On Friday, US President Joe Biden will host South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a summit in Camp David, Maryland, as part of an effort that is nakedly aimed at building a new military bloc against China and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The move comes after nearly a year of increased testing by North Korea of new types of ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles, which it says are intended to counter the threat posed by US forces, and which the US calls provocative. The DPRK is technically still at war with the US and South Korea, since the 1950-53 war ended in a ceasefire and not a permanent peace treaty, and has justified its military buildup on security grounds.
It is also no coincidence that South Korea and Japan are two of the world’s biggest producers of advanced computer microchips, which Washington has sought to deny to China by pressuring them and other governments to stop selling to Chinese companies.
Kurt Campbell, Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser, told academics and reporters on Wednesday that China poses a threat to half a century of prosperity and development in the region, and that Seoul and Tokyo “feel in many respects under unimaginable pressure, huge pressures economically, diplomatically and militarily.”
However, earlier this week, Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong accused the US of threatening other nations with “collateral damage” from its all-out drive to halt China’s economic rise, warning the trade war would ultimately be “disastrous for the global economy.”
14 August 2023, 21:33 GMT
Dr. Victor Teo, a political scientist who specializes in the international relations of the Indo-Pacific region, told Sputnik that the ultimate goal of the trilateral summit was for the US to invite South Korea and Japan to form another coalition against China in the Indo-Pacific region.
“The key rationale behind the strategic postures of the United States, Japan and now South Korea has always been the rise of China. What is happening now is an acceleration of the process as they feel that the disparity between their comprehensive strength and China’s is closing much faster than they would like,” he said.
“The summit itself is designed to help boost the three leaders’ domestic standing as much as it is designed to send a signal of the countries resolve to work together to stand up to North Korea and China,” Teo explained.
“The question of whether it would bring stability or not depends in part on whether the alliance actually functions well operationally, and beyond that the reactions of states like China and North Korea to the alliance’s moves in future. Having said that, if we examine Japan for instance – what is certain is that Tokyo’s external strategic environment has deteriorated sharply over the course of the last few decades. The challenges Japan faces in 2023 is certainly far more onerous than what she faced in 2003 or 1983,” he said.
Earlier this year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly also pitched forming a bloc against China to Seoul and Tokyo, inspired by the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the US, Australia, Japan, and India.
Teo explained that it was part of an ongoing effort by Washington to consolidate and tighten its existing alliances with Japan and South Korea - two nations that have not always gotten along with each other for historical reasons.
“The biggest problem that the US faced in the history of working with these two allies is the estranged, and often contentious, relations between Japan and Korea. This is due to Japan's colonization and brutal rule of Korea, which South Koreans have a problem with until this day. The difficult relations between Korea and Japan has been the single most serious impediment to US alliance structure in the region – at least that is until the ROK [Republic of Korea] President Yoon Suk-yeol’s election in 2022.”
“Yoon has adopted a conservative nationalist pro-US posture and advocates a muscular policy towards North Korea and China,” Teo explained. “To that extent, Yoon has effected a reconciliatory policy towards Japan, suggesting that common outlook and future interests between Japan and South Korea matter more than antagonism over historical issues. The United States and Japan are therefore capitalizing on Yoon’s elections to further tighten the military cooperation of the US-Japan and US-ROK alliances to ensure that these countries could work more effectively than ever in the event of any future conflict in the region.”