US, ROK will suspend of military drills

Experts call move encouraging, but uncertainties still remain

The suspension of an annual military drill between the United States and the Republic of Korea is a show of good faith but uncertainties still remain as details concerning the suspension have yet to be revealed, experts said.

The ROK and the US have decided to suspend all planning activities for their annually-held joint military exercises slated for August, the ROK's Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said on Tuesday.

Choi made the remarks after the US announced a day earlier that it would call off the August Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise.

Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement that the decision was "consistent with President (Donald) Trump's commitment and in concert with our Republic of Korea ally", but stopped short of mentioning the scale and timeline of the suspension, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"No decisions on subsequent war games have been made, and there is no impact on Pacific exercises outside of the Korean Peninsula," White added.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday there would be no changes to joint drill plans between the US and Japan. He said both Washington and Tokyo engage in regular deterrence exercises against "regional security threats".

"The US is in a position to keep its commitment to its allied nations' defense and our understanding is there is no change to the US commitment to the Japan-US alliance and the structure of American troops stationed in Japan," Suga said in a news conference.

Trump met Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in Singapore on June 12. When answering questions at a news conference at the Capella Hotel in the city-state's island of Sentosa, where the historic summit took place, Trump said the US will be stopping the war games as they are "costly and provocative".

The DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency highlighted the US decision to halt the drills, saying it is "urgent to make a bold decision on halting irritating and hostile military actions against each other".

Trust-building

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West said the suspension of the drills showed that the US "is involved in trust-building" with the DPRK.

"The idea is if the US takes steps to reassure North Korea (DPRK) on security by canceling military exercises, it will undertake additional steps toward denuclearization," West said.

"The more confidence each side has in the other, the more likely there will be a successful resolution of hostilities."

Nevertheless, Trump warned on Sunday that the drills "can start up immediately if talks break down". He also said in Singapore that suspension of the exercise "is not part of the equation now to bring home the US soldiers stationed in South Korea (the ROK)".

Li Kaisheng, a researcher of international relations at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the drills between the US and the ROK have been a major source of tension on the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK has constantly called it an invasion rehearsal and responded with its own weapons tests.

"It is a good sign of peace, but there are too many uncertainties at the current stage," Li said, adding that the US only promised to cancel the August exercise this year, thus it is too early to say if there will be any new issues in the future as the denuclearization process involve various complex historical problems.

Last year, about 17,500 US soldiers and more than 50,000 ROK troops participated in the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, although the exercise is mostly focused on computerized simulations rather than live field exercises that use weapons, tanks or aircraft, Reuters reported.

The US-ROK exercise calendar hits a high point every spring with the Foal Eagle and Max Thunder drills, which both wrapped up last month.

Xinhua and Reuters contributed to this story.

panmengqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/20/2018 page12)