Alliance weakened under Trump: poll
Two out of three South Koreans think U.S. President Donald Trump negatively affects the Seoul-Washington alliance, according to a Korea Times survey.
The survey shows 65.8 percent of respondents believe the alliance has been weakened because of Trump, while only 31.7 percent said Trump has a positive effect on the alliance.
The poll also shows 18.2 percent believe Trump affects the alliance “very negatively,” while 47.6 percent said he affects the alliance “generally negatively.” Those who answered Trump affected the alliance “very positively” were only 6.5 percent and “generally positively” 25.2 percent.
The results reflect South Koreans’ uneasiness about Trump’s bellicose rhetoric and hard-line stance against North Korea, analysts say.
Trump became locked in a war of words in recent months with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, fanning fears of war on the Korean Peninsula.
In a fiery verbal tit-for-tat with the young leader, he threatened to “totally destroy” the North, calling Kim a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.
“It has given the public the impression Trump is not capable of stably managing the situation on the peninsula, which is the highest value in the bilateral coalition,” said Kim Dong-young, general manager of the Korean Society Opinion Institute.
The people are also aware of discord in North Korea policy between President Trump and his counterpart Moon Jae-in despite concerted efforts to heighten sanctions against the belligerent country, he added.
Moon has pursued a two-track North Korea policy of seeking sanctions and dialogue while stressing Seoul should be in the driver’s seat in dealing with the North Korea issue.
Trump showed doubts about Moon’s conciliatory approach. He once tweeted, “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they (North Korea) only understand one thing.”
The poll shows the people put the second-most blame on Trump in aggravating tensions on the peninsula, behind North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.
On the question of which leader takes the biggest responsibility in deepening the sense of crisis on the peninsula, 48.6 percent of respondents chose Kim.
Trump ranked second with 27.2 percent, followed by Chinese President Xi Jinping (16 percent), Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2.3 percent), and Russian President Vladimir Putin (1.7 percent). And 4.2 percent refused to answer or said they don’t know.
The result shows the respondents appear to have doubts about Trump while acknowledging he is a direct cause of the heightened military ten- sion and North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations, an analyst at Hankook Research said.
Meanwhile, the survey found that the people view sanctions and pressure against North Korea as the most effective measures to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear ambition.
When asked about the best way of resolving North Korea’s nuclear issue, 47.5 percent said sanctions and pressure against the North while 43.7 said dialogue and cooperation with the country.
The pollster added 6.4 percent of the respondents chose a pre-emptive attack.
Analysts say the South Korean people in general agree the government should corner the nuclear weapons-seeking country with harsh- er sanctions in close coordination with the international community.
“It shows that the public weighs more on imposing sanctions at this stage,” the Hankook Research analyst said.
The results, however, should be compared to the pollsters’ previous survey, he noted, where 65.2 percent of respondents favored the option of both seeking dialogue and closely cooperating in levying tougher sanctions with the international community, while 33.6 percent favored the option of only pushing for sanctions.
In the latest survey with a dichotomous question, the respondents were clearly divided depending on their regions and ideological tendencies.
Those groups that have a higher proportion of support for the conciliatory approach were the liberals (61.3 percent); residents in Gwangju and South Jeolla Province (59.2 percent); ruling Democratic Party of Korea supporters (59.7 percent); and minor opposition Justice Party supporters (57.8 percent).
On the other hand, those who preferred sanctions were the conservatives (58.1 percent); residents in Gangwon Province and Jeju island (58.3 percent); the main opposition Liberty Korea Party supporters (68 percent); and the Bareun Party supporters (64.8 percent).