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US Marines take part in a joint military amphibious exercise with South Korean troops, wearing blue headbands on their helmets, in 2016. About 28,500 US troops are based in South Korea. Photo: Yonhap via AP

Will South Korea get dragged into a Taiwan conflict? Yoon demurs, but there’s 28,500 reasons it might

  • President Yoon Suk-yeol refused in an interview to be drawn on whether South Korea would help the US in the event of a conflict over Taiwan
  • Yet officials have acknowledged the 28,500 US troops stationed on the peninsula mean it could easily be dragged into a crisis – as could Japan
South Korea
Tensions over Taiwan have raised the thorny issue of whether US troops based in South Korea would be involved in any conflict, with American and South Korean officials acknowledging that the peninsula could easily be dragged into a crisis.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told CNN in an interview that his country was keen to work with the United States to “expand freedom”, but that in a conflict over Taiwan, North Korea would be more likely to stage a provocation and that the alliance should focus on that first.
North Korea has a mutual defence treaty with China and military analysts suggest it could coordinate with Beijing or take advantage of a crisis to pursue its own military goals.

02:46

Biden in UN speech slams China over nuclear arsenal, Xinjiang but says US ‘not seeking conflict’

Biden in UN speech slams China over nuclear arsenal, Xinjiang but says US ‘not seeking conflict’
Last week US President Joe Biden said US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, drawing an angry response from Beijing and raising the stakes for US allies that host American troops in the region.

China is South Korea’s largest economic partner, and Seoul could find itself on the literal front lines of any regional military conflict.

North Korea has backed China’s claims over Taiwan, and accused Washington of trying to build an “Asian Nato” that would import crises like the one in Ukraine to Asia.

Is the US setting up an ‘Asia-style Nato’? North Korea thinks so

Yoon has vowed to forge closer ties with the United States, which has had a mutual defence treaty with South Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean war and stations around 28,500 troops in the country.

But when asked in the interview with CNN, first aired on Sunday, whether South Korea will help the US if mainland China attacks Taiwan, Yoon did not directly answer.

Last week the commander of US Forces Korea (USFK), General Paul LaCamera, said it was prudent to plan for all possibilities.

“What begins in one region spreads very quickly within the region and around the world,” LaCamera told a seminar hosted by the Institute for Corean-American Studies (ICAS) on Tuesday.

South Korean children play on a Vietnamese tank that was captured by Korean troops during the Vietnam war in this 1997 file photo taken outside Seoul’s War Memorial museum. Photo: Reuters
South Korean troops fought alongside Americans in Vietnam and supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but questions of future involvement are up to South Korea alone, LaCamera said.

In response, South Korean vice-minister for defence Shin Beom-chul told broadcaster MBC that there had been no such discussions between Washington and Seoul.

“I can tell our citizens that we will ensure consultations would not move in a direction that undermines security on the Korean peninsula,” he said.

A USFK spokesman referred questions about its role in any regional conflict to the Indo-Pacific Command and the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond.

China solicits South Korea’s support amid rift with US over Taiwan

South Korea’s Ministry of Defence also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Privately, many South Korean military officials expect they could once again face off against China, with memories of Beijing’s intervention on the side of the North in the Korean war, said one former South Korean general.

“They absolutely do not trust China, it’s something they feel in their bones,” he said.

In his confirmation hearing last year, LaCamera said he would seek to integrate USFK into “operational plans supporting US interests and objectives in the region”.

The US forces that could contain or deter Chinese provocation are mostly in Japan
Park Cheol-kyun, former South Korean general and Defence Ministry policymaker

In 2006, amid Washington’s push to mobilise forces for the “war on terror”, Seoul agreed to “strategic flexibility” under which it would “understand”, but not necessarily support, the deployment of USFK units to other locations, as long as it is consulted, said Sungmin Cho, a professor at the Pentagon’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii.

“[It’s] still ambiguous,” he said. “This needs to be talked out between Seoul and Washington.”

Cho said North Korea could support China in a Taiwan conflict by launching an attack on South Korea, or simply use the conflict as a chance to push forward with its nuclear or missile development.

Taiwan tensions overshadow 50th anniversary of Sino-Japanese ties

USFK is heavily focused on land-based troops, which would be of limited use in a conflict that remains focused around the Taiwan Strait, said former General Park Cheol-kyun, who worked on international policy at South Korea’s Defence Ministry until May.

“You need the navy, air force, and intelligence assets, so most of the US forces that could contain or deter Chinese provocation are mostly in Japan,” he said, but added that the US-South Korea alliance can’t afford to ignore China’s role in the region.

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