Roundtable: A Geopolitical Perspective on the Biden-Yoon Summit / 해외 진보학자들, 바이든-윤 정상회담 한반도 긴장 증대시켜

The May 21st summit between Joe Biden and South Korea’s hawkish new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, took place against the backdrop of escalating tensions in Northeast Asia. The meeting exemplified the extent to which Washington implements a binding strategy at South Korea’s expense. Since the US cannot impose a top-down global security architecture, it relies on a network of weaker ally states to maintain its hegemonic power. The “ally” states serve as force multipliers for the US, and are expected to “bear most of the human and economic cost” of the strategic posture mandated by Washington’s geopolitical priorities. The Biden-Yoon summit effectively reaffirmed South Korea’s commitment to continue subordinating its sovereignty as well as its national and economic security to Washington’s interests. Yoon agreed to expand scope and scale of US-ROK joint military exercises; subsume Seoul within a trilateral US-ROK-Japan trilateral alliance; and implement measures guaranteed to raise tensions with both China and North Korea. It confirmed that under the new right-wing Yoon administration, South Korea, which has historically maintained a patron-client relationship with the US, will deepen its client state status and allow itself to be thrust into the front lines of the new US-led Cold War against China: “Yoon is taking South Korea down a road that promises no benefit, only danger and economic pain”; “The US is escalating to war in Asia. South Korea is a key element of this escalation to war in Asia”.