US, South Korea, Japan to launch new defence steps at Camp David: Officials

WASHINGTON - The United States, Japan and South Korea will launch a series of joint initiatives on technology, education and defence when

the countries’ leaders gather at Camp David on Friday,

according to senior US administration officials, amid mounting shared concerns about China.

While the summit is unlikely to produce a formal security arrangement that commits the nations to defend their partners, they will agree to mutual understanding about regional responsibilities and set up a three-way hotline to communicate in times of crisis, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

US President Joe Biden invited Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to the storied presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains as the Asian nations work to mend their tattered diplomatic relations in the face of greater regional threats posed both by China’s rise and North Korea.

It will mark the first of what US officials hope will be an annual gathering between the three country’s leaders, formalising their ties and cooperation.

Seoul and Tokyo held their first joint summit in 12 years in March and have taken steps to ease tensions after years of disputes, including some related to Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of Korea.

The US has separate formal collective defence arrangements in place with both Japan and South Korea, but it wants those two countries to work closer together given growing concerns about China’s mounting power and worries about its intentions.

“We are anticipating some steps that will bring us closer together in the security realm,” said one of the US officials, and that doing so would “add to our collective security”.

But the US official added: “It’s too much to ask – it’s a bridge too far – to fully expect a three-way security framework among each of us.

“However, we are taking steps whereby each of the countries understand responsibilities with respect to regional security, and we are advancing new areas of coordination and ballistic missile defence, again technology, that will be perceived as very substantial.”

The summit is expected to lead to a joint statement between the countries that includes some language speaking to concerns about China’s desire to change the status of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province to be reunified, by force if necessary.

The US, Japanese and South Korean joint statement is set to include language on maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, one of the officials said.

The exact language on that and other provisions is expected to be negotiated up to the last minute.

China regards Taiwan as a domestic issue and has repeatedly condemned Washington, Seoul and Tokyo for efforts to weigh in on the matter or otherwise box in Beijing diplomatically.

But the language currently under consideration regarding Taiwan would be consistent with prior US positions on the subject, avoiding a sharp escalation in rhetoric with Beijing as Washington has been seeking to ease tensions ahead of possible talks between Mr Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later in 2023.

Mr Christopher Johnstone, a former Biden White House official now with Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, said the US administration was seeking to take advantage of the Tokyo-Seoul rapprochement to “institutionalise” some of the progress and make it more difficult for future leaders to reverse. 

However, Mr Johnstone told a briefing previewing the summit that progress remained fragile. 

“In South Korea, President Yoon’s efforts are still not widely popular. And in Japan, there’s this constant refrain of scepticism that the improvement will be durable and that... a future (South Korean) president could flip the table over again,” he said. 

Mr Johnstone added that he expected a summit statement recognising that the security of the three countries is linked “and that some measure of threat to one is a threat to all”, even if this would fall short of Nato’s Article 5 language that sees an attack on one as an attack on all. 

He expected this to complement new defence initiatives, including a deepening of joint military exercises and missile defence cooperation. REUTERS