reconnaissance satellite in 2017 (August or September), and they soon refused.


South Korea is playing into the hands of North Korea and its allies”


SK President Moon Jae-in made Trump lose his face by the GSOMIA withdrawal. But, SK’s GSOMIA withdrawal has not resulted in the elimination of the US and SK alliance, because the relationship between US and SK is already damaged. In fact, GSOMIA is not important in terms of defense. As SK leaks military information of US and Japan to NK, US and Japan do not communicate important information to SK. GSOMIA, therefore has only symbolic meaning of US-SK-Japan cooperation against China. With the disappearance of US and SK as common enemies of China and NK their is a movement in President Moon Jae-in’s  administration for the unification of SK and NK. A unified Korea will try to retain nuclear weapons.

SK President Moon Jae-in and his supporters believe the US and SK alliance is the biggest obstacle to unification of SK and NK, but if Moon Jae-in manifests the elimination of US and SK alliance, his government will definitely collapse by strong resistance of SK citizens and conservatives. If the US government manifests [opposes the breakup of the US-SK alliance] SK citizens and conservative politicians will give up their opposition to the alliance breakup. That’s why SK is purposely irritating the US. The main purpose of GSOMIA withdrawal is to calm NK leader Kim Jong-un, who is furious at the dishonesty of SK President Moon Jae-in.

For Trump the elimination of the US-SK alliance is an ace in his sleeve to have NK leader Kim Jong-un give up nuclear weapons. That’s why Trump hides his enthusiasm for the breakup. Trump believes US military forces in SK are a waste of money. Relations between the US and SK are very bad, but they are becoming calmer with the hope of a breakup of the US-SK alliance.

Attention should be paid to Moody's [stable] credit rating for SK, “because in the past US conducted financial sanction against SK when SK was against US.” [This is noting NK has not been assigned a credit rating by Moody’s or any other agency, presumably because NK is such a bad credit risk!]

Pete Comment

Much more corroborating evidence from many (especially US and South Korean) sources is required to support the above report's credibility.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Pete
Suzuoki’s reports are evidence-based, where information from US and Korea are usually referred. As there are so many evidences, it takes time to make comments. Comments based on evidence will be submitted to Submarine Matters.
Suzuoki [1] is a first -class journalist who won Japanese Pulitzer Prize, “Vaughn-Uyeda Memorial International Journalistic Prize [2] ” in 2002.
[1] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%88%B4%E7%BD%AE%E9%AB%98%E5%8F%B2
[2] https://www.chosakai.gr.jp/en/vaughn_uyeda/
Regards

Pete said...

Hi Anonymous

Once the American Secretary of State and Defense Secretary start talking about a breakup of the US alliance with South Korea - in Reuters, https://www.nytimes.com/ and https://www.washingtontimes.com (I'm geo-blocked from Washington Post) that will add to credibility.

Regards

Pete

Anonymous said...

Recently, two US diplomatic experts suggested possible elimination of South Korea from the alliance [4, 5].

[1] https://www.uscc.gov/Hearings/us-china-relations-2019-year-review
Hearing on U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS IN 2019: A YEAR IN REVIEW
[2] https://www.csis.org/people/michael-j-green
Dr. Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
[3] https://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=uscc&filename=uscc090419
[4] https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Panel%20II%20Green_Written%20Testimony.pdf
page5-6, “South Korea.”
In “Hearing on U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS IN 2019: A YEAR IN REVIEW ” on Sept/04/2019, Dr Michael Jonathan Green testified as follows [1-4].
(snip) Seoul has not given in to Chinese demands, but has been far more circumspect about the need to counter Chinese coercion than the Japanese and Australian governments have (Seoul took over a year to participate in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, for example, and South Korea ambassadors in Southeast Asia often steer clear of the like-minded coordination meetings of U.S, Japanese, Australian and European embassies). In part this is because of relatively higher Korean trade dependence on China, but Seoul’s reticence has also reflected a conviction in both the previous Park Geun-hye and current Moon Jae-in governments that Beijing will have a critical role in the process of unification. For its part, China supports what it calls “independent” unification – meaning that the peninsula must be independent of any foreign alliances. This runs in direct contradiction to the U.S., Japanese and South Korean positions that a unified peninsula will be more secure tethered to alliance with the United States. Nevertheless, Seoul continues to cling to the notion that improved relations with Beijing will be useful in managing the threat from North Korea. (snip)
[5] https://www.nknews.org/2019/08/what-south-koreas-termination-of-the-gsomia-means-for-north-korea-policy/ Aug/23/2019 Mintaro Oba (Former @StateDept diplomat specializing in the Koreas, now at West Wing Writers) To understand why official Washington is going to react so much more negatively to the collapse of GSOMIA than anything else in Korea-Japan relations, you need to know this: GSOMIA is the Holy Grail of the U.S. alliance system in Northeast Asia — the once-elusive, grand symbol of security cooperation that the United States spent years and years pursuing.(snip)

Pete said...

Hi Anonymous [at Sep 7, 2019, 3:06]

Yes certainly [4] and [5] that you quote above support my scepticism about NK and especially SK wanting to peacefully unite. This is where:

[4] says "China supports what it calls “independent” unification – meaning that the peninsula must be independent of any foreign alliances. This runs in direct contradiction to the U.S., Japanese and South Korean positions that a unified peninsula will be more secure tethered to alliance with the United States."

and

[5] "To understand why official Washington is going to react so much more negatively to the collapse of GSOMIA than anything else in Korea-Japan relations, you need to know this: GSOMIA is the Holy Grail of the U.S. alliance system in Northeast Asia — the once-elusive, grand symbol of security cooperation that the United States spent years and years pursuing."

As I said previously. I will believe the US supports a peaceful NK-SK union as possible or even desirable when statements by the US Secretary of State and US Secretary of Defense state that.

Regards

Pete