Diplomacy: Politics: News: Hankyoreh

A screen from a Japanese broadcast indicating that the leaders of the United States and Japan had a conference call.

Among the proverbs with which diplomats live, there is a saying: “Diplomacy is protocol, protocol is order.” In the diplomatic arena, where the interests of each country are strongly entangled, it means that a country cannot explicitly reveal its ‘understanding’ towards another country, which is the same sovereign state, so it indirectly reveals its meaning through a protocol. . The United States, the most powerful country in the world, is no exception. Among the protocols, the most important protocol is the summit meeting. Since diplomacy is protocol and protocol is order, who the president of the United States calls first is an honest barometer of American diplomatic priorities. And this order has its own formula. First, neighboring countries, second, great allies in Europe and Israel, and third, great allies in Asia. President Joe Biden, who took office on the 20th, is also observing this formula. On the third day of his inauguration, President Biden held normal talks with neighboring Canada on the 22nd, another neighboring Mexico on the 23rd, and Great Britain, a ‘special alliance’, and France and Germany, important European allies on the 24th and 25.. On the 26th, after passing through Russia, which had a great pending issue of the extension of the ‘New Agreement for the Reduction of Strategic Arms’ (New Start), on the 27th, he exchanged phone calls with the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, an important alliance in the Indo-Pacific Region. This order will rarely change in the future.

The United States-Japan alliance is the first major alliance to protect peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, which is becoming increasingly important due to the strategic competition between the United States and China. So the United States expresses the importance of the alliance between the United States and Japan in terms of the cornerstone. Looking at the precedent of the past four American presidents, the new American president spoke with the Japanese prime minister before the Korean president. The order of the face-to-face summit was the same. The Japanese prime minister visited the United States in February-March immediately after the new US president took office and held a summit meeting, but Korea held the meeting in May-June later. The only exception was President Kim Dae-jung in 2001. At that time, President Kim Dae-jung scheduled a summit meeting in early March to explain the benefits of the Sunshine Policy to newly inaugurated President George W. Bush. However, the visit, which took place in a situation where US policy toward North Korea was not sufficiently reviewed, ended in the worst diplomatic failure.

And President Biden? With the successful response to Corona 19 and the like, Korea’s international status has increased dramatically in recent years, and the prediction was mainly made that President Biden will make a call with the leaders of Korea and Japan on at least the same day. For the United States, Korea is an alliance in which they shed their blood and an “exemplary student” who has managed to catch rabbits of democracy and economic growth. So, the United States uses the special term axis in the alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States. Korea’s international status has recently increased and it has become an important country in “D-10”, a gathering of the world’s leading democratic countries. In fact, when President Biden was elected, he spoke on the same day (November 11, 2020) with the leaders of allies in the Indo-Pacific region, such as Korea, Japan and Australia. President Biden made a phone call with Japan, but the reason he hasn’t spoken to South Korea yet is the reason there are voices. However, it is difficult to know the exact reason why President Biden has yet to be contacted. The United States is interpreted as expressing ‘disgust’ at this because the South Korea-China summit was held for the first time on the 26th while awaiting the Korea-United States summit. That makes sense, but unless the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan writes a memoir, like his predecessor John Bolton, exposing the inside of the House decision-making process, the truth will not be revealed. exact. Interestingly, the reaction of the Japanese media to the news of the first telephone conversations between the United States and Japan. Japanese media reported on the 28th that President Biden was the first person in Asia to call Japan and he sighed in relief. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said: “I returned to the House of Representatives residence in Akasaka, Tokyo, and then I returned to the co-authorship of the Prime Minister at night.” In fact, upon confirming the Japanese Prime Minister’s sympathy on the 27th, Prime Minister Suga returned to the co-author at 11:47 that night and made a call at 12:47 on the 28th, an hour later. Even just before the coin was made, a high-ranking Japanese government official said, “I don’t know when the coin will be made.” It can be assumed that the United States has suddenly delivered a “ just right ” phone talk. The reason the United States committed a kind of “diplomatic rudeness” that calls to the top of another country in the middle of the night is President Biden’s age, from 78 to 78. Taking into account the time difference between the US and Japan, President Biden chose 10-11 a.m. M., The most comfortable place to call. What time will the United States call the Blue House? Even tonight, if you suddenly call from the White House, President Moon may have to call in front of him like Prime Minister Suga, who had left work. The cold reality is that no other country in the world can refuse, saying, “It’s late at night,” when the president of the United States asks, “Let’s call.” By Gil Yoon-hyung and Kim Ji-eun, Staff Reporter [email protected]