North Korea casts menacing shadow over Biden’s talks with new South Korean president
Here’s what to expect from Biden’s first Asia trip
First day of Biden’s Asia trip:Biden tours Samsung plant in South Korea, advocates for legislation to boost chip making
North Korea could conduct a missile or nuclear test during Biden’s five-day trip to Asia, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.
“North Korea has a long history – going back decades, at this point – of missile tests, both to advance their capabilities and to cause provocations,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as Biden embarked on his five-day trip to Asia on Thursday. “We know what we will do to respond to that.”
Nearly 29,000 U.S. troops are deployed in the Korean peninsula. Former President Donald Trump proposed the “complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea,” according to former defense secretary Mark Esper. Trump wanted the troops gone unless South Korea increased its share of the cost, former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir.
Since 1991, the U.S. has had only conventional weapons at its military installations in South Korea. But it maintains the threat of an in-kind retaliation against North Korea through its “nuclear umbrella.”
At Seoul National Cemetery on Saturday, Biden participated in a wreath laying ceremony to pay his respects to fallen soldiers, many of whom died fighting alongside U.S. forces in the Korean War. At the altar of the Memorial Tower, which enshrines tablets documenting soldiers who died during the war but whose bodies were never found, Biden sprinkled three pinches of ash from incense into an urn on a red carpet.
When Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, visited Washington, D.C., last year, he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.