A new era in trilateral relations has dawned for the likeminded partners, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States. How long it will last will depend on how institutionalised the triumvirate can become on economic, financial, technological, and security matters while also navigating South Korea’s troublesome politics. 

Over the weekend, a historic meeting took place at Camp David with US President Joe Biden hosting a trilateral summit with the leaders of South Korea and Japan. This was the first time the three leaders met at the summit level. Previous meetings have taken place on the side of other gatherings, with the trilateral existing primarily via less formal get togethers.

The new arrangements will boost the existing trilateral configuration from the sub-cabinet level to full annual ministerial gatherings across defence, foreign affairs, commerce, and industry. The summit was proposed to bring the three partners more formally and institutionally together within a common security agenda. Central to the challenges covered across the weekend were China and North Korea. In addition to greater levels of consultation, which will include a “duty to consult” security pledge, adding more bandwidth to information sharing and coordinated response messaging in the event of a crisis, the revamped trilateral relationship moves forward several material outcomes on security challenges. These include real-time missile warning data sharing, secure communications, multi-domain annual military exercises, a commitment to counter Chinese disinformation, and a promise to reduce trilateral dependence on Russian energy with opportunities for stronger collaboration on nuclear and gas energy.

The agreement and subsequent announcements laid out in the joint statement are “impressively substantive and comprehensive.” Specific language on maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait deliberately raises the threat of China’s invasion of the island, a topic that has become increasingly prominent in Western regional security analyses. Chinese military exercises, which increasingly and proactively breach Taiwanese legal airspace and surrounding waters, have no doubt spurred debates about a possible attack.

China’s response has been characteristic across the spectrum of state-run news outlets. The United States has “connived” to bring South Korea and Japan together, against their own national interests, to contain China. “It is crystal clear,” wrote Li Haidong of China Foreign Affairs University, “that the fundamentals for such partnership or alliances is all about serving US competition with China and weakening China’s development prospects.” Some see the event as a closer tying of South Korea and Japan to America’s global containment against China, unsettling the already precarious strategic relationship that exists between Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing. The Camp David statement shows “that Japan and South Korea… may view China as a significant threat, rival, and potentially an enemy.”

Views from Western analysts have been less dogmatic in their take on the potential for precipitating hostility. Institutionalising the trilateral arrangement will be crucial to persuading the Chinese that “they will not benefit from an assault on Taiwan, and thereby prevent it,” remarked Frank J. Gaffney, executive chairman at the Center for Security Policy. Others see more value in deepening economic linkages, particularly around supply chain vulnerabilities. Insulating the three economies from economic coercion and building resiliency into critical technology supply chains, writes John Hemmings, is the standout of the agreement.

South Korea the weak link

While the agreements made across the weekend summit have been lauded, there is still much speculation about the long-term stability of the trilateral arrangement. ROK-Japan relations under the former government of Moon Jae-in were frosty, with the former president remarking that the human rights of victims were more important than relations between countries. Under President Yoon Seok Yeol, US ROK relations have strengthened, with a corresponding deepening of ROK-Japan relations, putting to bed the history issue at least for the time being.

For the political left in South Korea, there is a distinct unwillingness to move beyond Japan’s colonial legacy, which has been pushed to the forefront of politics in recent years. The current leader of the main opposition party, Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), Lee Jae-myung shares Moon’s animosity toward Tokyo, which he says has “a long history of inflicting great harm” on Koreans.

DPK politicians have also refrained from criticising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refused to attend a video speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and invited pro-Russian denialists of the Bucha Massacre to a party forum.

South Korea’s “imperial presidency” gives President Yoon, and outsider conservative, considerable independence to shift the nation’s foreign policy where he sees fit. Constitutionally, he cannot run for the presidency again, which means he is not tied to re-election considerations, such as what the implications of rapprochement with Japan may mean given the political left’s hostility towards the move, as Robert E. Kelly remarks. In 2027, a new left-leaning government would have the same power to abrogate the relationship, potentially reverting back to the status quo.

This potential for a reversion to Moon’s more hostile stance is certainly likely to form part of China’s response over the next few years. Across the weekend, China’s media focused on protests in South Korea over planned ROK-Japan-US military exercises and the potential for economic harm caused by a deepening of the trilateral relationship.

Beijing has shown a propensity to employ economic sanctions to get what it wants, and this may influence the DPK to embolden their position against Japan and the US. But Beijing will also be quick to point out to South Korea’s leaders in opposition that many of the troublesome issues in ROK-Japan relations still exist. The issue of World War II comfort women, misleading history education instruction in Japan, nationalism, and the focus in South Korea on the colonial period in pop culture will continue to challenge the relationship.

On these issues and others, China’s diplomats have been willing to engage with leaders in opposition in South Korea to create political rifts. In June of this year, South Korea’s foreign minister summoned the Chinese ambassador to protest against “provocative” remarks made by the diplomat in a meeting with Lee on the nation’s growing strategic relationship with the US. Other comments have drawn attention to the ROK’s position on Taiwan. Each time, China’s response, more obnoxious than the last, has been to blame the affair entirely on the South Koreans. Leaders in Seoul have been left perplexed at the willingness of the Chinese side to violate diplomatic protocols and interfere with South Korean domestic politics.

China’s actions, these episodes suggest, may indeed work to tighten Seoul’s attachment to the improve trilateral arrangement. Another consideration is the lessening of ROK-China trade complementarity and the deepening of economic competition in strategic industries. This is occurring at a time when concerns about Beijing’s increasing authoritarianism, regional assertiveness, and support for Russia in its war against Ukraine are widespread.

Whether South Korea’s politics can withstand these challenges will determine the degree of institutionalisation of the trilateral arrangement in the years ahead. As Michael J. Greene has written:  “the obstacles… are less about differences among the three governments [US, Japan, ROK] at present but rather the differences within Korea.”

The weekend summit, for all these concerns, is considerable, and would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, writes Center for New American Security’s Lisa Curtis. China has much to be concerned about, but in the end, the move will likely deter belligerence, not provoke it.

Dr Adam Bartley is a Fulbright Scholar and resident fellow at the Elliot School for International Affairs, the George Washington University. In addition to this, he is a post-doctoral fellow at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and program manager of the AI Trilateral Experts Group. He is also managing editor for AIIA’s Australian Outlook. Twitter: @AaBartley

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