By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

The United States fully accepted South Korea’s strategic initiative to play a balancing role in Northeast Asia, although there are still some private sector experts who worry about the negative impact it might have on the two nations’ alliance, a high-ranking diplomat said Monday.

Kim Sook, director general of the North American Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said after returning from a trip to Washington that the governments of the allied powers came to a definite understanding about the controversial ``balancer’’ strategy.

Kim said he met with congressional representatives and officials of the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon and explained what the balancer role means while staying in Washington since last Tuesday.

``I told them that we want to play an active and positive role in the peace and prosperity of Northeast Asia on the firm basis of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, which is quite different from the `balance of power’ concept of the late 19th century,’’ he said in a radio program.

While stressing the importance of the alliance, Kim said he explained to the U.S. leaders that the balancer policy will be implemented based on common values of the two, such as democracy and a market economy.

However, he added, some experts at private think tanks still raised concerns that South Korea’s balancer strategy might erode the half-century-old alliance.

``I suggested we keep talking about that if they still had doubts,’’ Kim said. ``But I asked them to give us the benefit of the doubt as far as the alliance was concerned.’’

A senior government official familiar with Kim’s Washington trip, told reporters in a press briefing that American officials also nodded in agreement at the historical recognition of South Koreans, who are concerned about rising nationalist sentiment in Northeast Asia.

``The U.S., which is miles away from this area, is the only power with strategic interests here without any territorial ambition. As for South Korea, it is the only country in history (in Asia) that has never invaded its neighbors,’’ he said. ``So, the two allied powers have moral superiority.’’

The U.S. officials agreed that the two nations should continue to cooperate for peace and prosperity in the region, which is currently faced with threats to its stability by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and rising nationalism, he said on condition of anonymity.

After President Roh Moo-hyun proclaimed the balancer role in March, controversy flared up both at home and abroad over what he meant with his ``kyunhyongja (balancer or stabilizer)’’ remarks.

Some media outlets have raised speculations that Roh seems to have decided to move closer to China while distancing itself from the U.S., prompting fierce criticism from conservative forces at home and in America.

The criticism was followed by a series of events that many viewed as evidence of cracks in the alliance, such as the U.S. move to scrap ``WRSA-K,’’ or the U.S. ammunition stocks for a possible war on the Korean Peninsula and the disagreement over Seoul’s share of the cost for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

In the latest sign of tension in the transforming alliance, the American forces stationed in Korea were found to have scrapped earlier this year a contingency plan for the collapse of the Kim Jong-il regime in North Korea because of objections from Seoul.

``The governments of the two countries agreed that the alliance is firm and developing,’’ Kim said.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr