UPDATED: Biden arrives in South Korea for talks with President Yoon

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OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in South Korea on Friday, the first leg of his first trip to Asia as president.

Biden was greeted at the U.S. air base at Osan by South Korean foreign minister Park Jin, and the commanding general of U.S. forces in Korea, Paul LaCamera, among other American and South Korean officials.

US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, USA, as he travels to South Korea and Japan, on his first trip to Asia as President. EPA-EFE/Oliver Contreras / POOL

Biden was due to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol later Friday at a Samsung Electronics 005930.KS plant, ahead of a full day of events on Saturday.

The visit will be the first meeting between the two leaders. Yoon took office on May 10, and has vowed to deepen ties with Washington.

The South Korean president hopes to gain assurances from Biden that the United States will strengthen its deterrence against North Korean threats, while expanding the decades-old alliance to tackle other issues.

Biden, meanwhile, is expected to bring a theme of countering China’s presence in the region.

Biden and Yoon may quickly move from formalities to dealing with a weighty issue with North Korea at the top of the agenda. Leader Kim Jong Un abandoned a freeze on intercontinental ballistic missile testing and appears poised to resume testing of nuclear bombs, perhaps while Biden is in the region. 

U.S. cooperation with South Korea and Japan “will only strengthen in the face of further provocations” by North Korea, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters en route to South Korea when asked about the possibility of a weapons test.

“We are prepared for those eventualities,” Sullivan said. The United States has told allies and China that such a provocation during the U.S. visit would “cause adjustments to the way that our military is postured in the region,” he said.

Yoon has signaled he will take a tougher line on North Korea than his predecessor and is expected to ask for Biden’s help. Yoon has warned of a preemptive strike if there is a sign of an imminent attack and vowed to strengthen the South’s deterrent capability. 

North Korea has revealed a COVID-19 outbreak in the past week, but it has ignored calls to return to diplomacy.

Washington has said it is open to direct talks at any time with Kim, but it has not publicly offered new ideas about how to coax the country’s leadership into conversation. Biden decided not to visit the heavily fortified demilitarized zone separating the South from North Korea.

Countering China’s presence in the region is a key Biden theme on the trip, but South Korea is likely to offer a cautious public tone on the topic given Beijing is Seoul’s top trading partner.

South Korea is also expected to be among the inaugural members of Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which will be announced during the trip to set standards on labor, the environment and supply chains.

Asked about Beijing’s opposition to the IPEF, Yoon said that joining the framework does not have to conflict with South Korea’s economic ties with China.

“There is no need to see it as a zero-sum,” he said.

Hyundai Motor Co  has been working on plans to build a new electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in the United States, and an announcement could coincide with Biden’s visit. 

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