U.S.-South Korea Relationship Has Soured

WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration strengthens ties in Asia as part of a hedging strategy to contain fast-rising China, it has allowed a key relationship in the region to fray: its half-century-old alliance with South Korea.

Strong ties with Seoul have never been more pressing, regional experts say, and the administration plans to launch a diplomatic initiative to breathe new life into a relationship that, much like an unhappy marriage, has soured over the years as the partners drift apart.

"There's no question, if the alliance isn't managed properly, it could easily fall apart," said Peter Beck, the Seoul-based director of the International Crisis Group, a privately financed conflict-prevention organization, who also serves as an advisor to South Korea's Ministry of Unification.

The region includes emerging powerhouse China; unpredictable, nuclear-armed North Korea; and nations with unresolved historical enmities that add to the area's volatility. But as the White House devotes its energies to expanding its alliance with Japan, building new bridges to India and even nurturing a budding relationship with Vietnam, ties with Seoul have languished.

Against this backdrop, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to meet Thursday in Washington with a South Korean delegation for the inaugural session of a dialogue officially called a "strategic consultation." The meeting has no fixed agenda and has been billed as a chance to explore the broader relationship and priorities of both countries.

"The idea basically is to see where we're heading and what we can do to strengthen the alliance," said Mira Sun, spokeswoman for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

Few expect the talks to produce a quick turnaround.

In the increasingly strained political atmosphere, the Pentagon has already pulled out nearly a quarter of the roughly 37,000 U.S. troops once stationed in South Korea and, by mutual consent, repositioned some of those remaining well south of the frontier with North Korea. Officials in Seoul have expressed their distaste for a decades-old arrangement that puts South Korean troops under the command of a U.S. general during times of war, and Pentagon officials seem more than willing to make changes in the future.

In fact, Pentagon officials say they look forward to the day when Seoul's military can assume a larger role on the Korean peninsula, and insist that the South is "pushing on an open door" when it demands more control over its own security.