U.S. President Joe Biden is making these days…
his first state trip to Asia.It is an important and long-awaited trip, by which Biden intends to strengthen relations with U.S. allies in East Asia, primarily as a function of opposition to China. The first few days of the trip, which began Friday, Biden spent in South Korea, where he held extensive talks with President Yoon Suk-yeol and agreed on, among other things, the start of new joint military exercises and perhaps the deployment of more U.S. weapons on South Korean soil. The two leaders also talked a lot about North Korea, and the joint measures to be taken to limit the threat posed by the country. Toward the end of their stay in South Korea, Biden held an event together with the chairman of the Korean automotive group Hyundai, which plans to invest in a large electric battery manufacturing plant in the United States. At the end of the event, as the U.S. president was already walking away from the podium, a reporter asked him a question about the situation with North Korea, and Biden responded by showing a lot of confidence, “We are ready for whatever North Korea can do.” When the reporter then asked if he had a message for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, Biden replied, “Hello,” and then, after a pause, “Period.” It is unclear what Biden meant by this laconic answer. During his visit to South Korea, Biden said that he might be willing to meet with Kim Jong-un, but his administration has made it clear that expectations for dialogue with the North Korean dictator are low: Kim’s meetings, letters, and generally stormy and peculiar relationship with former President Donald Trump, although it had seemed promising at first, have not yielded much, and indeed North Korea has lately increased its missile tests. The White House also recently invited North Korea to negotiate on denuclearization, without receiving a response. It is possible, then, that with that “Hello… Point” Biden meant to give a witty response that later turned out to be awkward, but it is also possible that he meant to say that with the North Korean dictator there is not much dialogue at the moment. After South Korea, the second leg of Biden’s trip is to Japan, where he will meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as well as the heads of government of India and Australia.
