BIDEN STRESSES REBUILDING ALLIANCE

[Anchor Lead]

The Biden administration keeps emphasizing the importance of rebuilding alliances, especially with South Korea and Japan, while maintaining its hard-line containment policy against China.

[Pkg]

In his first speech since taking office, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said the U.S. is working to rebuild frayed alliances. He also said Washington needs to cooperate with its allies to deal with China. This was apparently said to ward off China's threat to th international community's order.

[Soundbite] Antony Blinken(U.S. Secretary of State)

The U.S. secretary of state also vowed to deploy all possible means to prevent China from reaping illicit profits by violating intellectual property rights or manipulating the currency exchange rates. Meanwhile, acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs Sung Kim once again reiterated the importance of South Korea's relations with Japan. He even said nothing is more important than the bilateral ties between the two nations. He added that Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are cooperating on Pyongyang's provocations. The importance of trilateral cooperation among the three nations has emerged as a top priority of the U.S. State Department since the inauguration of President Biden's administration. The Biden administration is implementing a hard-line containment policy against Beijing, while emphasizing the importance of alliances, especially in the Korea-Japan relations.

[Soundbite] Jen Psaki(White House press secretary)

In other words, the Biden administration believes that normalizing relations between Seoul and Tokyo is essential to ward off China.