Pence’s Asia trip begins with DPRK in mind

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence’s sixday swing through Asia, anchored by a stop at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, is set to focus less on sports than the host country’s bellicose neighbor to the north.

Mr. Pence departed Monday for Alaska, Japan, and South Korea, aiming to ensure North Korea doesn’t “hijack” the games as it participates on a joint team with the South, in the view of the White House. He’ll hold symbolic events of his own to highlight the North’s human rights abuses and nuclear ambitions, according to White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to preview the trip publicly.

Mr. Pence tweeted Friday: “I’ll travel to Japan & S Korea to attend the Olympics & cheer on our athletes. But I’ll also be there to deliver a message: the era of strategic patience is OVER. As N. Korea continues to test ballistic missiles & threaten the U.S, we’ll make it clear all options are on the table.”

In Alaska, Mr. Pence will tour missile defense facilities Monday that monitor and could respond to a launch by the North. In Japan, he will meet with Prime Minster Shinzo Abe and U.S. service members. In Korea, Mr. Pence will visit a memorial to the 46 South Korean sailors killed in a 2010 torpedo attack attributed to the North, and hold meetings with President Moon Jae-in.

Leading the U.S. delegation to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, Mr. Pence will bring to the games Fred Warmbier, the father of Otto Warmbier, the U.S. student who died in 2017 shortly after he was released from North Korean detention.

“He & his wife remind the world of the atrocities happening in N Korea,” Mr. Pence tweeted Monday before departing Washington.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, however, did not rule out the possibility of a U.S.-North Korea meeting at the Olympics. The games have provided a diplomatic opening between the rival Koreas, although little let-up in the acrimony between Washington and Pyongyang.

“I think we’ll just see. We’ll have to see what happens,” Mr. Tillerson told a news conference in Peru. North Korea is sending its nominal head of state, Kim Jong Nam — the highestlevel visitor to the south from the North in recent memory.

White House officials said Mr. Pence was not seeking a meeting with North Korean officials participating in the games, but didn’t rule out the possibility of a chance encounter.

The trip comes after President Donald Trump hosted a group of North Korean defectors in the Oval Office on Friday, including Ji Seongho, whom the president referenced in his State of the Union address last week.