A revived trilateral

Japan and South Korea are shoring up security

Last week, in an unprecedented trilateral summit at the American presidential retreat of Camp David, the leaders of Japan and South Korea agreed to deepen their cooperation with the United States. The importance of this agreement cannot be overstated. For a considerable time, action to control Beijing’s ambitions to its east was being held back by disunity between Seoul and Tokyo. This distrust stemmed from the still-open wounds of history: The Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula and its wartime record were viewed very differently by political forces in the two countries. Earlier this year, however, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol proposed a compromise on the particularly emotive issue of Korean women forced into prostitution during the Japanese occupation, and then made the first visit to Tokyo by a Korean leader in 12 years. Over the next few weeks, various controls on exports to each other were lifted by the two countries, and high-level defence and economic talks resumed.

The Camp David summit, therefore, should be seen less as a product of US efforts or of fresh Chinese belligerence than of the two democracies in Northeast Asia working out their own problems and opening up new opportunities. The security benefits for the Indo-Pacific of this rapprochement are unquestionable. Although France has its doubts, and Germany to a lesser extent, over time the engagement between Japan, South Korea, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will undoubtedly grow. Japan has desired this for some time, and some South Korean decision-makers believe that greater defence cooperation is a commercial imperative, given the rapid growth of the country’s arms exporters, which grew faster than any other nation’s between 2017 and 2021. From an Indian perspective, this should also be seen as the flip side of increasing doubts in the Indo-Pacific and beyond about New Delhi’s capability and willingness to grow into partnerships with the West. As the Quad increasingly presents itself as a “development-first” proposition, the rest of the region is responding by creating alternative structures more focused on security.

It should be noted, however, that security as viewed by these structures —including this latest trilateral arrangement between Japan, South Korea, and the US — is not merely about military affairs, but also economic security. This is of great importance to countries in the process of rebalancing away from China-centric supply chains while also preserving their competitive edge. Corporations in Japan and South Korea have been particularly concerned that they are vulnerable to geopolitical risks if they have supply chains that intersect with both the West and China. They are also concerned that economic-security measures introduced by the current and former US Presidents are in fact little more than protectionist steps designed to disadvantage Japanese and South Korean companies in comparison to their American rivals. The corporate push for a trilateral agreement should not be underestimated, as a significant number of Northeast Asian boardrooms are of the belief that a closer partnership will ensure that they receive their share of benefits and protections from Washington in a new de-globalising age. Here too, India’s general belief that its economy can chart a course independent of its geopolitical orientation is being questioned by the actual actions of other powers in the Indo-Pacific.