Is the South Korea-Japan-US summit a breakthrough?

27 September 2023

The geopolitical landscape in Northeast Asia is changing with the great power rivalry between the People’s Republic of China and the United States forcing countries to pick sides. Under President Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea has taken incremental steps to improve its relations with its eastern neighbour, Japan, to adjust to forthcoming challenges. The shift in Seoul’s foreign policy towards Japan, one of Washington’s closest allies in the region, signifies a transition from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity regarding the future of the power dynamics that will likely play out in the Indo-Pacific.

With the improved relations between Japan and South Korea, renewed confidence is emerging in the US foreign policy community about the role of the US in Northeast Asia. This echoes President Joe Biden’s UN General Assembly (UNGA) address in 2021, where he emphasised engaging in ‘relentless diplomacy’. However, it is critical to understand why the trilateral relationship between South Korea, Japan, and the US still needs time to establish strong foundations, and how forging consensus beyond North Korea will depend on Seoul’s strategic considerations.

South Korea-Japan relations: a stepping stone for trilateral cooperation

In South Korea, conservative administrations tend to focus more on retaining good relations with Tokyo and Washington than with Pyongyang. This state of affairs was visible in the actions of Yoon’s conservative predecessor, former President Park Geun-hye, who tried to improve relations with Japan under then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The main source of contention between the two states was the 'comfort women' issue, which both leaders tried to resolve to smoothen the dents in relations. Unfortunately, any respite between the two did not last long. Today, we are following the same script but with more realism embedded in it. Under Yoon’s administration, Seoul has been forthcoming and open about aligning more closely with the US. Yoon’s Global Pivotal State (GPS) vision demonstrates the aspiration to expand Seoul’s strategic engagement and reach beyond the Korean Peninsula as enunciated in its Indo-Pacific Strategy.

The trilateral summit is a stepping stone towards countering the DPRK and strengthening regional security; however, its success will only be judged in the face of changing politics in the respective capitals.

Early in his tenure, Yoon recognised that better relations with Japan are essential for addressing three major foreign policy issues that Seoul is facing. The first issue is countering North Korea, for which stronger ties with Japan are critical as it is the one neighbour most concerned about the immediate threat by Pyongyang. To signal increasing confidence in relations, the 2016 General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) — put on hold in 2019 — was normalised in March of this year. At the same time, the two countries’ joint agenda has expanded to address new areas, such as economic security and supply chain resilience.

The second issue is regional security. Any robust US-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation on the threat of North Korea and emerging challenges in the Indo-Pacific must be built on a strong foundation of ROK-Japan ties. Closer bilateral relations between the East Asian neighbours recently paved the way for joint maritime exercises in April of this year, focusing on submarine warfare and surveillance.

Establishing broader cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo beyond the Korean Peninsula is the third issue, contingent on the first two. With deeper and closer relations between the two countries, it would be possible to work on issues and regions like Southeast Asia and Oceania where they share convergences on infrastructure, energy transition, and economic security issues.

For a long time, South Korea remained hesitant to cooperate on many security issues due to the policy stances of earlier administrations, severely limiting its opportunities to engage. This was due to its strategic ambiguity policy that tried to balance security and economic interests. However, now that Seoul is part of the Indo-Pacific 4 (IP4) countries, a NATO-Indo Pacific partnership, this ambiguity is largely dispelled, allowing it to further cooperate and collaborate with Japan and the US on issues ranging from cybersecurity, Chemical-Biological-Radiological (CBR) training, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and Russia’s war against Ukraine. Closer cooperation between South Korea and Japan beyond the peninsula will likely ease their differences as they will eventually establish strategic communications and institutions to deal with complex subjects.

Outcomes of the trilateral summit

South Korea is an instrumental stakeholder in making the trilateral cooperation between Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington possible as it aims to strengthen collaboration between the capitals on policy and politics at the macro levels. Indeed, the trilateral summit on 18 August 2023 at Camp David is a new chapter in Northeast Asian geopolitics and even the Indo-Pacific. All countries have agreed to establish consistency between three sectors ranging from technology, economics, and security, grounded in their “respect for international law, shared norms, and common values”. The attempt is to institutionalise cooperation at different levels and coordinate strategy comprehensively through regular consultation on emerging new threats, which is also supposed to quicken the decision-making process.

To enable this institutionalisation, at the Camp David meeting, the three countries agreed to a regular consultation at the different levels of government and sectors, with an important ‘commitment to consult’ statement endorsed at the highest political level. In addition, they also set up working relations on security issues, including multi-domain trilateral exercises, ballistic missile defence cooperation, cybersecurity, information sharing, humanitarian response, and countering misinformation.

The trilateral is definitely transformational as it establishes a convergence between the three states in the Indo-Pacific across sectors and even addresses issues that have historically derailed this attempt. The successive administrations in all three capitals will likely take this forward, but to what degree is still ambiguous.

Will China emerge as the dividing factor?

Still, the 'China question' looms large on trilateral cooperation as Seoul seems hesitant to fully let go of its former strategic ambiguity. The bilateral Japan-US joint statement following the recent summit mentions China in clear terms while avoiding naming North Korea (DPRK). Opposed to this, the South Korea-US statement emphasised the DPRK and avoided naming China, signalling that an understanding of how to approach Indo-Pacific geopolitics is still developing. This does not mean that Seoul’s position on China has not changed; under Yoon's administration, there has been an incremental increase in criticism of China. For instance, the South Korean embassy in the Philippines recently released a statement condemning Chinese actions in the South China Sea (SCS). The three leaders’ joint statement even went a step further in highlighting Chinese activities in the SCS. However, a qualifier attached to the statement, that “there is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan”, points to Seoul’s strategic dilemma.

Amid the progress achieved in trilateral cooperation due, to a large extent, to changes in South Korea’s foreign policy, we must also be cautious about potential 'spoilers' — domestic politics, China, and the role of the DPRK. China will likely emerge as the most prominent 'spoiler' going forward. Even though the trilateral cooperation will help enhance Seoul’s comprehensive capabilities, like military information and intelligence sharing, sanction effectiveness, and countering DPRK’s cyberattacks, there will also be limitations.

Seoul’s internal contradictions in trilateral relations will probably continue to restrict cooperation on the 'China question' in many domains. There is no firm consensus between the US and South Korea on China’s and Russia’s threats in the Indo-Pacific — besides an agreement on the importance of normative values. In the budding Tokyo-Seoul relations, the DPRK still dominates the discourse. South Korea remains a bit of an outlier in comparison to the US-Japan relationship, whose strategic threat perception aligns very closely focusing on China — even if their approach may differ slightly. Therefore, it would be prudent to let Seoul formulate a clear policy on how to deal with Beijing domestically before proceeding at the regional level. The entanglement of technology-economics-security going forward will add to the challenge of forging a clear consensus on China.

Now the onus is on President Yoon, who has so far successfully steered South Korea amid domestic challenges — it will be interesting to see how he navigates the tides of Indo-Pacific geopolitics. The trilateral summit is a stepping stone towards countering the DPRK and strengthening regional security; however, its success will only be judged in the face of changing politics in the respective capitals.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Abhishek Sharma is a PhD student in Korean Studies at Delhi University and is a Non-Resident Kelly Fellow at the Pacific Forum. Image credit: Flickr/Republic of Korea.