S. Korea peeved by revelation on U.S. carrier group

SEOUL, South Korea — Just 10 days ago, when news broke that the Trump administration was sending the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula, many South Koreans feared a possible war with North Korea. Others cheered for Washington, calling the deployment a powerful symbol of its commitment to deterring the North.

On Wednesday, after it was revealed that the carrier strike group was actually thousands of miles away and had been sailing in the opposite direction, toward the Indian Ocean, leaving South Koreans feeling bewildered, cheated and even manipulated by the United States, their country’s most important ally.

“Trump’s lie over the Carl Vinson,” read a headline on the website of the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday. “Xi Jinping and Putin must have had a good jeer over this one.”

“Like North Korea, which is often accused of displaying fake missiles during military parades, is the United States, too, now employing ‘bluffing’ as its North Korea policy?” the article asked.

The episode raised questions about whether major allies of the United States, like South Korea and Japan, had been informed of the carrier’s whereabouts, and whether the misinformation undercut U.S. strategy to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions by using empty threats.

When the U.S. Pacific Command said on April 9 that the Carl Vinson had been ordered to leave Singapore and return to the Western Pacific, the decision was considered highly unusual, as it had been in exercises off the Korean Peninsula just last month.

“We’re sending an armada,” Trump said at the time.

Critics accused the South Korean Defense Ministry of fanning jitters among South Koreans before a May 9 presidential election in which North Korea’s behavior has been a central issue — as have Seoul’s close military ties to the United States.

Shin In-kyun, a military expert who runs the civic group Korea Defense Network, said that Trump appeared to have used the Carl Vinson as a feint aimed at preventing North Korea from conducting a nuclear test.

The Carl Vinson is now actually headed to the Korean Peninsula and is expected to arrive in the region next week, Pentagon officials say. April 25 is another major anniversary in North Korea, the birthday of the Korean People’s Army, and some analysts say the North might try to celebrate with a major provocation.