Tag: David Stilwell

I am not surprised that the U.S. government would not side with anyone over this dispute. I would think the U.S. government may look at this as why should it put its relationship with Japan at risk because the Moon administration over reached in its Japan bashing for domestic political reasons and is now paying the consequences.:

The United States takes the tensions between Korea and Japan very seriously but cannot play a “mediating role,” according to the chair of the Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee who said the message was relayed to him by the U.S. State Department point man for East Asian affairs. 

Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, a third-term lawmaker of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, met with David R. Stilwell, the new U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Wednesday evening amid the diplomatic spat over Japan’s recent export restrictions on Korea.  

Yoon told the JoongAng Ilbo over the phone that Stilwell told him that the United States “could not take one side or the other because taking one side means losing the other.” 

Stilwell then conveyed, according to Yoon, that Washington “encouraged its two friends,” Seoul and Tokyo, “to resolve the issue through dialogue.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Retired General David Stilwell speaks Korean and has very close ties to US Ambassador Harry Harris because of their prior work together at US Indo-Pacific Command:

U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated Air Force veteran David Stilwell as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, according to the White House on Wednesday.

The position covers diplomacy with the Korean Peninsula, China, and Japan. His predecessor Susan Thornton stepped down in July amid rumors that she was too moderate, whereas Stilwell is thought to be a hardliner.

It can be hard to tell why people come and go in the frantically revolving doors of the Trump administration, but Stilwell’s appointment may reflect the fact that hardliners are increasingly gaining the upper hand. Trump only recently described Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is thought to have been a steadying force, as “sort of a Democrat.”

The White House described Stilwell as “an Air Force veteran with more than 35 years of experience as a pilot, commander, and Korean linguist.”

He retired in 2015 with the rank of brigadier general and is currently the director of the China Strategic Focus Group at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii.

He learned Korean in a military language school in California and served as a fighter pilot in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, from 1993 to 1995. He also speaks Chinese and some Japanese.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.