South Korean president reaffirms U.S.-South Korea alliance during visit

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) — President Park Geun-hye eased concerns in Washington of any shortcomings in the U.S.-South Korea alliance on Wednesday when she told an audience of top U.S. officials the U.S.-South Korea alliance is a linchpin of the United States’ “Pivot to Asia.”

The South Korean president is to meet with President Obama at the White House on Friday, and was feted on Wednesday evening at a state dinner held in her honor, Yonhap reported.

Park’s visit had been postponed in early June due to the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea, and in September Park had joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Sept. 3 Victory Day parade in Beijing.

Park’s overture to Asia’s largest economy, according to Victor Cha, chief Korea analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, had been a cause for concern among U.S. officials who worried Park was steering South Korea toward closer relations with China, while moving away from the existing alliance with Japan and the United States.

Those concerns did not surface at the Wednesday function, where Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a speech that underscored the commonality between the two countries.

“Our alliance cannot be explained simply by the alignment of security and material interests – although, obviously, that helps – but is based much more on the discovery long ago and repeated over and over again that when Americans and Koreans get together, good things happen,” Kerry said.

Park said in her speech South Korea is a key partner to the United States’ rebalancing toward Asia and the bonds of friendship “cannot be shaken by any wind.”

In his analysis for CSIS, Cha wrote Park might not be gravitating toward Xi, but instead engaging in a new kind of diplomacy. In September Park had managed to procure an agreement with Xi to stand together in their opposition to North Korea’s nuclear program.

“What we may actually be witnessing is Diplomacy 2.0: a nuanced, three-dimensional foreign policy strategy by Park, designed to alter Chinese strategic thinking, engage U.S. interests and ultimately build Northeast Asian cooperation,” Cha wrote.