During the South Korean election campaign this year, Lee Jae Myung said he would crawl between President Trump’s legs, if necessary, to protect his country’s national interests. But he also said, “I am not a pushover, either.”

在今年的韩国大选期间，李在明表示，为了保护韩国的国家利益，如有必要，他会从特朗普总统的胯下钻过去。但他也说，“我也不是软柿子。”

Mr. Lee, who is now South Korea’s president, will put that balancing act to the test on Monday when he and Mr. Trump meet for the first time in Washington​.

现任韩国总统李在明将于周一在华盛顿与特朗普举行首次会面，届时他将面临考验，在维护国家利益与保持原则之间寻求平衡。

The two leaders have a lot in common. Both survived assassination attempts before taking office. Both share an interest in meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. But their priorities diverge when it comes to the seven-decade-old alliance between their two countries — especially over a potential conflict between China and Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

这两位领导人有很多共同之处。两人都在就职前躲过了暗杀。他们都有兴趣与朝鲜领导人金正恩会面。但当涉及两国长达70年的同盟关系时，他们的优先事项就出现了分歧——尤其是在涉及中国与台湾的潜在冲突问题上，北京声称台湾是其领土的一部分。

Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have long been stationed in South Korea to deter North Korea, which has nuclear arms. But the Trump administration is demanding that Seoul take greater responsibility for its own defense, as Washington expands the role of its troops based in South Korea to help contain China. South Korea fears that this “strategic flexibility,” as the United States calls it, could leave it more vulnerable to the North and increase the chances of the South getting sucked into a war over Taiwan.

数万名美军长期驻扎在韩国，以遏制拥有核武器的朝鲜。但随着华盛顿扩大驻韩美军的作用，以帮助遏制中国，特朗普政府要求首尔为自己的防务承担更大的责任。韩国担心，这种美国所称的“战略灵活性”可能会让韩国更容易受到朝鲜的攻击，并增加韩国卷入台湾战争的可能性。

Seoul and Washington should ensure that strategic flexibility “will not undermine South Korea’s security” and the allies’ combined abilities to deter North Korea, Mr. Lee’s national security adviser, Wi Sung-lac, told reporters on Friday.

李在明的国家安全顾问魏圣洛上周五对记者说，首尔和华盛顿应该确保战略灵活性“不会损害韩国的安全”，以及美韩两国共同遏制朝鲜的能力。

The allies have found some common ground over that principle, Mr. Wi said. But officials were also wary of Mr. Trump’s unpredictability.

魏圣洛说，两国已在这一原则上找到了一些共识。但官员们也对特朗普的不可预测性保持警惕。

“If the president somehow feels that he needs to elicit some more public statements from Lee Jae Myung as a partner in countering the Chinese economic and military threat, that might put President Lee in a position that would take him beyond his current talking points​,” Sydney Seiler, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said during an online panel discussion this past week.

战略与国际研究中心的韩国问题专家西德尼·塞勒在上周的一个网络研讨会上说，“如果特朗普总统多少认为需要李在明作为对抗中国经济和军事威胁的合作伙伴发表更多公开声明，这可能会将李在明总统置于一个超越他目前表态框架的位置。”

Officials in Seoul are also concerned that if China ​invades Taiwan​ and the United States uses its forces in South Korea to defend Taiwan, China and North Korea ​could open another military conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

首尔官员还担心，如果中国入侵台湾，而美国动用驻韩部队保卫台湾，中国和朝鲜可能在朝鲜半岛开辟另一场军事冲突。

Similar concerns were behind a 2006 joint statement ​in which the United States agreed to respect South Korea’s position that “it shall not be involved in a regional conflict in Northeast Asia against the will of the Korean people.” Only then did South Korea agree to respect “the necessity for strategic flexibility” of the U.S. forces in ​South Korea.

类似担忧成为两国2006年联合声明的背景，该声明中，美国同意尊重韩国立场，即“韩国不应在违背韩国人民意愿的情况下卷入东北亚地区冲突”。只有在此基础上，韩国才同意尊重驻韩美军“战略灵活性”的必要性。

今年3月，美韩军队在韩国涟川举行联合军事演习。

But that was before the United States saw China as its biggest security threat and made defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression a priority. In recent weeks, some policy analysts in Washington have suggested that the U.S. military should drastically reduce its presence in South Korea because it cannot freely use its bases there to fight a war elsewhere.

但那是在美国将中国视为其最大的安全威胁，并将保护台湾免受中国侵略作为首要任务之前。近几周来，华盛顿的一些政策分析人士建议，美军应该大幅削减驻韩美军规模，因为美国不能自由地把那里的军事基地用于其他地方的战事。

If South Korea resists Washington’s demand on strategic flexibility, “the United States can simply relocate key components of its forces in South Korea to another ​region where it will face less constraint in sending them into a Taiwan contingency,” said Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean presidential adviser for diplomacy and national security.

前韩国总统外交和国家安全顾问千英宇说，如果韩国拒绝华盛顿关于战略灵活性的要求，“美国完全可以将驻韩美军的核心部分转移到其他地区，从而在向台湾派遣应急部队时受到更少的约束。”

This month, Gen. Xavier Brunson, the top U.S. military commander in Korea, said​ it should not be considered a foregone conclusion that the United States would want South Korea to join in a conflict between Taiwan and China.

本月，驻韩美军最高指挥官泽维尔·布伦森上将表示，不应想当然地认为美国必定要求韩国介入台海冲突。

But “what’s being asked of Korea is to be stronger” against North Korea so that the U.S. military might be able to “do other things,” General Brunson told reporters at the U.S. base in Pyeongtaek.

但是，布伦森在平泽美军基地对记者说，“要求韩国做的是增强自身实力”，这样美军才能“执行其他任务”。

On his way to the United States, Mr. Lee made a stopover in Tokyo and met with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. In a nod to Washington, Mr. Lee and Mr. Ishiba agreed to improve bilateral ties so that their nations could cooperate better with the United States to help contain China and North Korea. They also compared notes on an overlapping set of challenges, including Mr. Trump’s high tariffs and his pressure on U.S. allies to increase their military spending.

在前往美国的途中，李在明在东京短暂停留，会见了首相石破茂。为了向华盛顿示好，李在明和石破茂同意改善双边关系，以便两国能够更好地与美国合作，帮助遏制中国和朝鲜。他们还就一系列共同的挑战交换了意见，包括特朗普的高关税，以及他向美国盟友施压，要求他们增加军费开支。

​Seoul and Washington have yet to hash out the details of the broad-stroke trade deal they agreed to​ last month. Mr. Trump agreed to lower his tariffs on South Korea’s exports, like Samsung phones and Hyundai cars, to 15 percent in return for a $350 billion investment package from the country​. He has also said that South Korea should ​increase its annual contribution to the upkeep of​ the U.S. troops on its soil​ to $10 billion​, more than nine times the current level​.

首尔与华盛顿尚未就上月达成的框架性贸易协议敲定细节。特朗普同意将三星手机和现代汽车等韩国出口产品的关税降至15%，以换取韩国3500亿美元的一揽子投资计划。他还表示，韩国应该将每年对驻韩美军的防卫费增加到100亿美元，这是目前水平的九倍多。

​These demands have some South Koreans wondering if it would be better to try to defend their country without U.S. troops. In recent years, surveys have shown that a majority of citizens want South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons instead of relying on the United States for protection.

这些要求让一些韩国人开始思考，是否应该尝试在没有美军驻扎的情况下自主保卫国家。近年来，调查显示，大多数公民希望韩国自行研发核武器，而非依赖美国提供安全保障。