Asia’s future will be scripted with the fate of two trilaterals — and South Korea sits at the center of both. The first is the U.S.–Korea–Japan partnership (USKJ), the most explicit security alignment in East Asia. The second is the China–Korea–Japan (CKJ) partnership, a quieter but increasingly consequential alignment built on trade, supply chains, and monetary coordination.
It’s now in all the media. Lee Jae-myung will meet Donald Trump and Xi Jinping next week. Both are billed as state visits; only one will function as one. The first will be a circus, the second will be a summit. The difference could not be starker.
There is an inevitable fate that portends all small-to-mid-sized states adjacent to great powers—particularly those that (a) hold territory considered to be strategically relevant; (b) are heavily influenced by or controlled by a perceived opponent to the adjacent state; and (c) are heavily influenced by or controlled by a state in relative decline.
The rationale for withdrawal is no longer political fatigue or alliance friction, but geography, vulnerability, strategic cost, and maritime logic — a recognition that the defense of Korea has again become an expensive deviation from America’s natural strategic posture.
Washington’s build-up toward possible military action in Venezuela and Iran has attracted concern that the attacks are part of an irreversible decline. For its distant middle power partners, this raises a question: must middle powers fall when their patron does?
Just last month in New York, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met with Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, came at a delicate moment.
During the Biden Administration and now under the second Trump Administration, South Korea’s strategists have had their feet washed off the strategic sandbar and are caught in a rip.
Significance. The July 30 decision to impose punitive tariffs on Brazil—explicitly citing the criminal case against Jair Bolsonaro—establishes a precedent: the United States is willing to redefine legal accountability as a threat to its economic and strategic interests.
Lowly schmuck academics like yours truly, unfortunate enough to still be in Seoul at summertime are often invited by public officials to standard fare lunchtime sessions of questioning and soul-searching.
Now, with the election of President Lee Jae-myung, the country stands once again on the edge of a familiar cliff, peering down into another cycle of performative engagement.
