If there is one bipartisan ideology that defines the administration's policy a year before and now would be its hostile containment towards China.
Since President Biden took office in 2021, his administration has significantly pressured China by implementing tight export controls and pursuing supply chain restructuring in advanced technology, particularly semiconductors, while also maintaining tariffs and corporate sanctions.
However, as President Trump took office with more experience and loyal followers in his cabinet–unlike his first term–his will to pressure China has so far been more evident than his predecessor. Behind the Trump administration's grand strategy to convene China stands Elbridge Colby, who is seated as under Secretary of War for policy.
Grandson of Eldbridge Andrew Colby, a former Director of the CIA in the 1970s, Eldridge Colby first gained attention when he served under the first Trump administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development. During his time in the government, he was a lead architect of the 2018 National Defence Strategy which reoriented U.S. defense priorities toward great power competition–especially China and the Indo-Pacific region–and emphasized allied burden-sharing.
Despite a short presence in the government, his ideology directly penetrates the Trump administration's agenda in international relations. His strategic vision captures three key themes: great power competition over counterterrorism, "strategy of denial", and allied burden-sharing and realism. Some of these strategies are already being reflected.
Recently, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration planned to withdraw 4,500 U.S. troops from Korea and shift them to Guam or other bases in the Pacific to better posture against China. Despite how the Pentagon publicly denied and confirmed from both the Senate and the House that there will be no deduction of the number of troops in its largest base abroad, it is no secret that high officials in the White House believe its largest foreign base should take more responsibility to convene China's expansion in the Pacific.
Adding on to restructuring its military might, Colby's strategic logic centered on burden-shifting, selective commitment, and realist reciprocity has already taken place. In Asia, both Korea and Japan faced intensified U.S. demands to increase its defense contributions. To effectively achieve this goal, the Trump administration has explicitly tied trade policy to security cooperation, arguing that allies benefiting from U.S. protection must "pay their fair share". While such an assertion seems to have a parallel analogy to the America First movement, behind its intention, hides Colby's strategy for the U.S. military to focus on China, leaving rather less important conflicts to its allies, unlike before.
As for what Colby wants from its allied nation, Korea, his recent interview with the AP explicitly implies this; "South Korea is going to have to take primary, essentially overwhelming responsibility for its own self-defense against North Korea because we don't have a military that can fight North and then be ready to fight China".
So what can Korea do to maintain the peace in a world that is changing quickly while fulfilling Beijing's economic needs? The short answer is that Korea can't find a way to make both superpowers satisfactory, and it shouldn't try to do so in the future. Instead, Korea should be clear about who its true ally is.
For the past three decades, South Korea has sought to balance its security reliance on the United States with its economic interdependence with China. That dual strategy once seemed manageable; Washington provided the security umbrella that kept the peninsula stable, while Beijing offered the markets that fueled Korean growth. But as U.S.–China competition seems to be more apparent in a long-term contest over power and ideology, that balance has become untenable.
Korea now stands at a crossroad. The world is being divided into two systems: one rooted in liberal democracy, technological openness, and rule of law. The other is anchored in authoritarian control, surveillance, and state-driven capitalism. In this environment, neutrality is not prudence—it is paralysis.
To preserve its sovereignty and prosperity, Korea must move from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity. However, being said, it should not be a mere statement which President Lee has already proclaimed amid his visit to Washington this past month; saying that Korea's bilateral stance on its economic reliance on China and security reliance with the U.S is "no longer possible to maintain" such neutrality.
Instead, there should be a clear action that must align itself firmly with the coalition of democracies that underwrites the very order that enabled its rise. The United States, Japan, Australia, and Europe are not just allies of convenience—they represent the political and economic principles that made Korea's transformation possible.
However, this does not mean severing all ties with China. Geography and economics make such a move impossible, especially considering how Korea's net export is strongly contingent on the sales in China. But it does mean recognizing that Beijing views interdependence not as partnership but as leverage. From trade coercion during the THAAD dispute to political interference in cultural exchanges, China has repeatedly used economic tools to enforce political compliance. Korea cannot base its future on a relationship defined by fear of retaliation.
Instead, Seoul should double down on its alliance with Washington and expand defense and technological cooperation within the Indo-Pacific framework. That means continuing to enhance missile defense, cyber capabilities, and joint intelligence sharing with both the United States and Japan. The political cost of trilateral cooperation is real, but so is the cost of vulnerability.
To do so, Korea must continue investing in indigenous deterrent power: advanced missile systems, unmanned defense platforms, and cutting-edge defense technology including AI. But the most powerful weapon Korea possesses is not military—it is its democratic legitimacy. In a region where autocratic influence is expanding, Korea's success as a prosperous democracy is itself a strategic asset. It can lead regional efforts on digital governance, transparency, and rule of law—areas where the U.S. often lacks local credibility.
Korea's challenge in this new Cold War is not to avoid choosing sides, but to choose both wisely and carefully. The path of balancing may seem safe in the short term, but history shows that small powers caught between great ones rarely prosper by hesitation. The cost of ambiguity will be growing pressure from both sides, diminishing autonomy, and strategic isolation.
The time has come for Korea to act not as a buffer, but as a builder—of alliances, of norms, and of resilience. The choice is not between Washington and Beijing; it is between clarity and confusion, sovereignty and subordination.
Seungheon (Heon) Lee is an undergraduate student whose interests include international security, technology policy, and global politics with a regional focus on East Asia. He works as a Research Assistant at MIT's Security Studies Program, studying nuclear strategy among power states such as China and North Korea, and previously was at South Korea's National Assembly as a legislative aide. He plans to further his studies in national security in a multilateral diplomatic environment for Korea.