A key contender for Donald Trump’s national security advisor says a U.S. military intervention on the Korean Peninsula should occur if China gets directly involved, suggesting that U.S. forces should be stationed outside of Korea for that reason. 
 
Elbridge Colby, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development during the Trump administration, made the remark on Monday during an interview with Yonhap News in Washington, D.C.

Calling for a change in the role of the U.S. Forces Korea(USFK), the ex-Pentagon official said that U.S. forces on the peninsula should not be held hostage to dealing with the North Korean problem and should instead shift their focus on China.  
 
Colby argued that South Korea is going to have to take “primary, essentially overwhelming responsibility for its own self-defense against North Korea” and U.S. forces in the meantime should retain their military capacity and prioritize responding to China’s decisive threat.
 
While calling for a realistic evaluation of the current approach to the U.S. troops’ role on the Korean Peninsula, he said that U.S. forces that are meant to defend South Korea against a Chinese attack should not be in Korea.