صراط عشق صراط عشق
South
Koreans on Saturday organized spontaneous rallies to protest U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit which they believe is set to stoke tensions and war in the Korean Peninsula.
Biden arrived in South Korea on May 20 for his first summit with the new South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
In capital Seoul, people crowded in front of both the Grand Hyatt Seoul hotel and the presidential office nearby in Seoul’s Yongsan District, where Biden was staying.
The U.S. president arrived in Seoul on Friday as part of a six-day tour to South Korea and Japan with the aim of discussing various issues, including tensions with North Korea.
Seoul’s police said they had received about 50 different notices for street demonstrations mostly in objection to Biden’s visit.
Cordoning off the area in front of Biden’s hotel, police said they had assembled some 7,200 officers from 120 divisions on Saturday for maintaining security as the two presidents held the summit.
The protesters said their government should not intensify initiatives such as U.S.-South Korea military cooperation and certain aggressive military strategies, but should instead choose peace and cooperation.
Biden and Yoon said following their summit that they agreed to consider expanding the scope and scale of their joint military exercises.
In a joint statement, they also outlined other measures, including a promise to deploy strategic U.S. military assets – such as fighter jets and missiles – to South Korea, if necessary.
Any enhanced South Korea-U.S. military cooperation is set to anger North Korea as Pyongyang views their joint drills as a rehearsal for invasion.
In their joint statement, Yoon and Biden agreed on the need to strengthen their 70-year old
alliance – forged after the U.S. intervened to help the South against the North in 1953 – to meet the challenges of a changing world order.
That includes not just countering Pyongyang, the two leaders said, but also promoting an order amid Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, a reference to countering China’s growing influence in the region.
The statement, reflecting Yoon and Biden’s desire for stronger ties, is the first key outcome of the U.S. leader’s Asia trip that also includes a visit to neighboring Japan on Sunday.
Aimed at reassuring allies of the U.S.’s commitment to the Indo Pacific region, the tour – Biden’s first to Asia as president – comes at a time when the world’s attention has turned to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In Tokyo, Biden will host a meeting of the Quad, an informal security grouping that comprises the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, and launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).
For the U.S., both South Korea and Japan are key states in its strategy to counter China and forge a strategic global alliance of allied states at a moment Biden described as “an inflection point in world history”.
“Things are changing so rapidly,” he told reporters. “I think you’ve seen – and you’re going to see more of – there’s going to be competition between democracies and autocracies.”
There was no immediate comment from China.
But ahead of the Yoon-Biden summit, a top Chinese envoy said he hoped the U.S. will “work with countries in the region to promote solidarity and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, instead of plotting division and confrontation”.
Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese envoy for Korean affairs, added on Twitter: The U.S. “should join efforts to foster an open & inclusive “circle of friends” in #Asia-Pacific, instead of putting together a closed & exclusive “clique”. It should do more to contribute to peace & development in the Asia-Pacific, instead of creating turbulence & chaos in the region.”
Drunken Assault by Biden’s
Security Agents
Biden’s visit got off to a bad start with two Secret Service agents set to be sent home after one was accused of drunkenly assaulting a South Korean the day before the president arrived in Seoul, officials said.
Earlier reports said a member of his advance security detail was arrested for allegedly assaulting a South Korean citizen in Seoul.
The team member being investigated, who has not been named, was accused of drunkenly attacking the victim after they got into a dispute over a taxi, media reports said.
The suspect was detained in the early hours of Thursday, a police official in the city’s Yongsan district police told Reuters. The incident occurred outside the Grand Hyatt hotel, where Biden stayed.
TV Chosun, a South Korean broadcaster that first reported the arrest, said the suspect was in his 30s and had been detained after another guest at the hotel called the police.
The Secret Service is the federal agency that guards the president and the White House.
Secret Service members have periodically been involved in the past in incidents over misbehavior overseas.
In 2012, 11 Secret Service agents were sent home from Colombia for alleged “misconduct” involving disputes with prostitutes before a visit by then-president Barack Obama.
