I'm John Batchel with my colleague Grant Newsham, author of When China Attack's

currently United States Marine Corps retired much time in Asia.

We begin with Tokyo because that is the ally,

and Tajichi Sinai is the hawkish side of the conversation in Tokyo these many decades.

We go to Seoul where I do not have a firm sense of what the new president, President Yi, represents in this hostile water off of the coast of the People's Republic of China.

The previous president was impeached and sentenced and jailed for what appears from the outside to be lawfare, but that's over

and done with. We're now dealing with a foreign policy that is unclear to me. Herefore, it was

understood that Seoul and Tokyo were standing side by side in the face of Chinese aggression

and North Korean threat.

However, now, Grant, I've lost track of President Yi's position with regard to the threats

from Beijing, and now the request, which he has not acknowledged in some formal fashion,

but has indicated he could not meet the President's request to reopen

or patrol the Strait of Hormuz.

Is that surprising to you that Yi is reluctant?

Not really.

He is overlaying unnaturally solicitous of Chinese desires, which is a nice way of saying.

You'd almost say he's pro-China.

It doesn't surprise me that they would refuse this request from the president, whether or not

that's a confinal refusal remains to be seen, but it does seem pretty solid.

China is pretty clear about what it

expects from the South Korean administration. And South Korea has traditionally been a little bit

reluctant to send its forces sort of too far away from Korea, other than Vietnam, of course.

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