(지난 호에 이어)

-Yoon does not care much about the falling Korean exports to China which is attributable to ROK's joining the American war camp preparing the war against China. The reason is that Japan will fill the trade vacuum left by South Korea.

2.2 Yoon's diplomacy with Biden

Yoon's diplomacy with Biden has resulted in the de fact trilateral military alliance. The joint statement said: "If one member country is attacked, it is considered as attack to all the three countries."  It means, in fact, the trilateral military alliance.

Moreover, the military alliance will be institutionalized. This means that even if the government changes in the countries, the alliance will be made to stay through every possible mean including, most likely, cyber manipulation of the election results and even covert operation to destroy government which tries to break the military alliance.

In the trilateral military alliance, the whole strategy of the alliance will be determined by Washington; Japanese army will have the task of the fild command; South Korean army will do all the dirty works.

The trilateral military alliance is more than welcome by Washington. It has been long time since Washington wanted the trilateral military alliance needed to preserve its global hegemony and to eliminate those countries which may challenge America's hegemony such as China and Russia.

True, Washington has the AUKUS and QUAD. But, the AUKUS is not strong enough. The UK is far away from Asia, Australia a small military power. The QUAD is not reliable, because India is not a sure military ally.

Therefore, Washington's is more than happy to have the ROK army in its war camp. Remember, the ROK army had, in 2021, 500,000 regular soldiers 3,100,000 reserves giving a powerful military might. ROK army is now the 6th most powerful army in the world in fire power. The Japanese military is the 8th most powerful military.

The country that gained most from the three summits is surely Washington. I am sure that the American pro-war community (APWC) is very happy, because the trilateral military alliance increases the probability of shooting Sino-American war. Therefore, the defence budget will rise substantially. It will make the APWC richer. But, this will reduce the resources needed to solve internal problems including the infrastructure decaying, widening income gap, street violence, the jobless, the homeless.

3. Impact of Yoon's diplomacy on South Korea

The impacts of Yoon's diplomacy may be grouped into two sets of impacts: economic impacts, and security impacts.

3.1 Economic Impacts

The economy of South Korea has been declining ever since Yoon Suk-yeol took over the power in 2022. The rate of GDP growth has been continuously downward adjustment and the 2023 projection is not far from 1.0% even lower than the Japanese GDP growth rate(2%). The slowing down of GDP growth is due to several factors: pro-PJCSK economic policy; pro-Japan economic policy and the weaponization of trade.

The Pro-PJCSK economic policy: Yoon's economic policy has been designed to maximize the wealth of the PJCSK at the expense of the income of the ordinary South Koreans. Yoon cut down corporate tax, increased subsidies to large corporations, cut subsidies to SMEs and cut down welfare expenditures. This has resulted in falling domestic demand inviting slower GDP growth.

The pro-Japan economic policy: The objective of Yoon's pro-Japan economic policy consists in making the ROK economy more dependent on the Japanese economy. To do this, Yoon has begun to discourage the domestic production of major high-value added intermediate materials needed for the production of high-tech goods including semi-conductors.

The weaponization of trade and investments: Under the system of military alliance, the trade becomes highly strategic and selective determined by Washington. ROK is no longer free in selecting trade partners and the choice trade goods.

Similarly, international investments become strategic and selective determined by Washington. The ROK companies are no longer free in selecting out-going and incoming investing countries and investing fields. The combination of the above three sets of policies can lead to the long-run stagnation of the South Korean economy.

3.2 Security Impacts

The security impact of the trilateral military alliance includes these impacts

-Rapid increase of the number of enemies and loss of ROK's international markets,

-The loss of credibility of South Korea's foreign relations,

-The increasing danger of the Korean War 2.0,

-The danger of forming the trilateral military alliance among North Korea, China and Russia,

-The increasing danger of Japan's holy war 2.0

Increasing number of enemies and loss of ROK's international markets: South Korea has no enemies so far. It is true that North Korea has been regarded as enemy by the PJCSK, but most of South Koreans regard North Koreans as brother and sisters. The PJCSK and the U.S consider North Korea as enemy either for the maintenance of power or weapon sales.

ROK's joining the trilateral military alliance has made all the American enemies and all the Japanese enemies South Korea enemies including of course China, Russia and North Korea, let alone American enemies in the Middle East, Africa and the South America. It is just horrible to imagine the impact of these enemies on ROK's trade. Remember this. In South Korea, the two-way trade represent as much as 100% of its GDP.

The Loss of credibility of South Korea's foreign relations: Under President Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), South Korea's foreign relations received credibility and respect throughout the world due to the fact that Washington's interference was relatively weak. President Moon had the courage and the wisdom to develop more autonomous foreign relations. But under the trilateral military alliance, Seoul's autonomous foreign relations become much more difficult.

<저작권자(c) Budongsancanada.com 부동산캐나다 한인뉴스, 무단 전재-재배포 금지 >