Since the Yoon Suk-yeol government of South Korea came to power, South Korea's foreign policy has undergone a major change; on the one hand, it has colluded with the United States and Japan, and on the other hand, it has also made disrespectful remarks about China, hyping up the Taiwan Strait issue several times, and Yoon Suk-yeol's remarks have caused widespread controversy, seriously affecting Sino-South Korean relations, and at the same time attracting a lot of domestic criticism. But it is not so easy to join the G7 camp in the West, and at the end of April, after eating the closed door, Yoon Suk-yeol is still scheming, and has started the ghost idea of the "Aukus" alliance of the United States, Britain and Australia, and has done his best to move closer to the West and seek to build a "small NATO" in the Asia-Pacific region. However, in the face of Western countries with their own evil intentions, there is still a complex and severe domestic situation, and his presidency may not be able to be kept.
According to Yonhap News Agency on May 1, South Korea and Australia held the sixth meeting of foreign ministers and defense ministers (2+2) in Melbourne, Australia, on the same day to discuss the possibility of South Korea joining the US-UK-Australia security partnership AUKUS.
This "Aukus" alliance is actually a military and technological coterie created by the "Aukus" agreement signed by the United States, Britain and Australia in 2021. It not only intends to gradually provide Australia with nuclear submarines and related military technology, but also intends to engage in "mutual communication" and promote the coordinated development of key technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and hypersonic weapons. The United States wants to use this alliance mechanism to contain China on the periphery of the first island chain, and once Australia obtains nuclear submarines, it will definitely affect the balance of military power in the South China Sea.
So, what kind of initial consensus did South Korea reach with Australia this time?
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-hyun said at a joint press conference that the ROK welcomes the "AUKUS" member states to consider including the ROK as a partner of the "AUKUS Second Pillar", and that the ROK's defense science and technology capabilities will "contribute" to the development of the "AUKUS Second Pillar" and regional peace. Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Marles said that South Korea has impressive technological strength and is a strategic partner country that shares value with Australia, and the two sides maintain close cooperation in the field of technology.
It can be seen that South Korea and Australia have made it clear that they are using each other, and South Korea hopes to further realize the plan of "values diplomacy", and try its best to win over Australia, and then show goodwill to the United States and the "Indo-Pacific strategy". The two sides also agreed to further deepen cooperation in the fields of defense and military industry, and will hold joint military exercises to jointly maintain "regional peace and stability" and "Indo-Pacific freedom and democracy".
Interestingly, South Korea only set its sights on the organization "Aukus" after the G7 closed doors. The Yoon Suk-yeol government has just made an overture to the G7 countries, trying to invite them to the G7 countries when the Italian summit of the G7 countries is held at the end of last month, but they did not expect that the G7 did not invite South Korea at all, and also put aside the "ardent expectations" of the South Korean government, which made the South Korean government and the opposition resentful and criticized Yoon Suk-yeol's pro-American and flattering foreign policy.
After the G7 closed-door soup, Kang Seon-woo, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Korea, the largest opposition party in South Korea, openly criticized the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, accusing it of backfiring its efforts to "strengthen its international status" and seriously hurting relations with China, and not receiving invitations from the United States, Japan, and other Western countries. I have to say that South Korea can really be described as "losing its wife and losing its soldiers", which is simply self-inflicted humiliation and has ended up as a laughing stock of the international community, and it has not even been invited to participate in the meeting, and it is even more unthinkable to become one of the G8.
Obviously, several senior members of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration spat at the "Aukus" alliance meeting this time, and talked with officials of the United States, Britain, and Australia about the specific matters and future prospects of future cooperation, to a large extent, to make up for the embarrassment and shortcomings of being rejected by the G7. People obviously don't want to take you to play, but you want to cut your head and squeeze in, it's really embarrassing and embarrassing, not to mention, it also provoked Yin Xiyue's own "prestige" in the country plummeted, and the opposition parties and opposition forces were staring at you, and you still came to such a shameful operation, if you don't laugh at you and don't attack you, then there will be ghosts.
In fact, don't say that South Korea has not joined the G7, it can only be eye-to-eye with the "Aukus" alliance, even if it joins the G7, what about these snakes and rats in a nest and each country with its own ghosts? In addition, Mars also made it clear that the "second pillar of AUKUS" is a technology-sharing agreement rather than a security alliance, which means that I need to use your defense technology, but the nuclear submarine technology transfer agreement, which is the "first pillar", has no intention of involving you. Besides, South Korea has only reached a preliminary agreement with Australia, and has not yet received a clear answer from the United States and even the United Kingdom.
Taking 10,000 steps back, even if South Korea is allowed to become an "Asia-Pacific version of NATO," it will still be a dissensible and ghostly affair, and it will not work out at all. On the one hand, taking the "AUKUS" alliance as an example, whether Japan or South Korea, they are all wading into troubled waters to deal with China, and for South Korea, there is no fundamental conflict of interest with China, and Yoon Suk-yeol has to try to get closer to Aukus to deal with China under the policy of "values diplomacy", which is really "pro-US and anti-China" excessive.
On the other hand, South Korea's "showdown" in relations with China has exposed the Yoon Suk-yeol government's "determination" to never look back on the road to the United States, restarting the "THAAD" deployment, making provocative remarks, pro-US and flattering Japan, and so on. Moreover, the United States has done a lot in recent years about this "strategy" and that "mechanism", and it has either disappeared on its own or been broken through by China, and it has not worked at all.
In fact, China's attitude has long been clear, which is to resolutely oppose but not be afraid. On April 25, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, director of the Information Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense and spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense, also stated that "we resolutely oppose the cobbling together of exclusive 'small circles' of relevant countries, resolutely oppose any bilateral or multilateral military alliance against China, and resolutely oppose the creation of separatism and confrontation and bloc confrontation." Even if the so-called Aukus version of the "Asia-Pacific mini-NATO" is really established, at best, these allies of the United States are more closely connected, and countries such as India and New Zealand are not interested at all, and they are indeed much more rational than Japan and South Korea.