Military cooperation in spotlight as S. Korea’s president heads to US

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol heads to Washington Monday, as the allies bolster military cooperation — including with US regional partner Japan — over North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons programme.

Pyongyang has conducted another record-breaking string of sanctions-defying launches this year, including test-firing the country’s first solid-fuel ballistic missile this month — a key technical breakthrough for Kim Jong Un’s military.

In response, Yoon has pulled South Korea closer to long-standing ally Washington, and even sought to bury the hatchet with former colonial power Japan in a bid to contain North Korea.

But the South Korean president has seen his domestic approval ratings dive, hit hard by public disapproval over his handling of a recent US intelligence leak that appeared to reveal Washington was spying on Seoul.

He is also struggling to reassure the South’s increasingly nervous public about the US commitment to so-called extended deterrence, where US assets — including nuclear weapons — serve to prevent attacks on allies.

A majority of South Koreans now believe the country should develop its own nuclear weapons, multiple surveys show. Yoon has hinted Seoul could pursue this option.

All this “reflects not only growing concerns regarding nuclear North Korea but also an erosion of trust in the US security umbrella”, Gi-Wook Shin, a Korea expert and sociology professor at Stanford University, told AFP.

Shin said Yoon was one of South Korea’s “most pro-alliance” presidents, “but recent events such as the allegations about the US spying on South Korean officials have not helped him gain domestic support”.

– Domestic backlash –

Yoon has also faced domestic backlash over a March summit with Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, with critics accusing him of prioritising diplomacy over resolving disputes over Tokyo’s wartime treatment of Koreans, including forced labour and sexual slavery.

US President Joe Biden is eager for two of Washington’s major regional allies to work more closely over North Korea.

A key outcome of the Biden-Yoon summit could be “any advance in intelligence sharing that includes Japan”, Karl Friedhoff at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said.