An international security expert on Wednesday said that newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's rhetoric suggests his administration is more likely to pursue economic cooperation with Taiwan than a defense alliance.
Even before his election, Lee said that South Korea would keep its distance if a cross-strait conflict occurred during his term.
Lee is unlikely to commit to a defense partnership with Taiwan, international security expert Eun A Jo said.
Photo: CNA
She was speaking after the "Looking Forward: The Future of United States-Japan-Korea Trilateral Relations" conference held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Korea Foundation in Washington.
As a self-described "pragmatist and realist," Lee defines South Korea's interests differently from the strategic clarity pursued by former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, Jo said.
South Korea is more concerned about potential spillover effects in North Korea and how it might respond in the event of a cross-strait conflict, she said.
Given the threat from North Korea, South Korea might lack the capacity to join a coalition in a Taiwan contingency, Jo said.
"I think these are kind of part of the issues that will end up becoming negotiated in a bundle with the Trump administration," she said. "So there could be a movement, but I don't see the current South Korean administration in particular being interested in any kind of explicit commitment to defend Taiwan during a contingency."
Regarding US President Donald Trump, Jo said the administration in Seoul appears to be considering making US forces in South Korea more "strategically flexible" to respond to potential conflicts beyond the Korean Peninsula.
On potential Taiwan-South Korea cooperation beyond defense, Jo said that both countries share interests in managing Trump's tariffs, regional economic integration and reducing economic dependence on China.
"That's a key shared interest between both South Korea and Taiwanese governments, and I'm sure they're all looking toward diversifying trade partners. So wherever synergies exist, it'll be in economic integration," she said.
Economic partnerships would likely focus on semiconductors, alongside traditional areas such as trade and investment, she added.
"Both are interested in reducing economic dependence on China and exposure to a sort of foreign economic coercion, and also facing a lot of potential hurdles with the Trump administration's ongoing tariff policy," Jo said. "So that's where I see a lot of potential synergy for cooperation."
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS