US, S. Korea to 'coordinate' chip investments, says Kirby on Micron reports

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications (Yonhap)

WASHINGTON -- John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said Tuesday that South Korea and the United States would "coordinate" on their chip investments when asked of a Financial Times report that Washington requested Seoul not to fill any market gap created by a potential ban by Beijing on chips from US memory chipmaker.

“What I can tell you is that the Biden administration and the Yoon administration quite frankly have worked together to make truly historic progress with respect to deepening US-ROK cooperation on national security, economic security and joint efforts to promote and protect our leading edge technologies,” he told the Korean press corps in Washington.

"This would obviously include efforts to coordinate our investments in the semiconductors sector to secure critical technologies and to address economic coercion."

The Financial Times reported Sunday that the US had asked South Korea to urge its chipmakers -- Samsung Electronics and SK hynix -- not to try to promote their sales to China in case of US chipmaker Micron faces a sales ban.

When asked about whether discussion of South Korea's military support to Ukraine would be possible during Wednesday's summit, Kirby said that he respects "sovereign decisions." It was encouraging to see that Yoon has been vocal in his condemnation of the Russian invasion, he added.

“It’s up to the leaders of those countries how much they support it,” he said. “We have absolutely every expectation that the issue will be discussed but we certainly would not speak for Pres. Yoon or any additional support he may or may not be willing to provide.”

By Shin Ji-hye(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)