Joe Biden wanted to be reassuring. Questioned just before his departure for Japan, the American president declared himself Sunday in Seoul « prepared » for a possible nuclear test by North Korea, while reaffirming his openness to dialogue with a singular message to Kim Jong-un.
“We are prepared for anything North Korea can do,” he said, saying he was “not worried” about a possible nuclear test. Asked by a journalist who asked him if he had a message for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the president replied with a laconic: “Hello. Period « .
Stalled talks
A way of making it known that Washington remains open to dialogue with North Korea, even in the absence of reciprocity. Talks with Pyongyang have stalled since a failed summit in 2019 between Mr Kim and then-US President Donald Trump.
Mr. Biden left South Korea early Sunday afternoon for Japan, another great ally of the United States in the region and the second leg of his first tour of Asia as president.
In Seoul, he met his counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol, a pro-American conservative who came to power in early May. The two heads of state spoke of an intensification of their joint military exercises in order to counter the « saber sounds » of Kim Jong-un.
Countering a “nuclear attack”
Yoon Suk-yeol also mentioned the deployment by the United States in his country of « strategic means » to counter « a nuclear attack ». These means should include « fighter jets and missiles, unlike in the past when we only thought of the nuclear umbrella for deterrence », he said.
Any deployment of such weapons, or any intensification of joint military exercises, risks angering Pyongyang, which considers these maneuvers to be dress rehearsals for an invasion.
South Korean intelligence services have warned that North Korea has completed preparations to carry out a nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history and the first in five years. It is not excluded that this test occurs before the end of the visit of the American president in Asia.
Adding to uncertainties, North Korea, whose population is not vaccinated against Covid-19, is currently facing an epidemic outbreak, with nearly 2.6 million cases and 67 deaths, according to the latest official figures.
Democracies and autocracies
As a sign of American ambitions in the region, Mr. Biden referred, during a joint press conference with Mr. Yoon, to a “global competition between democracies and autocracies” and declared that the Asia-Pacific region was, in this competition, an essential battlefield.
“We have spoken at length about the need to ensure that (this cooperation) is not limited to the United States, Japan and Korea, but that it encompasses the whole of the Pacific, the South Pacific and the ‘Indo-Pacific. I think (this trip) is an opportunity,” Joe Biden said. China is the main rival of the United States in this geopolitical struggle.
Before leaving Seoul, the American president met with the boss of the automaker Hyundai to celebrate the giant’s decision to invest 5.5 billion dollars in an electric vehicle factory in Georgia, in the south of the United States. He also visited American and South Korean soldiers with Mr. Yoon, a sign of « the truly integrated nature » of the economic and military alliance of the two countries, according to a senior White House official.
In Japan, he will meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Emperor Naruhito on Monday before Tuesday’s Quad meeting, a diplomatic format he is keen to relaunch and which brings together the United States, Japan, India and the United States. ‘Australia.