Joe Biden is now in Japan, the second leg of the U.S. president's inaugural mission to Asia after wrapping up a three-day visit to South Korea, in a rare departure from a decades-long tradition of diplomatic arrangement.
After holding bilateral talks with Biden on Saturday, Yoon Suk-yeol, the new president of South Korea, announced that Seoul would join the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework" (IPEF), an economic extension and supplement to Washington's anti-China "Indo-Pacific Strategy."
In defending the decision, Yoon on Monday said it was only natural for South Korea to join the framework that aims to set the rules for economics and trade in the region, according to Yonhap news agency.
"If we exclude ourselves from the rule-setting process, it will cause a great deal of harm to the national interest," he said.
Has the new South Korean administration seemed to join the U.S.'s China-containment strategy? With new commitment to the United States, is South Korea changing its China policy?
Biden's wooing
The U.S. president's visit across the Pacific to meet with Yoon, who was sworn in as South Korea's president just 10 days ago, showcases how much Washington values the relationship.
At a semiconductor complex of Samsung Electronics outside Seoul for his first stop, Biden hailed the company that makes "the most advanced semiconductor chips in the world" as "a wonder of innovation and design, precision and manufacturing."
During the visit to the plant, a gesture widely regarded as highlighting the U.S.-led semiconductor alliance excluding China, Biden urged countries that "share our values" to work together to "bolster our supply chain resilience."
He claimed that "the alliance between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States of America is a linchpin of peace, stability, and prosperity for the region and the world that we seek." The ROK is South Korea's official name.
Speaking to reporters after the tour, Biden also urged Congress to quickly pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act, a bill seen as aiming at improving U.S. "competitiveness" against China.
Throughout his presidential campaign and since his election, Yoon has signaled that he is willing to meet expectations of the U.S. side to play a larger role in its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" that is interpreted as effectively countering China's rise.
In an April interview with the Wall Street Journal, Yoon said he would "positively review" South Korea's joining of the U.S.-led geopolitical bloc of QUAD which also involves Japan, India and Australia, if invited, sparking concerns that his administration seems to stand on the U.S. side.
Biden welcomed Yoon's interest in the QUAD, according to a joint statement issued after the two leaders' summit on Saturday. However, one of his accompanying officials of the visit told Reuters on Monday that it is "not currently under consideration to add South Korea to QUAD."
South Korean elites and the general public are deeply ambivalent and internally divided on the question of containing China, according to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
"It will be worrisome if the Yoon administration unilaterally prioritizes U.S.–ROK cooperation and disregards ROK-China relations," said Jaewoo Choo, a foreign policy adviser.
"Taking a clear anti-China path will be a huge blow to our country. The degree of damage will not be something that can just be managed with U.S.-ROK cooperation," he warned.
Citing a 2021 survey, the think tank said that nearly 90 percent of South Koreans do not see China as an adversary.
Economic card: IPEF
The big strategic game in Asia isn't military, but economic, as Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, has famously argued in the Foreign Policy magazine.
In what Washington calls a response to demand for more U.S. economic engagement in the region, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) was first unveiled in October 2021.
Before Biden embarks on his journey, his officials have made it clear the big thing he wants to sell to the region is the IPEF. The U.S. president is expected to officially announce the initiative on Monday in Japan.
The U.S. claims that the economic proposal is aimed at setting common regional standards for trade, supply chain resilience, clean energy, digital economy, technology and other sectors. Yet the IPEF is widely regarded as Washington's another attempt to rival with China by excluding it from the global supply chain.
"It is kind of building a wall on the global supply chain," Xue Chen, a research fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told CGTN.
Calling its nature "exclusive," he also questioned its effectiveness, since the IPEF would further disturb the already troubled global supply chain.
Sangman Lee, director of the China Center of the Institute of Extreme East Studies at Kyungnam University of South Korea, said the U.S. is promoting the IPEF as part of its economic blockade strategy against China.
South Korea's participation will be a bad signal for its relations with China, Lee wrote on Global China, a think tank.
Given the size of South Korea's trade with China, the move will be the first test for the Yoon administration, he said.
China is South Korea's largest trading partner. Over a quarter of South Korea's trade in 2021 was with China, more than its trade with the United States and Japan combined.
During the first day of Biden's visit, Yoon watered down any potential conflict with South Korea's economic ties with China by joining the IPEF framework.
"There is no need to see it as a zero-sum," he said.
(Cover: South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (R) and U.S. President Joe Biden interact during a visit to a Samsung semiconductor factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, May 20, 2022. /CFP)