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As the US and South Korea play hardball on defence, will China emerge the winner?
- Tensions in the US-Korea relationship have flared over rumours of a troop drawdown and mixed messages from Washington
- This has raised questions about whether Seoul will go looking for security and defence support from other sources, including Beijing
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
When South Korea’s Chosun newspaper reported this week that the Trump administration planned to slash US troop numbers on the Korean peninsula if its long-standing ally did not cover far more of the cost, officials in Washington and Seoul scrambled to correct the record.
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The Pentagon insisted on Thursday that there was “absolutely no truth” to claims that President Donald Trump could cut 3,000 to 4,000 troops if Seoul did not agree to pay up, and demanded an immediate retraction from the newspaper.
The defence ministry in Seoul stressed that the report, based on an unnamed diplomatic source in Washington, was not the official position of the US government, which keeps military forces in South Korea to deter aggression by Pyongyang.
But the episode served to accentuate deepening fissures in an alliance described as “forged in blood” during the Korean war, throwing into doubt a partnership that has been a linchpin of the regional security status quo.
It has raised questions about whether Seoul could go looking for security and defence support from other sources, including Beijing.
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Seoul’s last-minute decision on Friday to temporarily extend a military intelligence sharing pact with Japan – after a strong push by Washington to maintain cooperation between the allies amid a dispute over wartime history and trade – will come as a relief to the US.
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