October 16, 2015
Remarks by President Obama and President Park of the Republic of Korea in Joint Press Conference
Q
First, I have a question for President Obama. Within the United States, with regard to the Korea-U.S. alliance,
there are some people who are concerned that there are some cracks. What do you see? And in this situation,
President Park has visited the United States. What is the significance of her visit?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:
Actually, I don’t see any cracks in the relationship at all. (略)
So there’s no contradiction between the Republic of Korea having good relations with us, being a central part
of our alliance, and having good a relationship -- good relations with China.
I think as I communicated to President Park, the only thing that we're going to continue to insist on is that
we want China to abide by international norms and rules. And where they fail to do so, we expect the Republic
of Korea to speak out on that, just as we do, because we think that both of our countries have benefitted from
the international norms and rules that have been in place since the end of World War II. And we don't want to
see those rules of the road weakening, or some countries taking advantage because they're larger.
That's not good for anybody -- including South Korea.
Obviously, given the size of China right there on your doorstep, if they're able to act with impunity and ignore
rules whenever they please, that’s not going to be good for you -- whether that’s on economic issues or
security issues.
So, again, I think there we have a shared interest. And my hope is, is that as a consequence of the outreach
that President Park has done, the outreach we do, the interactions that we have with Japan and resolving some of
the historical challenges that exist there, that we can create in Northeast Asia the kind of cooperative,
forward-looking relationship among all countries that will be good for our children and our grandchildren.
