Meet Yoon Seok-yeol, elected Biden in May… Korea-U.S. summit likely to be the fastest ever

It is predicted that the 20th president-elect Yoon Seok-yeol is highly likely to hold the ‘big event’ of the US president’s visit to Korea and the Korea-US summit at an unprecedented early stage among previous governments.

US President Joe Biden is planning a visit to Japan in late May to attend the ‘Quad’ summit, a consultative body of four countries, the US, Japan, India and Australia. Because.

Usually, the president of the United States travels to Japan and Korea together when visiting East Asia.

The Biden administration is also known to have taken the position that it is natural to visit Korea with this visit as an opportunity.

Of course, the actual timing of President Biden’s visit to South Korea may change depending on the schedule of the Quad Summit, but the announcement of the results of the video conference held on the 3rd (local time) of the Quad 4 countries said that they agreed to ‘meet in person in Tokyo within a few months’ With this in mind, the plan to hold a face-to-face meeting soon seems to be going as planned.

As a strong observation, if President Biden visits Korea in late May, the first Korea-US summit will be held less than a month after the inauguration of the new government (May 10).

It is far faster than previous government cases.

President Moon Jae-in had a summit meeting with then-US President Donald Trump 51 days after taking office, and former President Park Geun-hye had his first meeting with then-President Barack Obama 71 days after taking office.

The first summit between former President Lee Myung-bak and then-US President George W. Bush took place 54 days after their inauguration.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun and former President Bush met for the first time in 79 days in office.

In many cases, the Korean president usually visits the U.S. first, but it is also noteworthy that the U.S. president’s visit to Korea is highly likely to happen first.

It is known that South Korea and the US authorities have exchanged opinions on the possibility of President Biden’s visit to Korea, and discussions are expected to proceed in earnest during the presidential transition period.

The first Korea-U.S. summit in his term is an important event in that it is the ‘first button’ for overall coordination of the direction of the ROK-US alliance for the next five years, North Korea’s keynote, and regional strategy.

President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol accepted the formidable task of preparing for the Korea-US summit as soon as he started preparing for the regime takeover, and it is highly likely to be the first important diplomatic test the new government will face.

As such, a summit meeting with the United States is expected to take place early, but summit diplomacy with the other three neighboring countries is not easy.

Shuttle diplomacy between the leaders has been suspended for a long time with Japan as the conflict deepens due to conflicts in the past, such as the issue of forced labor and comfort women.

President-elect Yoon made a pledge to restore the Korea-Japan summit shuttle diplomacy, and in a TV discussion earlier, he announced that he would hold a meeting with Japan after the United States among the US, Japan, China and North Korea, so there is a possibility that he will actively seek to restore summit diplomacy.

China and China will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with China in August, but it is unclear when the face-to-face summit will resume due to the strict quarantine measures taken by the Xi Jinping leadership.

We started our relationship with Russia under the worst circumstances.

It is said that high-level exchanges such as special envoy diplomacy, which are normally conducted in the early stages of the government’s inauguration, are not easy because the international community is isolating Russia completely due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to see when and where Yoon-elect will make her debut in multilateral diplomacy.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic situation is variable, the UN General Assembly is usually held in New York in September.

In addition, the G20 (20 major countries) is scheduled for Indonesia on November 15-16 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand on November 18-19 of the same month.

The ASEAN-related summit, which Cambodia will preside over as the chair country this year, is also expected to be held in November.

It is also noteworthy whether the new government will actively promote the Korea-China-Japan summit, in which Korea is the chair country in turn.

The Korea, China, and Japan summit has been held every year by the three countries, but in recent years it has not been held for two consecutive years due to historical conflicts and the US-China conflict.

/yunhap news