Source: wechat official account: Bu Yidao has been authorized to reprint
Pen / Sword smile & Dao Dao sister
Biden “shook hands without looking at each other”, and there was only 34 minutes of first face-to-face meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which lasted about 25 minutes of talks between the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea
These embarrassing scenes, which even South Korean Netizens feel, constitute a prominent mark of the South Korean President’s trip to the first NATO summit.
The extent to which Yin Xiyue can promote the improvement of South Korea Japan relations has also been greatly questioned: Japan has been cautious about holding longer talks, and even directly “slapped” the official announcement of the South Korean presidential palace. The trilateral leaders’ meeting between the United States, Japan and South Korea, which has attracted much attention in Washington, has also become an awkward conversation.
South Korea once again stressed today that Yin Xiyue’s attendance at the NATO summit “is not for exclusion or for specific countries or regions”. On the other hand, he talked about “value diplomacy” at the NATO summit and said that a new South Korea NATO partnership would be signed in the second half of the year.
South Korea, which should not have appeared at the Madrid summit of NATO, was so entangled and embarrassed that it really responded to the sentence: why so!
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Biden approached the venue and saw Yin Xiyue who had stood in a good position. Both sides reached out and shook hands. But when the South Korean president looked at Biden with a smile on his face, the American president’s eyes had been fixed on the Bulgarian President RADF next to him. After shaking hands with Yin Xiyue briefly, Biden immediately turned to shake hands with radph and put his hand on his shoulder.
On the 28th, the scene in the group photo session of the NATO summit dinner was sent back to South Korea, which immediately caused heated discussion.
Biden “shook hands without looking at each other” and made a short video on the Internet by South Korean opposition supporters. Biden “didn’t even look at it”, but Yin Xiyue showed his teeth and smiled at that time. Critics even said that it “brought humiliation” to the Korean people.
According to South Korean officials, Yonhap and other media, Yin Xiyue’s trip to Madrid is rich in content:
Bilateral talks were held with major European heads of state, EU leaders and the Secretary General of NATO to discuss cooperation in semiconductor, nuclear power, military industry and other fields; He also participated in multilateral meetings such as the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea, and the leaders of South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He also called on European countries to pay attention to the denuclearization of the peninsula and seek support for Busan’s bid to host the 2030 WorldExpo.
However, on the first day of the summit on the 28th, the trip of the South Korean President was shrouded in an embarrassing atmosphere.
The meeting between leaders of Japan and South Korea on the same day also ended with the same “effect”.
Also at the dinner held by the king of Spain for the participants of the NATO summit, Yin Xiyue held face-to-face talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. This is the first offline meeting between the leaders of South Korea and Japan since December 2019, but it lasted only threeorfour minutes.
It turned out afterwards that although the time was short, it was enough to cause a “diplomatic storm” between the two countries.
The South Korean presidential palace revealed on the morning of the 29th that this dialogue was initiated by Kishida. He said to Yin Xiyue, “I know you are working hard for Japan South Korea relations”, and also said that “let us work for the healthier development of bilateral relations”.
Unexpectedly, the Japanese retaliation came on the same day.
Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said the content released by the ROK was “quite different from the facts”. Kishida and Yin Xiyue “met in a natural way” at the dinner and said a brief hello. During the conversation, Kishida hoped that Yin Xiyue would “try his best to restore the extremely severe relationship between Japan and South Korea to a healthy state”, and the tone sounded different from the description of the South Korean presidential palace.
The Japanese Sankei Shimbun further reported that the Japanese government has no intention of holding talks between Japanese and South Korean leaders during the NATO summit. Although the South Korean regime has been handed over from Moon Jae-in, who has an “obvious Anti Japanese attitude”, and the South Korean side is looking forward to face-to-face talks between Japanese and South Korean leaders, Japan is still cautious.
Then, the leaders’ meeting of the United States, Japan and South Korea held on the 29th also fell into a similar atmosphere.
Coordinate the two allies of Japan and South Korea to ease relations and resume cooperation, including the military intelligence protection agreement, so as to provide a more favorable starting point for the United States to implement the “Indo Pacific strategy”. This meeting has long been intended by Washington.
With Biden’s help, the leaders of the three countries gathered on a table after a lapse of five years. But from the scene, Yin Xiyue and Kishida Wenxiong, who were sitting at the table, didn’t look at each other directly after the whole meeting.
In the press release after the meeting, the White House described the meeting as “a historic meeting”, saying that the leaders of the three countries discussed strengthening trilateral cooperation in the “Indo Pacific” region, especially the joint response to the Peninsula issue.
But in fact, such “important” talks lasted about 25 minutes in total. Even the Japanese and Korean media were surprised: the three people, in such a short time, can’t actually talk about anything specific
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I’m afraid the one who knows South Korea best is its northern neighbor, North Korea.
The online edition of the Korean National Daily quoted a signed comment by the Korean Central News Agency in a prominent position today. This article, entitled “the Asia Pacific is not the North Atlantic”, pointedly pointed out that South Korea’s appearance at the NATO Madrid summit was to voluntarily serve as the “sentinel” and “cannon fodder” of NATO’s “Oriental crusade”.
That’s a little heavy, but the reason is generally OK.
As mentioned before, Yin Xiyue’s smiling face on this trip to the door has become an embarrassing moment.
However, to be realistic, Yin Xiyue showed his “closeness” to NATO as he wished. Yin Xiyue said, “Madrid is the intersection of South Korea’s Indo Pacific strategy and global security and peace concept with the new strategic concept of NATO 2022.”
The South Korean government understands that it was because NATO regarded itself as a “core strategic partner in the future” that it was invited to Madrid. Seoul readily accepts this.
After South Korea officially joined the cooperative Cyber Defense Center of excellence under NATO in May, South Korea and NATO will sign a new South Korea NATO partnership in the second half of this year, that is, to establish a “strategic security cooperation relationship beyond military security cooperation”.
South Korea will also set up a representative office in Brussels to strengthen intelligence sharing with NATO.
In addition to the substantive promotion of relations, Yin Xiyue was also considered to have launched “values diplomacy” at the NATO summit.
Yin Xiyue did not forget to mention the “values alliance” in his speech at NATO, as well as in the South Korea US Japan, South Korea Japan Australia New Zealand and various bilateral talks. Yin Xiyue said in his NATO speech that “the stable cooperative relationship between NATO and India Pacific will become the basis for safeguarding universal values”.
Is the so-called “values” a little familiar and harsh.
During his trip to Asia, US President Biden has always said that his foreign policy is centered on uniting “partners with whom we share values” and jointly opposing governments that “do not share values with us”.
No one doubts that Biden’s words refer to China.
According to this logic, Yin Xiyue’s visit to Madrid this time more highlights the foreign policy tendency of “being pro american and far away from China”.
Of course, Seoul itself does not think so.
The spokesman of the South Korean foreign ministry also reiterated today that South Korea’s attendance at the NATO summit “is not for exclusion or for specific countries or regions”. However, the other half of this sentence is “to explore comprehensive cooperation programs with countries that share core values and norms”.
The president’s office of the Republic of Korea has made it clear before that “we are not in Madrid to discuss the issue of China and the Taiwan Strait”, and there is still a half sentence: “it is to discuss how South Korea, as a global hub, should play its role”.
I’m afraid Seoul needs to learn the idiom “hide one’s ears and steal a bell”: is it not aimed at China without mentioning the word “China”?
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What’s more, the South Korean government publicly declared in Madrid that “the era of achieving South Korean export economic prosperity through China has ended.”
It seems that Seoul has participated in the action of the United States and the West trying to suppress China.
Many South Korean media have also seen this.
For example, some media said that the Yin Xiyue government gave up the “tightrope diplomacy” to survive in the gap between the United States and China, and further shifted its focus to the South Korea US alliance, but this will increase the risk of diplomacy with China.
Some South Korean media said more bluntly: “South Korea and NATO jointly set foot on the ship against China and Russia”.
No matter how “clarified” South Korea is, many analysts do believe that since Yin Xiyue decided to participate in the NATO summit, this South Korean government has shown that it “fully accepts the Anti China line”.
This is a rather dangerous tendency.
Just like the force and reaction, “positive anti China will become anti South Korea rebound.”. If South Korea continues to send negative messages to China, it may become “anti South Korea” rebound to a certain extent, which will bring more losses than gains to South Korea’s security and economy.
South Korea must be vigilant against this kind of fire.
Seoul’s primary concern is the North Korean nuclear issue. Obviously, this will not be the main topic of the Madrid summit of NATO. The “all-out response to the North Korean nuclear issue” that South Korea hopes is not completely consistent with the “India Pacific strategy” actively promoted by the United States.
Therefore, no matter how “explained”, the appearance of South Korea at the NATO venue is a very negative trend. Taking part in this transatlantic military and political rally with a strong cold war color and strong hostility to China can only tie Seoul to the “Anti China war vehicle” concocted by NATO.
What will Seoul lose? It is not a difficult account.
Jin xiazhong, the former ambassador to China, said not long ago that it is necessary to explain to the Chinese side that strengthening the ROK US alliance does not mean isolating China, and the ROK China relationship is also one of the international relations that the ROK must develop.
In particular, don’t forget that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and China.