China signs defence agreement with South Korea as US angers Seoul with demand for $5bn troop payment

[type93]

I’d rather watch South Korea get extorted to bankruptcy

 

[mike2000 is back]

The defence ministers of South Korea and China have agreed to develop their security ties to ensure stability in north-east Asia, the latest indication that Washington’s long-standing alliances in the region are fraying.

On the sidelines of regional security talks in Bangkok on Sunday, Jeong Kyeong-doo, the South Korean minister of defence, and his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, agreed to set up more military hotlines and to push ahead with a visit by Mr Jeong to China next year to “foster bilateral exchanges and cooperation in defence”, South Korea’s defence ministry said.

Seoul’s announcement coincided with growing resentment at the $5 billion (£3.9bn) annual fee that Washington is demanding to keep 28,500 US troops in South Korea.

That figure is a sharp increase from the $923 million that Seoul paid this year, which was an 8 per cent increase on the previous year.

An editorial in Monday’s edition of The Korea Times warned that the security alliance between the two countries “may fall apart due to Washington’s blatantly excessive demands”.

Mr Trump has previously threatened to withdraw US troops if his demands are not met, with the editorial accusing the president of regarding the Korea-US mutual defence treaty “as a property deal to make money”.

The vast majority of Koreans agree, with a recent survey by the Korea Institute for National Reunification showing that 96 per cent of people are opposed to Seoul paying more for the US military presence.

There is also irritation at the pressure that Washington is applying to the South to make Seoul sign an extension to a three-way agreement on sharing military information with the US and Japan.

The General Security of Military Information Agreement is due to expire at midnight on November 23 and South Korea insists that it will only agree to an extension if Japan cancels restrictions on exports of chemicals critical to the South’s microchip industry.

Japan is widely believed to have imposed the restrictions as the latest incident in its troubled relationship with South Korea, which includes the issue of compensation for labourers put to work during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The two nations' defence ministers held discussions with Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, at the weekend but hopes that a breakthrough might materialise came to nothing.

Just days before an agreement designed to protect the allies from North Korean belligerence runs out, Tokyo and Seoul merely reiterated their long-held positions.

The US demanded in July that Japan pay $8 billion a year to keep 54,000 US military personnel in the country, Foreign Policy reported late last week.

Tokyo currently contributes $2 billion a year to US military costs in Japan.

“This kind of demand, not only the exorbitant number, but the way it is being done, could trigger anti-Americanism”, Bruce Klinger, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank, told Foreign Policy.

“If you weaken alliances, and potentially decrease deterrence and US troop presence, that benefits North Korea, China and Russia, who see the potential for reduced US influence and support for our allies”.

Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, was more blunt in his assessment.

“It’s just extortion”, he told The Telegraph. “It’s little more than a mob boss going around and demanding protection money. The numbers that the US is demanding are politically impossible for Seoul and Tokyo to swallow and that is just fuelling resentment."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...agreement-south-korea-us-angers-seoul-demand/

No free lunch in this world. They don't expect the US to pay the majority of their own defence do they? I'm sure they wont be a match for nuclear armed Kim's Dynasty militaristic paranoid regime. Moreover, Kim treats his people like pigs ready for slaughter for his own gains, so Kim doesn't care about the life of his own people which his regimes considers as almost animals, so poor backward North Korea doesn't have much to lose in the event of a war. However the same cant be said about rich wealthy ultra developed South Korea(one of the most developed countries on earth) which is governed by a democratic freely elected government that cares about its people, as such they can't afford to go to war with the North and suffer the effects that entails(deaths of lots of their people). So it's normal that Seoul will keep seeking the help of the US who has been shown to be willing and able to fight wars in every corner around the globe.
So S.Korea has to contribute significantly for their protection. Can't expect to have your cake after eating it.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

No free lunch in this world. They don't expect the US to pay the majority of their own defence do they? I'm sure they wont be a match for nuclear armed Kim's Dynasty militaristic paranoid regime. Moreover, Kim treats his people like pigs ready for slaughter for his own gains, so Kim doesn't care about the life of his own people which his regimes considers as almost animals, so poor backward North Korea doesn't have much to lose in the event of a war. However the same cant be said about rich wealthy ultra developed South Korea(one of the most developed countries on earth) which is governed by a democratic freely elected government that cares about its people, as such they can't afford to go to war with the North and suffer the effects that entails(deaths of lots of their people). So it's normal that Seoul will keep seeking the help of the US who has been shown to be willing and able to fight wars in every corner around the globe.
So S.Korea has to contribute significantly for their protection. Can't expect to have your cake after eating it.

Well, you can keep extorting them and milking them to dry until they fully become bankrupt.

For the sake of survival, they will start to choose to stick with China.

Just like UK, the dearest blood brother of the US, believes that Huawei's 5G is indispensable for the country despite the continuous warnings from the US.

South Korea is much closer to China than to the US, why you are so confident that they will always remain loyal to the US even if when the US wanna devour them alive?

 

[riscol]

You know how America is, pointing its gun to Japan and South Korea's heads demanding to pay up. Is that how allies are supposed to be treated? It's more like telling the subordinates to pay as you do not have a choice. Here in Europe we have seen this kind of behavior too by demanding Europeans to contribute more to NATO.