U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in the capital of Seoul in the Republic of Korea (ROK) on Tuesday, or August 5, and held talks with ROK President Lee Myung Bak on the following day, or Wednesday with a joint statement published at the end of their talks. Though this is Bush's last trip to ROK during his presidency, "it has significance symbolically rather than substantially".
The ROK (South Korea)-U.S. alliance is the core of South Korea's foreign policy, and also one of the global strategic emphases the United States has placed in the Korea Peninsula and the Northeast Asia region. Since assuming his presidency in February, Lee Myung Bak made his first official visit to the U.S. in April 2008 and both sides upgraded their alliance into a 21st century strategic alliance.
In May, nevertheless, a major rift emerged in R0K-U.S. bilateral ties with the occurrence of the "U.S. beef import deal" that came to the fore in ROK in May. U.S. beef imports to ROK have been largely banned since 2003, when the first case of mad cow diseased was spotted in the U.S. In April 2007, the ROK government agreed to resume boneless U.S. beef imports, but it however announced later to ban U.S. beef imports again as bones were repeatedly discovered in the shipments to ROK. Thousands of people protested against U.S. beef imports in Seoul in May and June, and the protest against the U.S. beef sales was rapidly escalated into a socialist movement nationwide.
Moreover, "strange as it may seem" that in the recent ROK-Japan dispute over the Dokdo/ Takeshima islands (or islets), the initial decision by the US federal Board of Geographic Names was "to change Dokdo islets' listing from ROK (South Korea) into non-designated." This move of the U.S.' gave a head-on"stunning blow" to the South Koreans from their president and the rank- and-file alike, and further intensified the public fury in the ROK. With President Bush's ensuing efforts, the U.S. Board of Geographic names reversed its recent decision and resumed the original classification or description with the Dokdo islands.
To further patch up the rift caused by these events, President Bush and his ROK counterpart, Lee Myung Bak, once again underscored the importance of the US-ROK strategic alliance, and reached consensus on strengthening the bilateral strategic cooperation between the two countries, so as to lay the groundwork for the next US administration and the ROK to go on developing or expanding the alliance.
In order to settle the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been in frequent contact with the U.S. within the framework of Six-Party talks over recent years. Along with the progress the U.S. side having made in its policy of relations toward the DPRK, the bilateral ties have been getting increasingly "warmer".
By contrast, the ROK-DPRK relationship has indicated a deteriorating tendency after President Lee Myung Bak came to power half a year ago. In the minds of Lee and other top ROK leaders, the DPRK strategy to get on good terms with the U.S. and alienate the ROK has, to some extent, undermined the ROK-U.S. alliance. Public opinions in the ROK slammed the U.S. for improving its relations with the DPRK unilaterally and making concessions involving no principles to the detriment of both South Korea and the U.S.
Under such circumstances, U.S. President Bush unequivocally expressed the position in support of Lee Myung Bak's ideas on his policy toward the DPRK and proposal for resuming the North-South Dialogue. Meanwhile, the leaders of both nations decided to cooperate and coordinate closely on their policies towards the DPRK.
With regard to the DPRK nuclear issue, both sides have once again confirmed the ultimate goal to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and, within the framework of the Six-Party talks, they agree to get the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapon grogram, and to carry out and step up their cooperation for the implementation of the third-phase action as soon as possible.
What particularly deserves the mentioning here is, however, that the "human right issue" in the DPRK has been mentioned for the first time in the ROK-U.S. joint statement issued at the end of the talks between leaders of the two nations, and this could be a hidden danger for the future development of the DPRK-U.S. relations.
President Bush's fence-mending trip to ROK has achieved "a final satisfactory outcome" to both sides in bridging the ROK-U.S rift and reinforcing their alliance, acknowledge critics from South Korea. But on such complex, delicate issues as one relating to a "troop increase" to Afghanistan, both sides still attempt to avert it, and this precisely reflects the frailness of South Korean-American relations.
By People's Daily Online and its author is PD reporter Xu Baokang
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