Posted on 08/03/2022 3:45:37 AM PDT by FarCenter
No meetings planned between No. 3 US politician and South Korean president, foreign minister
By Kang Seung-woo
A visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to South Korea is likely to perplex Seoul further in the handling of its relations with China, which are already at an inflection point due to pending bilateral yet volatile issues.
Pelosi is widely expected to urge longtime ally South Korea to respond to the U.S.-led campaign against China's authoritarianism, according to diplomatic observers.
The U.S. house speaker, the third-highest official in the U.S. government, scheduled to arrive here, Wednesday, for a two-day trip following her visit to Taiwan.
Her visit to South Korea, the first time since 2015, comes as the United States has been seeking more coordination among its allies and partners to counter China, as evidenced by its proposal for Seoul to join the Chip 4 or Fab 4, an envisaged chip alliance with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. But the Chinese government has also pressured and persuaded Seoul against edging away from Beijing, its largest trading partner. The chip alliance is a platform apparently aimed at countering China's growing influence on global supply chains.
In addition, China has urged South Korea to uphold the previous administration's commitment to the "Three Nos" policy on the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment, which called for no additional THAAD missile battery deployments, no Korean integration into a U.S.-led regional missile defense system and no trilateral alliance with the U.S. and Japan.
"Amid the deepening U.S.-China rivalry, China has threatened military actions and it could invoke a U.S. response in kind, which would eventually affect South Korea, because of the South's alliance with the U.S.," said Kim Heung-kyu, the director of the U.S.-China Policy Institute at Ajou University.
"With Pelosi's visit to Taipei, the Chinese government could take retaliatory action against Taiwan, which would work to South Korea's advantage in the short term because South Korea and Taiwan compete in the semiconductor sector, but it would not necessarily be a good thing for us in the long run, so stable relations between the U.S. and China, and between Taiwan and China will be in the national interest here," Kim said.
The primary purpose Nancy Pelosi went to visit Asia on her junket was to engage in a little Kabuki theater, a sham “brave move” to cause the CCP and Chairman Xi to APPEAR to lose face. No hard and strong commitments wee made to anybody on the trip, but the undercurrent was to shore up the rather shaky position the Democrat Socialist party finds itself in. By this show of “independence” from mainland China, the Democrat Socialists become a little more “American”, enough so to sway the weak of conviction moderate middle.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris bring no such reassurances.
Yes, I was suspicious from the start. This is a staged even, all for the sake of appearances. Pelosi has no intention of alienating Communist China.
But they’ll love it in Lower Slobovia. To them, Nancy is a lovable, courageous, sweet ol’ lady.
Kamala better not go to Korea...her word salad would turn into kimchee.
An example of the Pelosi effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMJh20DYE30
Neither the foreign minister nor the president of South Korea will meet with Pelosi in deference to China’s concerns per NewsMax. What ingrates.
I guess that makes sense. Pelosi doesn't exactly have a plan or purpose, this is just a look at me lame duck taxpayer funded junket.
The Foreign Minister is at the ASEAN meeting, and the President is on vacation this week.
Well said.
I would do anything I could to get out of meeting with Pelosi.
She’s really not that important.
If she can force Biden to remove his lips from the CCP’s fanny, she will have performed a service.
While her lips are still firmly affixed to them?
Don’t be fooled by that Dog and Pony Show.
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