A top Pentagon official yesterday praised South Korea as a model ally ready to take greater responsibility for its own security after a new US defense strategy signaled a reduction in US military support to deter North Korea from aggression.
After arriving in Seoul yesterday, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby held talks with South Korea’s foreign and defense ministers that he said were about advancing an alliance forged in the wake of the Korean War of the 1950s.
“The ROK is a model ally that has committed to meet the global standard of spending 3.5% of GDP on defense and take greater responsibility for its own defense in the context of our alliance,” Colby wrote on X, using the acronym for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
Photo: EPA
South Korean Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-back stressed during his meeting with Colby the importance of combined readiness posture to maintain peace and stability on the peninsula, Ahn’s office said.
South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun emphasized the need for continued close communication and cooperation with the US during an earlier meeting with Colby, his ministry said.
Colby’s visit comes after the US National Defense Strategy, released on Friday, urged South Korea to take the primary role in deterring North Korea as US President Donald Trump’s administration shifts focus to prioritize protecting the US homeland. Colby has a leading role in writing the strategy.
“South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited US support,” the document said. “This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating US force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”
Details of how the US might change its force posture are not yet clear. The Pentagon is expected to release an assessment soon of where and how the US stations its military forces around the world, known as the Global Posture Review.
South Korea has said it would raise annual defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP from 2.3 percent “as soon as possible.”
South Korea also sealed an agreement late last year with the US to build nuclear-powered submarines for the South Korean navy, although the details of the plan have yet to be worked out.
In his meeting with Colby, Cho said that cooperation on nuclear-powered submarines would boost Seoul’s deterrence capabilities and contribute to the alliance, a ministry statement said.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS