Eye on China, Biden Pulls Japan and South Korea Closer
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Camp David: US, Japan, SKorea Form Security Pact
Last updated Aug 19, 2023
Image credit: The White House [via Flickr]Facts
- US Pres. Joe Biden, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, and South Korean Pres. Yoon Suk Yeol agreed to strengthen security and economic cooperation on Friday after trilateral talks at Camp David.
- The three leaders announced a three-way hotline, a "commitment to consult," and a pledge to conduct annual joint drills and share intelligence inputs.
- Apart from holding trilateral summits yearly, the trio promised to share real-time intelligence on North Korean missile launches by the end of 2023 and launch a supply-chain early-warning system pilot project to fight alleged economic coercion.
- Friday's landmark closed-door summit marks the culmination of intensified diplomacy between the US and its two closest allies in Asia, as the Biden admin. reportedly seeks to counter China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
- However, without mentioning China, the three countries renewed their opposition to unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific region's waters and reaffirmed "the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."
- The first-ever stand-alone meeting between the three nations comes amid thawing relations between Japan and South Korea, which had been at odds since Japanese colonial rule in the Korean Peninsula in the first half of the 1900s.
Spin
Anti-China narrative
As a neo-Cold War looms in East Asia with a growing alignment among China, North Korea, and Russia, Tokyo and Seoul have finally shown openness to form a three-way partnership with the US to deepen security, economic, and tech cooperation. Following Moscow's aggression against Ukraine and possible threats from China, precautionary and concrete steps must be taken to support regional stability.
Pro-China narrative
Kishida and Yoon are so narrow-minded that they have failed to realize they will have to choose whether to take advantage of Asia-Pacific economic and social prosperity or become US pawns in the region, as there is no such thing as a perfect balance. America's ultimate goal is to disrupt peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and destroy the positive economic environment in Asia.
Nerd narrative
There's a 19% chance that the US will withdraw from any of its current mutual defense treaties by 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
