Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul both acknowledged challenges to their country's democracy on Monday, saying the alliance between the two countries remains strong despite ongoing political turmoil. he claimed.
“Our relationship is bigger than any leader, any government, any political party,” Blinken said at a news conference with Cho, hinting at a change in leadership between the two countries. The incident in South Korea, where the president was impeached after declaring martial law, shocked the world and continues to this day.
“What we've seen in our own country, and what we've seen in other democracies facing challenges, is that there is an open and transparent response, and there is no pretending that the problem or challenge doesn't exist. “It's not about confronting them, it's about confronting them directly,” Blinken added.
Blinken said Russia intends to help North Korea by sharing space and satellite technology with the country and may also accept a nuclear weapons program, a shift in decades-long policy. Mr. Blinken first spoke publicly last year about the possibility of Moscow sharing technology.
In the final days before President-elect Donald J. are forced into a difficult position. Appointed for second term. Mr. Yun, who was impeached by Congress on December 14 after the sudden declaration of martial law, barricaded himself in the hillside compound with the Presidential Guard and resisted police attempts to respond by issuing a detention warrant. are.
Blinken said the United States had “grave concerns” about Yoon's actions last month and had conveyed that to the South Korean government.
Cho said his country's democratic guardrails were in place and that “the international community is focused on resilience, and that is the right way to evaluate our society.”
Blinken said it was his fourth visit to South Korea and 21st visit to the Indo-Pacific region as secretary of state, and his last diplomatic mission as secretary of state. He and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III traveled to South Korea and Japan for joint talks in 2021, their first overseas trip as Cabinet members.
Blinken is on a marathon trip around the world. They will meet in Japan on Tuesday, France on Wednesday, Italy on Thursday, and are scheduled to mingle with Biden in Rome on Saturday before visiting Pope Francis at the Vatican. Blinken met with the Pope in November.
Mr. Biden, his aides, and the U.S. intelligence community were blindsided by Mr. Yun's anti-democratic power grab. This was an embarrassment for Biden. The US president has hailed Yun as a champion of democracy and selected him to host one of his pet projects, the Democracy Summit, an initiative aimed at promoting the strength of democracy worldwide. I chose Korea. In March, Yun presided over the third meeting in Seoul.
Biden congratulated Yun at a state dinner in Washington in April 2023, where the tuxedo-clad Yun sang “American Pie” to an enthusiastic audience. South Korea, along with Japan, is a decades-long US ally in East Asia, and strengthening these military alliances is a key part of Mr. Biden's strategy to rein in China. In August 2023, Mr. Biden welcomed Mr. Yin and then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Camp David and announced a new security agreement between the three countries.
The U.S.-South Korea alliance also has the purpose of deterring North Korea, and Mr. Biden relies on South Korea to supply shells to Ukraine's military against a full-scale Russian invasion. The shells will be sent to Ukraine through the US military.
The Biden administration expressed concern when Yin declared martial law on Dec. 3, but Yin's actions resonated with Trump's efforts to maintain power after Biden's 2020 election victory. Despite this, he refrained from criticizing.
Indeed, Mr. Yun's supporters, who gather daily on the streets near his compound, are directly adopting Mr. Trump's strategy. They held signs that read “Stop the Steal” in English, a clear appeal to Trump for help. and chant slogans at the rally. On Sunday, as Mr. Blinken flew to Seoul, pro-democracy demonstrators calling for Mr. Yoon's ouster huddled in fresh snow near the compound, and his supporters staged a counter-demonstration. Hundreds of police officers in neon yellow jackets stood guard.
On Monday morning, Blinken left a hotel several blocks away from the protests and headed to the presidential palace, where he met with Acting President Choi Sang-mok, who is also vice prime minister and finance minister. Afterwards, I had lunch with Foreign Minister Cho. Both South Korean officials are career bureaucrats appointed by Yoon.
After his press conference with Cho, Blinken heard from the other side of the political divide. He went to the National Assembly Building, where he met with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik, an opposition lawmaker. According to prosecutors, Mr. Woo was on a list of political enemies that Mr. Yun wanted to detain after martial law was imposed.
Yun's suspension leaves South Korea without an elected government leader and a difficult time for diplomacy as it faces a number of external uncertainties, including Trump's skepticism about U.S. alliances and North Korea's growing nuclear hostility. Added uncertainty.
Amid the country's continued political turmoil, both the acting president and progressive opposition parties remain steadfast in their alliance with Washington. But Mr. Blinken has had to tread carefully on both sides of the political battle here.
Yun has been more enthusiastic about the U.S. alliance than any other South Korean leader in recent decades. This pleased both Biden and Yun's right-wing supporters.
But he has long suffered from dismal approval ratings. His efforts to improve relations with Japan were praised by the US government as a bold move that made the trilateral partnership possible, but were not well received by most South Koreans.
The government sent police and prosecutors to the homes and offices of unfriendly journalists whom he accused of spreading “fake news.” He has used his presidential powers to veto a series of opposition-led bills investigating allegations of corruption and abuse involving him, his office and his wife. Meanwhile, opposition parties used their parliamentary majority to disrupt Yun's budget plans and impeach officials and prosecutors seen as Yun's allies.
If the Constitutional Court approves his impeachment in the coming months, he will be formally removed from office. He also faces another criminal investigation. Prosecutors allege he committed the riot when he sent troops to Congress to prevent the passage of martial law and detain political opponents.
Over the weekend, Yun's bodyguards erected a barricade of buses and bellows-like wire coils around the presidential palace to prevent criminal investigators and police from entering the compound to execute a court-issued detention warrant for Yun. did. Investigators said Friday's first attempt was unsuccessful and they would not have tried again while Mr. Blinken was in Seoul. The Secretary of State departed early Monday evening, and Seoul residents braced for the possibility of another police raid.
