BIDEN HEADS TO S. KOREA
Asia tour proof of US bid to cement leadership in region
PRESIDENT Joe Biden left yesterday for South Korea and Japan to cement United States leadership in Asia at a time when the White House’s attention has been pulled back to Russia and Europe — and amid fears of North Korean nuclear tests overshadowing the trip.
The visits are being touted as proof that the US is building on recent moves to cement its yearslong pivot to Asia, where rising Chinese commercial and military power is undercutting decades of US dominance.
Biden will meet at the White House with the leaders of Finland and Sweden to celebrate their applications for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) before he boards Air Force One for Seoul.
The Democrat is headed to South Korea, then Japan on Sunday to hold summits with the leaders of both countries, as well as joining a regional summit of the Quad — a grouping of Australia,
India, Japan, and the US — while in Tokyo.
During the first leg, he would visit US and South Korean troops, but will not make the traditional presidential trek to the fortified frontier known as the DMZ between South and North Korea, the White House said.
National Security adviser Jake Sullivan insisted there was no “tension” between the European and Asian issues, calling them “mutually reinforcing”.
“There’s something quite
evocative about going from meeting the president of Finland and the prime minister of Sweden to reinforcing the momentum behind the Nato alliance and the free world’s response to Ukraine, then getting on a plane and flying out to the Indo-Pacific.”
He said Biden was bound for Asia with “the wind at our back” after successful US leadership in the Western response to President Vladimir Putin’s now almost three-month-long invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.