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.
U.S. alternative media is awash with stories on Israel and Gaza, Ukraine and Russia, and now Iran and Venezuela. There’s influence operations, assassinations, drug imports, illegal killings, imminent nuclear war, and the collapse of NATO, the E.U., the U.N, and even the U.S. But where’s the Korean Peninsula?
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.
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.
South Korean and American political conservatism may wear the same suits and speak the same buzzwords—freedom, security, tradition—but they are fundamentally different beasts.
For a long time, in America, patriotism meant support for Israel. In South Korea, patriotism meant support for America. Both are changing.
In the film Cool Hand Luke, there's a scene where a prison guard tells Luke he’s sorry for putting him in the box. Luke, bloodied and unbroken, replies: 'Saying sorry don’t make it right.' The moment cuts to the heart of power, communication, and the emptiness of regret when the system remains unchanged.
