WASHINGTON, The United States and South Korea are nearly aligned when it comes to the need to shape China’s behavior although the countries may use different tactics to do so, a senior U.S. diplomat said Friday.

Mark Lambert, deputy assistant secretary of state for Japan and Korea, also noted the countries are not trying to stop China from playing its rightful role in the international community.

“I think we are generally in alignment,” Lambert said when asked if the U.S. viewed its China policy as aligned with that of South Korea in a webinar hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington.

“But of course, every country is going to have its own priorities,” he added. “The goal is to try to shape behavior. It is not trying to stop China from having a robust role in the world. It’s the globe’s second largest economy.”
Lambert insisted the way South Korea deals with China cannot but be different from the way the U.S. or any other countries do.

“The Koreans have witnessed how China is willing to use economic coercion to try to push or punish other countries for doing things that China disagrees with,” the U.S. diplomat said, citing Beijing’s economic retaliation against Seoul following the deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in South Korea.

“Because Korea is so close to the PRC, it is probably not going to be as vocal on everything that it disagrees with about the PRC,” added Lambert, referring to China by its official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Seoul, however, has recently spoken out rather loudly when it came to maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. official insisted.

“Korea also recognizes and has said so publicly the importance of peace and security in the Taiwan Strait. That body of water is so important to the free flow of commerce for all of us, including a country like the Republic of Korea, but it’s so important on the free flow of shipping to and from the Korean Peninsula,” said Lambert.

“So there is a recognition in that alignment of views of the critical importance of that part of the world, and that we all should work together to avoid the economic and geopolitical crisis that a conflict across the Taiwan Strait would pose,” he added.

Source: Yonhap News Agency