"We must say no," Seoul Defense Chief

According to a report in South Korea's English language Hankyoreh, US unrealistic expectations of South Korea are amazingly meeting public resistance from the hard right wing ideologue Defense Minister Sin Won-sik. Seems like the US Army Pacific Commander got the idea that the powerful South Korean armed forces might be used in an actual military confrontation with China over Taiwan as they were when dictator Park Chung-hui sent ROK combat forces to South Vietnam to support the US during the Vietnam war. Good luck with that. "From September 1964 to March 1973, South Korea sent some 350,000 troops to Vietnam." wikipedia

‘We must say no’: Seoul defense chief on Korean, USFK involvement in hypothetical Taiwan crisis

The linked article really represents a public breach in the US directed US/Japan/South Korea tri-lateral partnership against China much earlier than I expected. It's definitely worth a full read. I had thought such official South Korean defense policy expressions would await Yoon exiting the presidential office.

I saw a suggestion in one of the links I cited yesterday, that Japan might be expected by the US to be made a member of the UNC. (The UN Command is not really a UN institution but historical artifact from the Korean conflict created by the allies when Russia was boycotting the Security Council). These US notions are so out of touch with the current East Asian situation, it's frightening. I remember Yoon saying at one point he could foresee circumstances when Japanese armed forces might come to South Korea. This is absurd. I don't think Kurt Campbell has any real understanding of northeast Asian geopolitical reality, although one can find him posturing as such along with various media and think tank "experts" almost daily.

Ironically, in South Korea in recent years, it has been the conservative position, that the ROK armed forces could not afford to dissipate their resources by participating in anti-China military confrontations associated with Taiwan, because the North Korean threat was too pressing. Yoon having no real experience in such matters and not a traditional South Korean conservative politician simply abandoned mainstream South Korean policy views toward Japan and China with little thought. One has to wonder whether South Korean trade losses related to semiconductors and other high tech related to decoupling or delinking (whatever the phrase du jour) are playing a role. Shin could just be going out on a limb, with President Yoon, at his own risk, in the position to disavow those views under the right US pressure.

Perhaps Shin or Yoon got some sort of indirect message from the Chinese to state his position, while the US was busy trying to intimidate China in recent weeks culminating in Blinken's visit.