When Pelosi last visited South Korea as Speaker of the House in 2015, she met with then-President Park Geun-hye and South Korea’s then-foreign minister. But Yoon’s office said this week that he was unable to meet with Pelosi because she was on vacation while Foreign Secretary Park Jin is in Cambodia for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Yoon, who is believed to be at home in Seoul, spoke with Pelosi by phone Thursday afternoon. When Pelosi arrived in South Korea on Wednesday afternoon, Yoon was at the theater and then had dinner with some actors. “I cannot understand that the parliamentary leader of our ally visited Korea and our president does not meet her. Being on vacation cannot be an excuse,” Yoo Seung-min, a high-profile former lawmaker from Yoon’s conservative ruling People’s Power party, wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “What can we do with the fact that he attended a performance in a theater and had a gathering [with the actors]but you still don’t meet the Speaker of the US House?’ Yun took office in May on a platform widely seen as more aggressive in China than that of his leftist predecessor, Moon Jae-in. But his government has come under increasing pressure from Chinese officials in recent months over South Korea’s deepening trade and defense ties with the US. China launched an unprecedented series of live-fire drills around Taiwan in response to Pelosi’s visit to the island on Tuesday and Wednesday, which Beijing considers part of its sovereign territory. Pelosi met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during the visit and also met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earlier in the week. He is expected to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on the next and final leg of the tour. Kim Jae-chun, a political science professor at Seoul’s Sogang University and a former adviser to Park’s conservative administration, said Yoon “seems reluctant to meet with Pelosi as he feels burdened by Beijing’s growing criticism of diplomatic policies and security of Seoul”. Kim added: “This gives the wrong impression, both domestically and internationally, that he is trying to curry favor with Beijing. Pelosi is a very important figure in the US. When the leaders of Taiwan and Japan are all meeting her, Yun not meeting her is not a good choice.”

Yun attended the NATO summit in Madrid in June – a first for a South Korean leader and one widely interpreted as signaling Seoul’s emergence as a more active US regional security ally. “I am not convinced that we will be greatly affected by China’s complaints,” South Korean Prime Minister Han Dak-soo said while Yun was at the NATO summit. “Our priorities in values ​​and national interests are changing.” But last month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian urged South Korea to uphold Moon’s commitment not to deploy any more US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile interceptors. South Korea’s deployment of the Thaad system in 2017 prompted a fierce economic backlash from Beijing, which is widely believed to have contributed to a steady rise in anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea in recent years. The Chinese ambassador to Seoul warned in a speech last month against “disengaging” from the Chinese economy. South Korean companies have moved in recent years to reduce their exposure to the Chinese market and diversify supply chains in key sectors, including semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries. The Financial Times reported this week that top chipmaker Samsung Electronics is reassessing its investments in China in response to so-called safeguards contained in the Chips and Science Act passed by the US Congress last month.