Biden-Suga summit leaves Moon with few options

[soryang]

Seoul’s “strategic ambiguity” to be tested amid Washington’s ramped-up efforts to form a unified front on a more assertive China
By Lee Ji-yoon Apr 20 Korea Herald

...Biden, three months into his term, has invested heavily in rebuilding ties with Japan and South Korea amid the growing influence of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Tokyo and Seoul were the first destinations of his administration’s highest-level foreign travel in March. With Suga and Moon becoming the first foreign leaders to meet Biden in person, the summit talks are considered the culmination of a flurry of diplomacy over the past months.

But South Korea has walked a fine line to avoid being drawn into the escalating US-China rivalry, while Japan has explicitly backed the US policy of challenging a more assertive China.

For Seoul, Beijing is more than just its biggest trading partner. South Korea has used its ties with China as leverage to engage with a defiant North Korea and put an end to its nuclear ambitions -- Moon’s signature policy goals...

more:

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210420000885

The conservative Herald article concludes "time is running out for Moon..." This is the consistent theme of the conservative dominated press in South Korea and the US media for that matter. The democratic party in South Korea, Moon's party, has a filibuster proof majority in the 21st National Assembly, which will be in office for the next three years. Even with a conservative president, next year, South Korean policies toward China are unlikely to change much. If they do, it will be to the great detriment of the South Korean economy. Japan gets the benefit of pretending it is being dragged along into anti-China policies by the US. The fact is they are the authors of the strategy. Their compartmentalization of trade from their diplomatic and military policies has a limited shelf life.