Nomination of hawkish envoy a tough signal
The plan to nominate hawkish Admiral Harry Harris as the US ambassador to South Korea shows that the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue is the priority of US Asia-Pacific strategy, Chinese experts say.
Using a hawkish figure with a military background is a tough signal that shows there is no going back from denuclearization.
US President Donald Trump plans to nominate Harris, the head of the US Pacific Command who was already nominated to be the next ambassador to Australia, to fill the long vacant ambassadorship to South Korea instead, US officials said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
“The nomination hasn’t yet been officially announced. The Trump administration might want to see the reaction from the public and its allies before making the nomination, but if the information is true it proves that the peninsula issue is a priority of the Trump adminis-
tration,” Diao Daming, a US studies expert and an associate professor at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.
Harris was nominated as the US representative in Canberra in February, and the Australian government had approved the choice. But late Monday, the Trump administration asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone his confirmation hearing, which had been scheduled for Tuesday morning, the Washington Post reported.
The Asia-Pacific region and the world have been keenly focused on the denuclearization of the peninsula in the run up to the summit between the two Koreas set for Friday.
A summit between North Korea and the US has been proposed for late May or June.
“An ambassador in South Korea is essential for the US to further push a political solution to the issue and realize denuclearization,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor at the Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies.
By nominating someone considered a hawkish figure with a military background, Trump intends to send a tough and clear message to Pyongyang, “there is no room for breaking the promise of denuclearization,” Cheng noted. “Once negotiations start, there is no going back. This is what Trump is saying through this nomination.”
Short of diplomats
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may have scooped the pending announcement from the White House on Wednesday when he said Harris will not become Washington’s next ambassador to Australia but will be posted to South Korea, AP reported.
The acting US ambassador to Australia Jim Caruso said on Thursday that he hasn’t heard anything official from the White House yet, probably because they are going through some diplomatic protocol.
“But where he’s going, let’s assume it’s going to be the Republic of Korea,” Caruso told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“The US needs to name ambassadors to both Canberra and Seoul, so if Harris eventually goes to Seoul it proves that Trump treats the peninsula more seriously than the US-Australian alliance, and he believes the peninsula issue is more important than the Indo-Pacific strategy, which requires joint efforts by the US, Australia, Japan and India,” Diao noted.
The US has left vacant the ambassador position in Australia for months, which is not a suitable way to treat a key ally, and it might also show that the Trump administration is short of qualified diplomats or high-level people willing to work with it, Diao said.