hiroshima, japan – In an indication of warming relations between America’s two closest allies in Asia, U.S. President Joe Biden met Sunday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, in a trilateral assembly on the sidelines of the Group of Seven superior democracies’ summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Topping the assembly’s agenda was the rising nuclear and missile risk from North Korea and China’s rising assertiveness, two regional threats which have aligned the three international locations extra carefully.
In a press release, the White House mentioned the leaders mentioned “how to take their trilateral cooperation to new heights,” together with with new coordination within the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, on financial safety, and on their respective Indo-Pacific methods.
“A big focus for our three countries is improving our interoperability militarily and improving our readiness and looking for ways in which we can better prepare ourselves to meet our individual and our collective national security commitments to each other and to the region,” a senior administration official mentioned in a briefing to reporters Saturday.
China problem
The leaders would additionally focus on the “economic challenges that they all face from the PRC when it comes to coercion,” the official added, referring to the People’s Republic of China’s use of punitive commerce measures for its political objectives.
The three leaders are largely aligned of their views of the regional risk posed by Beijing, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby mentioned in an interview with VOA Friday.
“Japan has put forward a new national security strategy which really gives them a stronger voice and presence here in the Indo-Pacific in terms of regional security,” Kirby mentioned. “And President Yoon helped author a new Indo-Pacific strategy that the Republic of Korea put out that dovetails nicely with our national security strategy.”
Yoon has sought nearer ties with Tokyo and Washington, a departure from his predecessor, former President Moon Jae-in, who labored to strengthen relations with Pyongyang.
Treaty allies
Japan and South Korea are each U.S. treaty allies. After Tokyo’s defeat in World War II, the United States occupied and pledged to defend Japan in trade for sustaining a big navy presence within the nation. In 1953, within the aftermath of the 1950-53 conflict on the Korean Peninsula, the 2 sides signed the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty which turned the premise of U.S. continued navy presence on the Korean Peninsula.
However, Japan-South Korea ties have lengthy been strained by historic animosity following Tokyo’s brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 till Japan’s defeat on the finish of World War II. Despite some home opposition, Yoon and Kishida have continued their rapprochement by increasing bilateral safety and financial cooperation.
South Korea, which isn’t a G7 member, was invited by Kishida to Hiroshima as an observer, together with the leaders of Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam.
The metropolis, now rebuilt from the devastation brought on by the atomic bomb dropped by American forces that ended World War II, supplied a poignant backdrop for the trilateral assembly amid growing saber-rattling by Pyongyang. This 12 months alone North Korea has launched not less than 13 missiles this 12 months, together with three intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Extended deterrence
During the South Korean chief’s state go to to the White House in April, Yoon and Biden signed the Washington Declaration, whereby Seoul agreed to not pursue its personal nuclear weapons program, in return for a better decision-making function in U.S. contingency planning within the occasion of a North Korean nuclear assault and a extra muscular U.S. presence within the area.
Yoon referred to as the Washington Declaration “an unprecedented expansion and strengthening” of the prolonged deterrence technique – a time period also referred to as the American nuclear umbrella.
The trilateral assembly in Hiroshima is a chance for the leaders to debate whether or not components of U.S. prolonged deterrence can plausibly be utilized to each South Korea and Japan, mentioned Ken Jimbo, former adviser to Japan’s Defense Ministry who now teaches at Keio University.
“In that context, I think there will be a lot of chance that we will develop some kind of coordination mechanism together rather than one by one,” he advised VOA.
In April, senior officers from the three international locations agreed to carry common missile protection and anti-submarine workout routines collectively.