US missile defense to pit Park, Obama

President Park Geun-hye may come under pressure to pledge support for a U.S.-led missile defense system (MDS) during President Barack Obama’s visit this month, according to observers.

This time, Park will find it harder to maintain an ambiguous position, they added.

“The U.S. will want South Korea to join its MD initiative,” Paik Hak-soon, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, said Thursday. “It remains to be seen whether she will promise to be part of the MD formula.”

The Sejong researcher said that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a large trade deal encompassing the region will be another big issue on the Park-Obama summit agenda.

Agreement in these areas will make their alliance even tighter both in economic and military terms.

There is one big problem ― China.

Seoul has been reluctant to join the MDS, although its military system is interoperable with the U.S., thanks to the decades-long military alliance, because China would see it as an act that hurts its interests.

China is Korea’s biggest trade partner and good relations are needed to keep its export-driven economy going.

Besides, Park has taken pains to strengthen relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping in joint efforts against Japan’s ultranationalist government.

To Seoul, the U.S. appears pandering to Japan as a strategy against China.

North Korea with its missile and nuclear weapons complicates Seoul’s approach to Washington and Beijing.

Japan has opted to purchase U.S. interceptors and joined the U.S.-led ballistic MD system.

South Korea has yet to make a decision on whether to follow Japan on this.

“What Obama wants most might be close cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo in order to counter the rising power of China. However, the soured relationship between the two countries will make such collaboration difficult,” said Shin In-kyun, chief of the Korea Defense Network.

“In addition, South Korea has to care about China too. Against this backdrop, Obama might raise vocal objections about North Korean nuclear issues to bring Seoul and Tokyo together.”

This is not the first time that Park’s diplomatic skills have been put to the test amid an intensifying regional hegemony fight as Beijing’s influence continues to rise in Northeast Asia and Washington strives to check this.

In response to the U.S. pivot to Asia policy, China unilaterally announced its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) last year to overlap with those of Japan and South Korea, according to an existing identification zone drawn by the U.S.

Seoul is likely to find the TPP issue easier to deal with than the MDS. Korea has already declared its intention to join.

The TPP is geared toward tackling not only tariffs but also non-tariff barriers to trade.

Spearheaded by the U.S., more than 10 countries in the Asia and Pacific region, which generate 40 percent of the global economy, are negotiating the pact. By Kim Tae-gyu The korea times