In the final article about the August 2023 trilateral summit, we will talk about how it is assessed in the world.
According to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo is “universal, fair, and aimed at achieving common benefits.” It was emphasized that the meeting made it possible to institutionalize and strengthen a system of comprehensive cooperation between the three countries. The President of South Korea is confident that strengthening interaction with the United States and Japan will contribute to the growth of South Korea’s influence in the international arena and expects that in the future this format “will become a regional advisory body similar to the structures of QUAD (USA, Japan, India, Australia) and AUKUS (Australia, UK, USA).
According to South Korean Presidential Spokesperson Lee Do-woon, the summit further strengthened the security front Seoul needed after establishing a basic framework for responding to the nuclear missile threat from Pyongyang through the adoption of the Washington Declaration and the formation of the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG). Moreover, this event is highly symbolic and sends a significant message to the international community. In particular, the very fact of using such specific words as “principles”, “spirit” and “commitment” instead of statements and declarations traditional for such cases deserves special attention.
The President is echoed by the ruling “Power of the People” party, which assessed the summit outcome as “historic,” noting that the main result was the creation of a regional body for cooperation between the three countries in the field of security and economics. Its members welcome the actions of Yoon Suk Yeol, which have brought Seoul’s cooperation with Washington and Tokyo to a new high level. “Through these efforts, the trilateral cooperation will develop into the most comprehensive and multi-dimensional collaborative framework in the region,” First Deputy Director of National Security Kim Tae-hyo said.
In turn, the opposition Democratic Party criticized the summit results. The DP’s floor leader Park Kwang-on said that they only benefit the United States and Japan. DP leader Lee Jae-myung made a striking comment on the summit results “The South Korea-U.S.-Japan summit was the last chance to stop Japan from releasing contaminated water, but unfortunately, President Yoon Suk Yeol continued to disobey the orders of the people.”
Official Beijing criticized the outcome of the trilateral summit, noting that “attempts to form various closed groups and cliques and to bring bloc confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region, would definitely face strong response from other countries in the region.” In addition, it was emphasized that no country should “seek to ensure its security at the expense of the security interests of other states, peace and stability in the region.”
On the same day, Chinese media published a number of materials criticizing the meeting at Camp David. The media claimed that the agreements reached at the summit suggest that, following the United States, Japan and South Korea are beginning to view China as a serious threat and adversary, which implies an inevitable split and confrontation in the region.
However, on 21 August, in an interview with Yonhap News TV, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said that Seoul explained in detail the results of the meeting to Beijing through diplomatic channels. The Minister stressed that the trilateral meeting was not held “to exclude any particular country or target specific forces” and Seoul wanted to develop a mature and healthy relationship with China.
Park Jin stressed that “the Camp David summit was not directed against any specific country or force,” and its main goal was “to create a rules-based order and counter unilateral attempts to change the status quo.” At the same time, he let slip that “through strategic trilateral cooperation between the USA, ROK and Japan, a foundation is being prepared that may have more powerful functions and capabilities than QUAD or AUKUS.”
North Korea also expressed its opinion. On 24 August, North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun-nam issued a press statement mainly criticizing plans to strengthen cooperation between the three countries to restore Ukraine. “The dying cry of the Biden pack, trying to stir up the fading atmosphere of support for Ukraine and smooth out its political defeat by involving its minions in the Asian region.”
As for the summit itself, according to Kang, “the United States is trying to subordinate Japan and the “Republic of Korea” to the “Asian NATO”, which are their first shields against bullets in the realization of the U.S. dreams of world domination in order to form a whole huge ring around China and Russia.”
And what do experts say about it? John Merrill, a visiting scholar at the Institute of Korean Studies at George Washington University, notes that this summit allowed Biden to divert attention away from his domestic problems, while Yoon viewed the summit as a way to boost his low popularity at home.
However, the goals of the parties are quite different. Seoul is focused on countering the threat from North Korea, while Japan views China as its main adversary and is more likely to participate in a Sino-American conflict over Taiwan than Seoul. Seoul and Tokyo are also unhappy with the Biden administration’s trade policy, which is aimed at limiting the supply of semiconductors to China, the ROK’s largest trading partner, posing a threat to the Korean chip industry.
In fact, Merrill lists several groups of risks that cast doubt on the imminent formation of a “triangle”. Firstly, the difficult relations between Japan and the ROK will slow down the process and public reaction to, say, joint manoeuvres, taking into account the fact that in the ROK mass consciousness, the “Rising Sun” flag of the Japanese Navy is at the same level as the swastika in the minds of Russians. Meanwhile, Tokyo is unlikely to make additional concessions to Seoul, and any action such as the offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine that occurred after the summit will stir up anti-Japaneseism.
According to Cho Han-bum, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, the Seoul-Tokyo relationship is the biggest risk to the trilateral security partnership: deep historical grievances between the two countries make a military alliance between South Korea and Japan politically impossible. “Many diplomatic issues between the two countries remain unresolved and will likely remain so. Japan still makes territorial claims to Dokdo and its politicians have not stopped sending offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine.”
Kim Sang-woo, chairman of the East Asia Cultural Project and a board member at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation, also believes that “the biggest potential challenge to the progress toward a trilateral security pact is the attempt to move South Korea-Japan relations forward without really addressing the issues of colonial and wartime history.”
Nam Chang-hee, a professor of political science at Inha University, also points out the ongoing historical tensions between South Korea and Japan. This, in his opinion, also includes the expected resistance from China and the internal politics of the United States with hidden supporters of isolationism.
Second, Merrill says, the deal reached at Camp David will have to stand the test of time. The domestic politics of the next leaders after Biden or Yoon could negate any progress in this area simply due to the logic of factional struggle. “The possible election of Donald Trump to a second term as US president in 2024 could disrupt alliance cooperation, while a left-wing candidate to replace Yoon in 2027 could revive anti-Japanese sentiment.”
Other experts are also concerned about this issue. Bruce Klingner, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, emphasizes the speed with which countries are moving to meet their new commitments. “The three leaders are trying to make rapid and significant progress in strengthening trilateral cooperation and institutionalizing its implementation so that it will be more difficult or less profitable for subsequent administrations to reverse the progress.” Professor Andrew Yo also notes that “regular, frequent cross-departmental meetings can help institutionalize relations which can increase the chance of U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral commitments to extend longer term.” Kim Yeol-su, a senior security expert at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs also writes that “trilateral cooperation is being institutionalized to ensure that it does not fluctuate due to a leadership change or other factors in each other’s capitals.”
Chung Jae-hung, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, is concerned that “the security benefits that South Korea seeks to gain from this pact are not free. Ironically, South Korea is now exposed to greater geopolitical risks associated not only with North Korea, but also with China and Russia.” But what if Moscow or Beijing react as they did to the deployment of a THAAD air defence system in South Korea, the consequences could be serious, with Seoul taking “all the diplomatic damage with little or no support from the United States or Japan.”
The main English-language media in South Korea are reacting in a similar vein. The conservative Korea Herald points out that the biggest achievement of the summit was the decision to institutionalize the partnership in the form of documents. In the past, the US-Korea and US-Japan alliances have worked individually, but trilateral cooperation has now been put on a more stable footing and an agreement to hold summits at least annually will make it more difficult to reverse the partnership’s progress. Even if relations between Seoul and Tokyo sour again, “it will be difficult to avoid an institutionalized summit with the allies.” Still, it is important to prevent historical tensions and other issues involving South Korea and Japan from ruining their relations, and Tokyo needs to respond more sincerely to Seoul’s moves to improve bilateral relations.
The right-wing but oppositional Korea Times notes that “Yoon is taking the biggest political risk.” The President is “either very short-sighted or too far-sighted” in pursuing a partnership with Japan, although Tokyo has not changed its previous position with its leaders intensifying their sovereignty claims over the Dokdo islands and paying tribute to the Yasukuni Shrine. That is why “many political and diplomatic experts here doubt that Yoon’s policy toward Japan will outlive his immediate successor, left or right.”
Another Korea Times article notes that “tripartite economic solidarity is a double-edged sword.” The first and main threat is a possible economic response from China. Korea heavily relies on foreign markets, unlike the U.S. and Japan, with large domestic markets. Half of the country’s economic growth depends on this factor, and China still buys nearly one-fifth of Korea’s exports.
In this context, the Yoon administration must persuade Washington not to tie up the hands and feet of Korean chipmakers and automakers under the pretext of building a new supply chain, and also it should implement bolder industrial policies.
Time will tell to what extent experts and the media have correctly assessed the problems, but we will repeat that the “southern” triangle is being formed much more clearly than the north, pointing to a new age of global turbulence.
Konstantin Asmolov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the internet journal “New Eastern Outlook”.