The incoming US administration of Donald Trump has been urged to formalise strategic consultations with South Korea and Japan concerning Taiwan, considered potentially the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia.
The request comes from the Institute for Future Strategy at Seoul National University, which regards such consultations as a way to ensure that South Korea would be included in discussions about Taiwan the US would hold with allies like Australia and Japan.
Such inclusion would also elevate trilateral cooperation among Washington, Seoul and Tokyo “into a structured mechanism for regional rule-setting and strategic dialogue”, the institute’s report, “Towards Co-Resilience”, found.
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The report called on Seoul and Washington to step up consolidation efforts in strategic industries like shipbuilding as well as in advanced artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies.
It also urged the US and South Korea to develop “a comprehensive road map” to manage the possibility of a two-front war involving the Taiwan Strait and the Korean peninsula.
“Establishing a Northeast Asian security consultative body ... would integrate discussions on Taiwan, the East China Sea and North Korea, providing a more cohesive regional strategy,” the report contended.
“Joint US-ROK crisis management systems should also be initiated to prepare for coordinated minilateral or multilateral responses to potential Taiwan contingencies.”
The report’s recommendations, if enacted, could mark a departure from long-term policy by Seoul, which has maintained a delicate balance in its relations with the US on security backing and China on economic issues and has been reluctant to commit itself in the event of a cross-strait crisis.
The report said it represented “independent and non-partisan voices”. The South Korean embassy in Washington didn’t reply to requests for comment.
The recommendations come as US partners ponder how best to deal with a returning administration that is likely to steer the US back toward the isolationism of Trump’s first term and away from US President Joe Biden’s extensive efforts at alliance-building.
“The return of the Trump administration raises questions about the sort of the long-term trajectory of American foreign policy, as opposed to some blip or exception to the rule,” Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said during a discussion of the report on Monday.
“We may now have a new normal that everyone needs to adjust to.”
According to the report, South Korea supports maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait; Seoul’s core interests regarding Taiwan remain to prevent a cross-strait war and a conflict between the US and China, or a broader Northeast Asian war.
Beijing regards Taiwan, a self-ruled island, as a rogue province, to be eventually united with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force and is committed by law to support Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.
However, the Beijing-Washington sabre-rattling and heightened tensions over the Taiwan Strait have left South Korea, now hosting approximately 28,500 US troops, to consider if it should adjust its strategy.
“It is a very difficult issue, so probably from ... a very highest level of consultation between two countries, now is the time to talk about that,” Chaesung Chun, one of the report’s authors, said on Monday.
Chun argued that such Seoul-Washington coordination would “deliver a message that South Korea still thinks that the status quo of cross-strait is very important”.
Speaking at the same event, Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London, warned that Seoul could face direct confrontations with Beijing if it sought further cooperation with Washington over Taiwan.
“I think they particularly calculated that the Japanese will be in it anyway, because so many US forces will be operating out of Japanese spaces. And they probably calculate that Australians will be on site. If they calculate you are on site too, the calculation becomes much, much bigger,” Tsang said.
In April 2023, China summoned South Korea’s top envoy in Beijing after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told Reuters that Taiwan “is not simply an issue between China and Taiwan, but like the issue of North Korea, it is a global issue”.
Four months later, after leaders of the US, Japan and South Korea had their first trilateral meeting at Camp David, Beijing expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” over what it called an attempt at “reviving the Cold War”.
More from South China Morning Post:
- New leaders in Asia, as well as the US, create questions as Donald Trump’s return looms
- How will Donald Trump handle Taiwan? Beijing sees hawkish signs as analysts are divided
- As Trump 2.0 looms, South Korea and China seek stability amid global turbulence
- South Korea’s Yoon tells China’s Xi cooperation needed on Russia and North Korea
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