Yoon Suk-yeol has hesitated to back America’s military support for Ukraine. And he has largely spurned its trade and technology campaign against China. He can expect a less fulsome welcome to the Oval Office than he would like
entered office last May with an ambitious vision for his country’s place in the world. He promised to make South Korea an assertive champion of freedom and human rights “not just for ourselves but also for others”. He spoke of the country as a “global pivotal state”, pushing liberal values in developing and developed countries alike. Such rhetoric was unusual in a country that had traditionally considered itself a shrimp trapped between whales. by bigging up its Asian allies.
Yet Mr Yoon’s reluctance to show the global leadership that he promised is more striking. South Korea, Asia’s second-biggest arms exporter after China, has refused requests from America andto supply Ukraine with lethal weapons. It has also been far more loth than some other American allies to distance itself from China.
South Korean firms also find some of America’s recent efforts to isolate China, including legislation intended to push electric-vehicle and semiconductor companies away from China and towards America, profoundly irksome. Mr Yoon will complain to Mr Biden about the protectionist nature of such measures and the superpower’s failure to consult its Asian allies adequately before introducing them.
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