Indo-Pacific Security

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REPORTER:  

We see in this report that US forces in South Korea would potentially be involved in a Taiwan emergency or Taiwan contingency. What have you seen in the last few months that indicates that sort of planning is already taking place?

Bryce Barros (ASSOCIATE FELLOW, GLOBSEC):  

There's always been this interesting sort of interplay of Korean security, in many ways being overlapped or overlapping with Taiwan security.

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I think one of the bigger sort of clues for how they're looking at this is wanting to provide nuclear submarine technology, and fuel specifically to the Republic of Korea Navy. And there's been several statements since that was provided after the APEC summit, in which president Lee and President Trump met, from different sort of US military appointed appointees, or rather military figures, saying things like, we expect these submarines to be used in a broader context across US Indo-Pacific, interest, what have you, which also would include Taiwan if one were to read between those lines.

REPORTER:  

What do you think that this means for regional dynamics? And actually, what do you think this means for US security ties in East Asia with Japan, with the Philippines, with South Korea, as well as regional dynamics more broadly?

Bryce Barros (ASSOCIATE FELLOW, GLOBSEC):  

You're seeing a desire for the South Koreans to be more independent, gain more capabilities that could be viewed as more strategic. But you're also seeing the Trump administration wanting to be more flexible

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It’s still not within South Korea's best interest, for Taiwan to be controlled by China

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If I'm in Seoul and I'm a defense planner, I would be very concerned about what that means for access to being able to ship through the East China Sea. South Korea is basically an island.

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There also could be the potential that and we're seeing this dynamic since the war in Ukraine has kicked off, where there is more coordination between Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing. So if there is a Taiwan contingency, I think you have to assume that there would be one on the Korean Peninsula.

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Even as Washington tries to help the South Koreans be even more independent, is that also impacts the US-Japan alliance, which also means it could impact Japan's ability to sort of react to a Taiwan contingency.

REPORTER:  

We've already seen the Philippines start to collaborate more with Taiwanese security officials, but we haven't seen the same level of engagement between South Korea and Taiwan. Do you think that this report, or the planning that this report indicates, would change that moving forward or not? How?

Bryce Barros (ASSOCIATE FELLOW, GLOBSEC):  

For example, at the most recent National Defense University here in Taiwan, sort of like political military simulation back in early December, it was discussed that there were former Korean military officers who attended that's been reported on publicly in Taiwanese news. I do think that the statement that you saw on, Justice Mission 2025 shows that within Seoul, people are thinking about what does a Taiwan conflict mean for South Korea?

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I do think that with the president Lee administration, they're probably going to try to keep their necks out of this as much as they can.

but like I said, the statement shows that they might not be able to do that.