North Korea's "assistance", is the negotiation of the sharing of defense charges between South Korea and the United States well?
On April 1, an official of the South Korean government disclosed a message saying that South Korea and the United States had reached a preliminary agreement on the defense cost sharing negotiations, and it did not rule out the official announcement of the results of the negotiations that day. Earlier, the South Korean government's ambassador for defense sharing of defense charges, Zheng Enfu, said that the negotiations have entered the final stage, and the differences of opinions are now greatly narrowed, hoping to finally reach an agreement soon.
Since South Korea and the United States opened the 11th defense fee sharing agreement negotiations last September, seven rounds of negotiations have not been able to come up with a reason. Is this time South Korea and the United States will quickly reach agreement? Or on April 1, the Blue House of the Presidential Office of South Korea splashed The basin is not big or small: The negotiation has indeed made some progress, but it is still in progress, and it is not appropriate to express a position on this.
Affected by factors such as the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, the US Army Command in South Korea has implemented unpaid leave for some US employees of the Korean Army from April 1, causing dissatisfaction from the South Korean side. Under such circumstances, the Wen Zaiyin government obviously wants to deal with the defense cost sharing negotiations coldly. After all, the amount of US military expenses in South Korea borne by the ROK is very sensitive.
In 1988, the United States formally filed a defense cost sharing request with South Korea, Japan and other allies on the grounds of its own fiscal deficit. In 1991, South Korea took into consideration the "importance and strategic value of US troops stationed in South Korea" and signed the first "Special Agreement on Defense Fee Sharing" with the United States.
The validity period of the agreement was 2-3 years at the beginning. By the time of the government of Li Mingbo and Park Geun-hye, the 8th and 9th agreements were extended to 5 years. Since 1996, South Korea ’s share has increased by about 10% every three years, and the share has increased from the original $ 150 million to about $ 860 million in 2018.
After Trump took office, the United States requested a one-year signing and further increased the share of South Korea. Before the expiration of the ninth agreement at the end of 2018, from March to December of that year, South Korea and the United States conducted 10 rounds of negotiations with no results. The two sides have differences on the amount shared, the validity period of the agreement, and the items shared.
It was not until March 2019 that South Korea and the United States signed the 10th agreement. The cost-sharing of South Korea increased by 8.2% from 2018 to 923.5 million US dollars, and the agreement is valid for one year. This means that while the agreement is in effect, South Korea and the United States will begin negotiations on the 11th agreement.
The difficulty in reaching the 10th agreement has foretold that the relevant negotiations between South Korea and the United States will not go smoothly. The negotiations on the 11th agreement between South Korea and the United States have so far proved fruitless. The crux of the problem is still the issue of the share of South Korea. Trump's "Lion's Big Opening" initially asked South Korea to spend 5 billion US dollars, which was more than 5 times in 2019, and later fell to 4 billion US dollars, but this increase is clearly unacceptable for South Korea of.
According to information disclosed by South Korean government officials recently, South Korea and the United States reached a consensus on extending the validity of the agreement from one year to five years. Another source said that the United States agreed to significantly reduce South Korea's share. However, according to Yonhap News Agency, high-level South Korean and American parties held consultations on the agreement negotiations on April 2, but still failed to reach an agreement. This was interpreted as the failure of the two sides to achieve breakthroughs in working-level consultations and had to seek high-level consultations-South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Jing and the US Secretary of State Pompeo talked to discuss defense fee sharing negotiations.
The tenth agreement was formally signed two months after the last one expired, and now three months have passed since the expiration of the tenth agreement. If you want to get rid of this time-consuming and energy-intensive marathon negotiations, South Korea and the United States need a longer-term agreement, at least in the interest of South Korea. But it is not only the time constraints but also the influence of "external forces"-North Korea's military trends that have prompted the South Korea and the United States to speed up the negotiation of the 11th agreement.
Perhaps due to the impact of the prevention and control of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, North Korea ’s military activities in the first two months of this year have decreased significantly, especially the suspension of weapon test firing. According to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea ’s highest leader Kim Jong-un ’s first public involvement in military activities this year was on February 28 to guide the joint strike training of the People ’s Army troops. After entering March, North Korea restarted its weapon test firing activities and conducted four test fires on March 2, 9, 21, and 29. According to the photos reported and released by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea ’s highest leader Kim Jong-un guided the first three test launches. The first two and fourth test launches involved very large rocket launchers, and the third test launch was a tactical guided weapon. In addition, North Korea also carried out two shelling contests on March 12 and 20, and Kim Jong-un went to the scene to guide him.
Since last year, due to the stagnation of the DPRK-US dialogue, the DPRK-ROK relationship has been dragged down, and the situation on the peninsula has weakened.The DPRK has restarted and conducted several major weapon test launches in order to pressure the ROK and the US to urge the United States to engage in The North Korean dialogue has taken substantive actions to remind South Korea not to be constrained by the United States in developing North Korea-South Korea cooperation.
For the Wen Zaiyin government, the United States and North Korea are currently under double pressure, so the three pairs of relations between South Korea, the United States, South Korea, and the United States and North Korea actually restrict and influence each other, as do the negotiations on the sharing of defense costs between South Korea and the United States. Although the relations between the DPRK and the ROK have eased, as long as the situation on the peninsula does not turn around completely, the mutual threat at the military level between the DPRK and the ROK will continue. The US troops stationed in the ROK are vital to the ROK ’s national security, and it becomes inevitable to share more US troops stationed in the ROK.
If the situation on the peninsula is to turn completely, it will take North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and realize the rebuilding of relations between the United States and the DPRK. However, both of them are uncertain about the future due to the suspension of the U.S.-DPRK dialogue, and they may even repeat in the wrong direction. This means that South Korea's advancement of the process of reconciliation and cooperation with the DPRK will surely be disturbed and constrained by American factors, which in turn will affect the sustainability of the DPRK's relaxation. It also means that the situation on the peninsula is full of uncertainty, highlighting that South Korea can not get rid of its dependence on the US military stationed in South Korea for a considerable period of time.
From this point of view, North Korea's intensive weapons test and other military activities in March have also become one of the catalysts for the negotiation of the sharing of defense costs between the ROK and the US. A significant extension of the agreement's validity period can help South Korea to solve the tragedy of being knocked out by Trump every year and stabilize the presence of US troops stationed in South Korea; for the United States, as long as South Korea further increases the amount of sharing, it is in line with the Trump administration's own The goal of reducing the burden is to force South Korea to undertake as much as possible on this basis, so that US troops stationed in South Korea can continue to play a role in influencing South Korea and deterring North Korea.