Skip to main content

North Korea is a pretext for U.S. to train forces for preemptive strategy against China

By Dae-Han Song* 

July 27 marked the 70th anniversary of the 1953 ceasefire to the Korean War. In the three years leading up to the anniversary, South Korean peace movements organized the international Korea Peace Appeal campaign to replace the armistice agreement with a peace treaty to conclude the 70-plus-year Korean War. The anniversary has come and gone, but, instead of peace, the Joe Biden, Yoon Suk Yeol, and Fumio Kishida administrations are stoking tensions in the Korean Peninsula as a smokescreen to build a NATO-level U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral alliance against China.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has played his supporting role well. By sidestepping long-standing claims for historical accountability of Japanese colonialism, Yoon has cleared the way for an alliance between the United States’ two key allies in the region: its “cornerstone”—Japan—and its “linchpin”—South Korea. His diplomatic concessions are key in overcoming the United States’ roughshod postwar San Francisco system—in the aftermath of Japan’s defeat, the United States sacrificed justice for the victims of Japanese colonialism in order to wage the Cold War. To shield the trilateral alliance from future democratic pressures, Biden, Yoon, and Kishida announced the “Spirit of Camp David” on August 18 at Camp David, which institutionalized annual trilateral summits, meetings, and consultations that could survive changes in administration.
During an August 28 interview, Francis Daehoon Lee elaborates on the trilateral alliance and the state of South Korea’s peace movement. A longtime peace activist and veteran of Korea’s democratization movement, Lee was a founder of People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy; is a professor of peace studies at Sungkonghoe University; and is the director of Peacemomo, a research institute for peace and education.

Nuclear Deterrence

Lee points out that—in contrast to the Park Geun-hye administration that first proposed it 10 years ago—extended deterrence (including U.S. nuclear weapons) has, under Yoon, taken a “preemptive nature.” Furthermore, North Korea is simply “a pretext for the U.S. to prepare, exercise, and train its forces for a preemptive strategy in northeast Asia” against China. In contrast, China has been consistently unwilling to “use military force to change the international order.” Lee is quick to elaborate that “for China, Taiwan is not an international issue; it’s a domestic one.” To Lee, China has consistently built its influence through economic relationships. His understanding is buttressed by Beijing’s commitment in its Global Security Initiative to upholding “indivisible security,” in which the security of one party is indivisibly connected to the security of the other party.

A Linchpin? Cornerstone?

In U.S. military documents about the region, the terms “linchpin” and “cornerstone” are constantly thrown about to describe South Korea and Japan, respectively. Yet, what exactly does it mean to be the linchpin or the cornerstone? How do both relate to each other?
Lee starts by explaining how Japan’s economy and its nuclear warfare and long-range weapons technology give it greater strategic value. This makes it the “cornerstone” upon which U.S. regional security is built. In contrast, South Korea’s “mostly short-range land-based military resources” make it useful “in the way that Ukraine’s forces are useful: they can fight to the end on the ground, they can consume their own people and resources.”
After all, despite all the U.S. attacks on China, there exist “brakes” to the ratcheting up of tensions and conflict: During the Trump era, the United States became a divided society; “bipartisan politics is unable to win people over,” Lee says. This makes economic stability vitally important. While Trump and Biden “decided on weakening China instead of coexisting with it,” economic instability puts the brakes on the United States destroying the “economic ties with China,” he says. Lee notes how despite U.S. “decoupling,” trade between both countries increased while China’s trade with other countries decreased.
He likens the U.S. stance on South Korea to its stance on Ukraine. Western countries want Ukraine to fight for its territory, to win the war. Yet, even as they supply the war globally, they, ultimately, want the fighting “localized.” “What if a similar plan is now in place for northeast Asia? Then, the best option is not American forces fighting Chinese forces. In addition, Japanese forces are not apt for actual fighting. They are trained as supply and global operation networks, and defense forces. So who has the actual fighting force?” South Korea, the U.S.’s regional linchpin.

Preventing War in Northeast Asia

Building a peace movement in South Korea against the escalation of the new cold war requires understanding Korea’s current peace movements. I ask Lee what he thinks about the Korea Peace Appeal campaign, and what tasks are ahead for the social movements.
Having participated in the campaign, Lee provides insights and critiques. The purpose of the Korea Peace Appeal was to “bring the world’s attention [to the fact] that we Koreans want peace.” The argument “was a middle common ground between the right and left within the peace movement.” As the campaign attempted to find “a middle ground and to approach the larger public, it inevitably became simple,” and “too Korea-focused.”
This stands in contrast to Lee’s regional framework for peace. Peacemomo proposes an “Early Warning on the Danger of Armed Conflict in Northeast Asia,” in an eponymous report. Such an early warning system is based on understanding northeast Asia as a war theater, in which one party’s actions trigger a chain of actions and reactions, inching us toward war. The “early warning,” according to Lee, calls on civil society organizations in the region to watch out for and alert their respective public about the signs and developments toward war: Japan’s plan “to double its defense budget” within five years and “possess counterattack capability”; South Korea and the U.S.’s joint air exercise carrying out “decapitation operation training” against North Korea; and North Korea’s ominous statement that “if the command center is in danger, an automatic and immediate nuclear strike will be carried out,” says Lee.
Ultimately, a peace treaty in Korea is not possible without peace in the region. To achieve that, social movements will have to call for disarmament and a shifting of resources from war toward people’s well-being.
---
This article was produced by Globetrotter. Dae-Han Song is in charge of the networking team at the International Strategy Center and is a part of the No Cold War collective. Source: Globetrotter

Comments

TRENDING

Andhra team joins Gandhians to protest against 'bulldozer action' in Varanasi

By Rosamma Thomas*  November 1 marked the 52nd day of the 100-day relay fast at the satyagraha site of Rajghat in Varanasi, seeking the restoration of the 12 acres of land to the Sarva Seva Sangh, the Gandhian organization that was evicted from the banks of the river. Twelve buildings were demolished as the site was abruptly taken over by the government after “bulldozer” action in August 2023, even as the matter was pending in court.  

Right-arm fast bowler who helped West Indies shape arguably greatest Test team in cricket history

By Harsh Thakor*  Malcolm Marshall redefined what it meant to be a right-arm fast bowler, challenging the traditional laws of biomechanics with his unique skill. As we remember his 25th death anniversary on November 4th, we reflect on the legacy he left behind after his untimely death from colon cancer. For a significant part of his career, Marshall was considered one of the fastest and most formidable bowlers in the world, helping to shape the West Indies into arguably the greatest Test team in cricket history.

Outreach programme in medical education: Band-aids for compound fractures

By Amitav Banerjee, MD*  Recently, the National Medical Commission (NMC) of India, introduced two curricular changes in medical education, both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate levels, ostensibly to offer opportunities for quality medical education and to improve health care accessibility among the underserved rural and urban population.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Will Left victory in Sri Lanka deliver economic sovereignty plan, go beyond 'tired' IMF agenda?

By Atul Chandra, Vijay Prashad*  On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential election. Dissanayake, who has been the leader of the left-wing JVP since 2014, defeated 37 other candidates, including the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) and his closest challenger Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. 

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah  The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Will Bangladesh go Egypt way, where military ruler is in power for a decade?

By Vijay Prashad*  The day after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka, I was on the phone with a friend who had spent some time on the streets that day. He told me about the atmosphere in Dhaka, how people with little previous political experience had joined in the large protests alongside the students—who seemed to be leading the agitation. I asked him about the political infrastructure of the students and about their political orientation. He said that the protests seemed well-organized and that the students had escalated their demands from an end to certain quotas for government jobs to an end to the government of Sheikh Hasina. Even hours before she left the country, it did not seem that this would be the outcome.

Are Kashmir's porous borders turning region into 'convenient entry point' for drugs flowing into India?

By Raqif Makhdoomi*  Drug addiction has become a serious problem, affecting not only Kashmir but communities worldwide. In the shadowy world of drug trafficking, vast networks and powerful organizations play pivotal roles. These criminal enterprises, often bolstered by influential backers, operate with impunity, profiting from human suffering. For those able to evade law enforcement, drug trafficking can lead to staggering wealth; even at a local level, small-time peddlers can earn substantial sums. Despite international efforts to curb this menace, the drug syndicate is highly complex, eluding even the most determined governmental crackdowns due to its global reach and the powerful networks that support it.

How Hindu festivals are being 'misused' to incite violence and hatred

By Ram Puniyani*  Communal violence has long plagued Indian society, intensifying over the past decades. In pre-colonial times, such conflicts were rare and mostly ethnic, but under British rule, communal violence took root as a more frequent occurrence. The British promoted a divisive view of history, interpreting events through the religious identities of rulers, which fueled the rise of communal ideologies in both Hindu and Muslim communities. These narratives fostered a "social common sense" that exploited religion to incite conflict. Over the last 30 years, scholars, journalists, and researchers have worked to understand how communal groups have found new ways to instigate violence, particularly targeting the majority Hindu community.