South Korean president Lee Jae-myung met with visiting U.S. Senators Andy King and Tammy Duckworth in Seoul on the same day, Yonhap news agency quoted a spokesman for the South Korean presidential office as saying on the 18th, the two sides discussed shipbuilding cooperation and other matters. The lawmakers have been visiting South Korea and Japan since Sunday to discuss how the United States could leverage the shipbuilding skills and capabilities of the two allies to bolster its own power against China, AP reported.
Hanwha Ocean Corporation and shipyard, image source: Visual China
The South Korean and US leaders’ talks will be held on August 25. Lee Jae-myung expressed hope that the leaders of the two countries could use the talks to achieve substantive results in shipbuilding and other fields, Yonhap reported. U. S. lawmakers said that South Korea is leading the world economic power of cutting-edge technological innovation, the U. S. side is looking forward to cooperation with South Korea. According to an Associated Press report, after visiting Seoul, the two U.S. Senators will also travel to Japan to meet with the heads of head shipbuilding companies of the world’s second and third largest shipbuilding countries to discuss the possibility of establishing joint ventures, to build and maintain non-combat ships for the U. S. Navy in the“Indo-pacific region” and to invest in U. S. shipyards. “Our [ shipbuilding ] capacity is already lower than it was in 2003,” Duckworth said, “We have to rebuild capacity. At the same time, existing capacity is ageing and breaking down, taking longer and more expensive to repair.”
The two countries have made progress in shipbuilding cooperation. In March, South Korean shipbuilder Hanhua Ocean completed maintenance work on a 41,000-ton U.S. Navy logistics supply ship in South Korea, the Associated Press said, it is the company’s first project since the 2024 reached a maintenance agreement with the Navy in July. Hanwha also last year acquired the Philadelphia shipyard, which builds large merchant ships.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) , a US think-tank, as saying that the US, Japan and South Korea have four cooperation paths in shipbuilding, these include Japan and South Korea doing ship maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work for the US, buying US shipyards to co-produce warships, and the US buying warships built by Allied shipyards. The United States must find the right balance between relying on the strength of its allies and building its own ships, CSIS said. But the American dream of shipbuilding faces challenges. The New York Times has previously reported that it takes much longer to build ships in the US than in Asia, where costs are nearly five times higher. Moreover, even if Hanwha succeeds in transferring manufacturing technology to the United States, the shortage of skilled workers remains a huge challenge.
According to the Associated Press, the urgency stems from the fact that Washington lags far behind the Chinese in building naval vessels, alarming policymakers. The US has responded to the so-called“Chinese shipbuilding threat” by imposing port charges and other protectionist measures on chinese-made ships. The Chinese foreign ministry has previously said that the development of China’s shipbuilding industry is the result of technological innovation and active participation in market competition, and has made an important contribution to the development of global trade and the stable and safe operation of global supply chains.