South Korean Defense Officials Fret About Potential American Troop Withdrawals

SEOUL — With two days to go before a pivotal election for a new president, South Korea’s defense ministry is making a last-ditch pitch for Washington to stay the course on American military support.Almost completely ignored by Defense Secretary Hegseth at the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, South Korean officials pleaded their case with an American congressional delegation at the annual dialog, staged by Britain’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.The message, delivered by the South’s deputy defense minister, Cho Chang-rae, was, please do nothing to jeopardize the American-Korean alliance and do not withdraw any of America’s 28,500 troops from the South.South Korea’s plea assumed urgency in the aftermath of Mr. Hegseth’s remarks the previous day in which he warned of the “imminent” threat posed by China but said not a word about the Korean-American alliance.The message was even more pressing, from the viewpoint of the South’s embattled conservative government, considering the prospect of the election of the leftist candidate, Lee Jae-myung, as president on Tuesday. Mr. Lee has said he supports the alliance, but Koreans are far from certain he means it. Defense officials have not forgotten that he has referred to American troops in Korea as an “occupation” force and should be withdrawn.South Koreans are disturbed by persistent reports that President Trump may pull out several thousand American troops while demanding a steep increase in South Korea’s share of the costs of American forces and bases in the country, now $1.1 billion a year.South Korea’s biggest selling newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, described Mr. Cho’s separate sessions with Republicans and Democrats as “a call for Congress to support maintaining the current level of U.S. troops in Korea.” The fear, said the paper, is that “the Trump administration may adjust the number of U.S. troops in Korea to counter China” — and leave the South on its own against the North.Mr. Cho found a sympathetic audience among the visiting congress members — Senators Duckworth and Ricketts and Congressmen John Moolenaar, Brian Mast, and Greg Stanton. South Korea’s defense ministry said they “reaffirmed America’s defense commitment to Korea” and promised to “leverage all military capabilities to provide extended deterrence.”South Korean defense officials were hopeful the congress people would return to Washington with messages of South Korea’s concern, but Mr. Cho’s failure to obtain at least a brief meeting with Mr. Hegseth on the sidelines was a letdown — “a bit unfortunate,” as Yonhap quoted one government source as saying.Mr. Cho, left out of Mr. Hegseth’s talks with America’s other regional allies, managed to meet his counterparts from Japan and Australia in a trilateral session and also saw top defense officials from Canada, Poland, Singapore and the Philippines. Sale of military equipment made in Korea, which ranks tenths among global arms makers, was high on the agenda along with basic security.A team from China’s National Defense University also held one-on-one talks in the absence of China’s defense minister, Dong Jun. China’s foreign ministry denounced Hegseth’s warnings against China, which he said sought “hegemony” in the region.“In fact, the U.S. is the world’s true hegemonic power and the biggest factor undermining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” Beijing complained. The statement, adopting a term often used in the American press for describing tensions, accused America of “turning the region into a ‘powder keg.’”_____________Correction: this story has been updated to include the correct text for this story after an earlier version included the text of a different story.

South Korean Defense Officials Fret About Potential American Troop Withdrawals

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