The Duterte Contagion: Where Have All My Friends Gone?

Moon Jae-in thinks that South Korea has a better chance working with China to contain North Korea than working with the United States
by Joel Gehrke"It's my fear that Moon thinks that South Korea has a better chance working with China to contain North Korea than working with the United States," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Washington Examiner. 

U.S. leaders are increasingly worried that China is gaining influence over traditional American allies, as the rising Communist power charts a more aggressive foreign policy course.
Those concerns are primed most recently by the new South Korean president's decision to suspend deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, known as a THAAD. 

American and South Korean officials agreed in recent years that the THAAD is necessary protection against North Korea, but China fears that the system could undermine the power of its own nuclear arsenal. 

So they demanded an "immediate" halt to the deployment of the system, backed up by economic measures to hurt the South Korean economy.
South Korea complied, as the newly elected President Moon Jae-in suspended the deployment of the THAAD, citing the need for an environmental review of the program.
Moon's decision spurred concerns in the U.S. 

"It's my fear that Moon thinks that South Korea has a better chance working with China to contain North Korea than working with the United States," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Washington Examiner.
If Moon comes to regard China as a more reliable partner on his top national security issue — the threat of North Korea — that would represent a significant step away from the traditionally close cooperation between the United States and South Korea. 

And Moon isn't the only leader in the region to trouble U.S. policymakers. 

Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines spent months last year railing against the Obama administration and calling for a "separation" from the United States.
"China is going to have a heavy hand," predicted Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., who chairs the Committee on Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on the Asia Pacific region. 

"China is going to want them to do what China says and I think Durbin is correct in that he is seeing Moon do that ... He's trying to appease the Chinese government, and we know how they're going to play. They're not going to play well."

Heavy-handed influence over South Korea and the Philippines could have significant implications for American national security and economic interests, given China's ambitions in the region. 

Chinese fighter jets flew hundreds of missions last year into airspace claimed by the Japanese, in an attempt to assert control over the East China Sea. 

China is also building artificial islands, complete with military installations in the South China Sea. 

If China accomplishes its objectives in those waters, it would control some of the world's most vital shipping lanes, as well as valuable underwater oil and gas reserves.
Yoho praised Trump for sending the U.S. warships through the South China Sea on freedom-of-navigation missions that contest China's sovereignty claims. 

"That's something we should have been doing all along," he told the Washington Examiner.
The Florida Republican acknowledged that other Trump policies had strengthened China's standing in the region, however. 

The "America First" foreign policy platform created a "false narrative" that Trump would lead the United States into "isolationism," according to Yoho. 

Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement with 11 Pacific Rim countries, exacerbated that perception.
"They were counting on TPP and they saw that as a strong message from America," Yoho said. 

"But it wasn't going to pass. The Democrats weren't going to support it, the majority of them. I wasn't going to support it, being a Republican. And they use that to say, well, we've got to go to China."
Yoho thinks that countries such as the Phillipines might hesitate to oppose China's aggression "in the short-term" — "six months to a year," he suggested — but that trend could be reversed by freedom-of-navigation operations and economic deals with Asia-Pacific countries. 

"And then the more we do, it builds up our credibility and as we build up our credibility these people say, 'they are back,'" Yoho said.
If that doesn't work, however, and China comes to dominate the region, they would be poised for a military conflict with another U.S. friend. 

"If you look at what China is doing in the South China Sea ... they're boxing in Taiwan," Yoho warned. 

"They're definitely prepping for [conflict]."

The Duterte Contagion: Where Have All My Friends Gone?

Top senator fears South Korea is choosing China over U.S.
by Joel Gehrke 

A top Senate Democrat is worried that South Korea, a major American ally in Asia, is increasingly looking to "partner" with the Chinese government on their most critical national security concern — North Korea.
That concern is the result of a decision by South Korean President Moon Jae-in to suspend the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system that could protect against the danger of incoming North Korean rockets. 

China has long protested the deployment of the system over fears that the radar could be used against their military.
"It's my fear that Moon thinks that South Korea has a better chance working with China to contain North Korea than working with the United States," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told the Washington Examiner.
The United States and South Korea have been allies for decades and fought together in the Korean Conflict against North Korea. 

China backed North Korea in that conflict, which is technically ongoing because there was only an armistice rather than a peace treaty. 

Durbin and other American officials have tried to persuade Moon to allow the deployment of the weaponry, called a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, particularly given the thousands of U.S. military personnel deployed to the country.
"I said to him [last week] if I were living in South Korea I would want missile defense in South Korea and I don't understand why you don't," Durbin told the Washington Examiner, describing a conversation with the South Korean president. 

"What he told me is they wanted to go through due process, he thought their Assembly would approve it. I can't understand the delay, why they even need to vote on it, but I said, ‘proceed with this, but it's $900 million-plus from the United States we're spending to put this in place and then to maintain it. So, I mean, from where I'm sitting, it's a pretty good deal for the South Koreans."
China has used economic measures to retaliate against South Korea for allowing the THAAD to go through, thereby undermining support for the missile defense system in the South Korean business community.

"I think he is trying to find a diplomatic way to slow down the process to placate the business community," Stephen R. Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo, told the New York Times.
The United States can hardly require the South Koreans to accept protection, as Durbin acknowledged. 

"We are protecting them and protecting ourselves because the new Camp Humphries south of Seoul — which they paid for, the South Koreans paid for 92 percent of it — but that Camp Humphries is a huge military facility and I believe that the THAAD system is part of the defense of that facility," he said.