US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-United States Defence Ministers' High Tea, as part of the ASEAN Defense Ministers' meeting, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. Photo: VCG

South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas on Monday, Yonhap News Agency reported Monday. A Chinese expert told the Global Times that the visit to the sensitive Joint Security Area was more political than practical, mainly aimed at showcasing US military presence in Northeast Asia and demonstrating the South Korea-US alliance to the outside world.

Hegseth landed in the border area in a US army helicopter and met Ahn, according to video footage released by the South Korean defense ministry.

The defense chiefs visited Observation Post Ouellette, the UN Command's military facility close to the Military Demarcation Line, and the Joint Security Area inside the DMZ, marking the first joint visit to the buffer zone by the two countries' defense chiefs since October 2017, according to Yonhap News.

The 250-kilometer-long, four-km-wide DMZ is a buffer zone between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, said the report.

Hegseth's visit to South Korea—his first since taking office and the final stop of his Asia tour—aims to highlight the ROK-US alliance, reaffirm US commitment to South Korea's security, Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, noted.

According to the Yonhap News, on Tuesday, Ahn and Hegseth will attend the allies' annual defense talks, called the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM). During the SCM, the two sides are expected to discuss an array of key alliance issues, including the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from Washington to Seoul, South Korea's defense spending and the alliance's combined defense posture, to name a few.

Also on Tuesday, Hegseth plans to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, and meet US troops at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, the largest US overseas military installation, said the report.

Xiang noted that the visit was largely political, serving to showcase US military presence in Northeast Asia and support the military dimension of the US "Indo-Pacific Strategy."

"However, the issues that the two sides discussed, including wartime operational command transfer, defense spending sharing, and defense industry cooperation, remained within existing consensus," Xiang added.

Previously, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated at a regular conference in 2024 that as a neighboring country, China follows the developments on the Korean Peninsula and the DPRK-ROK relations. 

"China's position of being committed to safeguarding peace and stability on the Peninsula and promoting the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue remains unchanged. We also hope that all parties will work together to this end," the spokesperson said.