U.S., Japan, South Korea Leaders Meet To Bolster Cooperation

 

 

The leaders of two of our closest and most important allies in Asia are coming to Camp David on Friday to announce a strengthening of military and technological cooperation in the face of threats from the North Korean regime and China:

The United States, Japan and South Korea are expected to announce plans for expanded military cooperation on ballistic missile defenses and technology development in the face of growing concern about North Korea’s nuclear program when the countries’ leaders gather at Camp David for a summit Friday, according to two senior Biden administration officials.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss planning for the summit, said the announcements will be part of a broad set of initiatives that will be unveiled as President Joe Biden hosts Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for the one-day gathering at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains.

The summit is the first Biden has held during his presidency at Camp David and comes amid a thaw in the historically complicated relationship between Japan and South Korea. Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

The White House is looking to build on the recent diplomatic momentum and aims to use the summit for “institutionalizing, deepening and thickening the habits of cooperation” between the three countries as they face an increasingly complicated Pacific, one official said.  [snip]

Japan and South Korea have been rapidly mending their ties as they deepen three-way security cooperation with Washington in response to growing regional threats from North Korea and an increasingly assertive China.

The ties have improved rapidly since March after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government announced an initiative to resolve disputes stemming from compensation for wartime Korean forced laborers.

Last month, Japan reinstated South Korea as a preferred nation with fast-track trade status, ending a four-year economic row that was further strained during their bitter historic disputes. The three countries also announced in June that they would begin to share in real-time early warning threat data of North Korean missile launches by the end of the year.

Having these two allies develop closer ties as a counterweight to an aggressive North Korea and an increasingly hostile China should not have taken until now to take root.  It took a change in administration in all three countries plus a changing landscape in Asia to clarify the stakes and the response necessary.  Particularly, America now has competent, professional diplomatic leadership at the State Department and National Security Council with the vision to help this new era come to pass.

(Photo:  Prime Minister Kishida and President Yoon, soon to be joined by President Biden/ Reuters)