Motives behind U.S.-South Korean Military Exercise

The U.S. and South Korea have decided to conduct a joint military exercise in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The international community has made all kinds of guesses regarding the timing of this military exercise — its goal, the arrival of the U.S.S. George Washington at the Yellow Sea, etc. After expressing five consecutive times its intense opposition to the U.S.-South Korean military exercise, China has garnered a lot of attention and publicity. To provide an authoritative analysis of this issue, Chinanews.com invited and interviewed Zhu Chenghu, Major General of the Research Department of the National Defense University.

What is the motive behind the U.S.-South Korean military exercise? Zhu Chenghu says that there are a lot of motives. The first motive is to deter and intimidate North Korea.

Actually, in the beginning, South Koreans did not have a consistent response regarding the sinking of the South Korean patrol ship, the Cheonan. At first, South Koreans thought that North Koreans sunk the ship, but next, they said that the Cheonan may have been sunk by South Koreans themselves. After an investigation, South Koreans believed that they had irrefutable evidence proving that North Korea was involved with the incident, but the international community did not have an accurate conclusion.

Zhu Chenghu states that the U.S. has played a very important role in this incident, maybe even a leadership role. From the start of this incident to the end, the U.S. has taken full advantage of this opportunity to propose three conditions. The first is to make North Korea admit fault, the second is to guarantee that it will not happen again, and the third is to make North Korea apologize to the international community.

In recent times, North Korea seems to have expressed an unwillingness to cooperate with the world on a series of issues, so the U.S. decided to take action. On the other hand, there are also factors regarding China because after this incident, South Korea has persistently tried to get China’s support. Zhu Chenghu states that China’s position and policy regarding this matter are correct and that this is the attitude that a responsible superpower should assume. If there is no evidence that North Korea was involved, then no arbitrary decision can be made.

In the recent past, the South Korean people seem to have a higher level of anti-China sentiments than before. The main reason is that the South Korean media has led people to believe that China’s government is not cooperating with South Korea. Zhu Chenghu believes that South Korea’s public opinion may have been misled.

Regarding the question of whether the U.S.-South Korea military exercise is aimed at putting pressure on China or trying to propagandize something to China, Zhu Chenghu states:

“From the point of view of this military exercise, we cannot really call this a drill because there was not adequate preparation in advance. Under normal circumstances, for a large-scale joint military exercise such as this, at least four months to half a year of preparation are needed. However, the preparation for this particular military exercise was obviously very rushed. Secondly, there was no coordination for this exercise because there have been so many exercises done by U.S. and South Korean armies, more than 100 in one year. However, this particular exercise was not planned, so it is not practical to call it a drill. It is complete propaganda.”

Regarding the implications that this exercise has on China, Zhu Chenghu states that there are some other motives involved. He claims that in recent times, which include the first half of this year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted to visit China, but China refused him, obviously making the U.S. unhappy, especially the Pentagon. Therefore, it is understandable that the U.S. would want to take advantage of an opportunity to demonstrate its presence and influence in Asia.

Zhu Chenghu says that the area for the military exercise includes the Yellow Sea, which is just next door to China. This is obviously the U.S. trying to flex its muscles in front of China and demonstrate the solidarity between the U.S. and South Korean military alliance. Therefore, this is an indication that all is not normal.