US, South Korea, Japan to hold summit in Camp David today

 Asia Pacific

US, South Korea, Japan to hold summit in August

Reuters July 20, 2023

SEOUL, July 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with the leaders of Japan and South Korea in August in the United States, South Korea's presidential office said on Thursday.

Biden had invited South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a meeting in Washington when they met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan in May.

South Korean and Japanese media reported the meeting will be held at Camp David, Maryland, on Aug. 18. Yoon's office said the exact date and location will be announced soon.

The White House had no comment. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters plans were not finalized.

Yoon has been pushing to mend strained ties with Tokyo following years of feuds over historical issues which undercut cooperation between the U.S. allies despite increasing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.

Biden in May praised Yoon and Kishida for their "courageous work to improve their bilateral ties", saying the trilateral partnership is stronger because of their efforts.

Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Ed Davies and Angus MacSwan Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

At Camp David Summit, Japan, South Korea and U.S. Present a United Front

President Biden will host the leaders of the two Asian nations to overcome historical grievances and present a united front in the face of an increasingly assertive China.

Aug. 18, 2023 The New York Times Peter Baker

* Peter Baker covers the White House and has traveled with President Biden to both Japan and South Korea.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo 

President Biden plans to cement a newly fortified three-way alliance with Japan and South Korea during a landmark summit at Camp David on Friday, bridging generations of friction between the two Asian powers to forge mutual security arrangements in the face of an increasingly assertive China.

Mr. Biden will host Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea at the presidential retreat in Maryland, the first time he has invited foreign leaders there and the first time the leaders of the three countries will have met in a stand-alone session rather than on the sidelines of larger international gatherings.

While the United States has long been allied with Japan and South Korea individually, historic animosities between Tokyo and Seoul stemming most acutely from Japan’s brutal 35-year occupation of the Korean Peninsula have frustrated American efforts to knit the three into a cohesive partnership. But Mr. Yoon’s recent moves toward rapprochement with Japan have dramatically shifted the dynamics in northeast Asia and Mr. Biden hopes to establish a closer, more enduring alignment.

“What you will see on Friday is a very ambitious set of initiatives that seek to lock in trilateral engagement, both now and into the future,” said Kurt Campbell, the president’s coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs. “And you will see it across many sectors — in the security realm, in technology and education.”

Biden administration officials said the leaders would sign off on a formal “commitment to consult,” an understanding that the three nations would treat any security threat to one of them as a threat to all of them requiring mutual discussion about how to respond. The pledge would not go as far as the NATO treaty’s Article 5, which obligates allies to “take action” in the event of an attack on any member, but it would reinforce the expectation that the three would act in tandem.

The three will also bolster cooperation on ballistic missile defense, expand annual three-way military exercises and develop a framework for security assistance in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. They will also inaugurate the first trilateral hotline so that the leaders can communicate securely in the event of a crisis, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss agreements before they are formally announced.

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To reinforce the sense of a new era in the relationship, the leaders will also commit to annual meetings between the leaders of the three countries that are intended to continue into future administrations, an institutional arrangement akin to the regular sessions that American presidents have with their Mexican and Canadian counterparts.

But the emerging entente has its limits. Japan was not willing to join a compact that the United States and South Korea agreed to create last spring bringing Seoul into Washington’s strategic planning for the use of nuclear weapons in any conflict with North Korea, according to officials and analysts.

The Nuclear Consultative Group that Mr. Biden and Mr. Yoon decided to form during an April meeting in Washington was intended to coordinate military responses to North Korea, and Washington vowed “to make every effort to consult” with Seoul before using nuclear weapons to retaliate against the North.

Japan, the only country ever to have nuclear weapons used against it, declined to participate, a decision American officials attributed to domestic public sensitivities. “I don’t feel the Japanese government feels that’s necessary or desirable,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Still, China has made clear its displeasure about the convergence between the three countries, seeing it as more proof that the United States is plotting to contain its rise.

“The upcoming summit between the leaders of the three countries at Camp David in Maryland later this week aims to form a ‘mini NATO’ structure that will be destructive to regional security, making the situation more complex with more conflicts,” The Global Times, a popular Chinese tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, wrote this week, citing regional experts.

China’s economic dominance in the region makes the shifting partnerships complicated for Japan and South Korea. China is the largest trading partner for each of them. Beijing has already responded harshly to South Korea’s growing ties with the United States; in June, China’s ambassador to Seoul warned that “those who bet on China’s defeat will surely regret it later.”

As the United States and its allies have isolated Moscow, Russia and China have drawn closer and many in the region worry that Beijing may be learning lessons from the Ukraine war in terms of its long-running conflict with Taiwan. Just this week, China’s defense minister, Li Shangfu, visited Moscow and warned against “playing with fire” when it came to Taiwan, saying that any effort to “use Taiwan to contain China” would “surely end in failure.”

No one missed the message sent last month when China and Russia conducted joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan soon after the United States, Japan and South Korea held trilateral missile drills. Nor was it lost on anyone when North Korea welcomed high-level Russian and Chinese delegations for a military parade in Pyongyang one week later.

Still, experts on the region said the three-way accord would not have been possible just a year or two ago, a sign of how much China’s rise has scrambled the equation in the region and how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has focused thinking about the need for security.

Victor Cha, a vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, said the Camp David meeting is “a big deal” that has its origins in the changing threat perceptions in the region.

“This consolidation of the alliance relationships is happening now because the external environment is just so uncertain and unstable,” he said. “There is nothing like an actual, real war, even though it’s in another part of the world, to completely change the way or affect the way leaders think about their own security.”

Mr. Biden has made China a central focus of his foreign policy since taking office, working to stitch together various nations in the region in a sort of latticework of partnerships. He signed a three-way security agreement with Australia and Britain; bolstered the so-called Quad grouping of the United States, India, Australia and Japan; increased the American military presence in the Philippines; and established the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with 14 nations.

Three of his first four state dinners have honored or will honor leaders from the Indo-Pacific region — Mr. Yoon in April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India in June and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia in October. Mr. Biden also plans next month to visit India, which is hosting the annual meeting of the Group of 20 nations.

A stronger collaboration with Japan and South Korea could be a significant pillar in that strategy. Mr. Yoon, who was elected last year, has sought to resolve old disputes and opened the door for mutual visits with Mr. Kishida.

“China’s entire strategy is based on the premise that America’s number one and two allies in the region can’t get together and get on the same page,” Rahm Emanuel, the American ambassador to Japan, said at a forum at the Brookings Institution along with Mr. Campbell earlier this week. “That’s going to be fundamentally different.” A three-way compact, he said, “will in my view change the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific.”

At the same time, American officials took pains to reject comparisons to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, denying that they are trying to replicate in the Pacific what they called a Cold War-era construct from Europe. NATO’s Article 5 commitment to mutual defense has been invoked only once, when the United States was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.

The “commitment to consult” that will be outlined at Camp David on Friday falls far short of that. It sounds closer to Article 4 of the NATO treaty, under which member nations can bring any security issue to the table for discussion by the alliance’s governing council, although administration officials made clear they do not want to liken it to that either.

On its face, that sounds more bureaucratic than decisive. But experts said it will make the point that the three countries share a strong interest in their mutual security in the face of threats from China, Russia and North Korea.

“I don’t expect it will be an Article 5-type, NATO-type collective defense statement,” said Mr. Cha. “But I think they will get as close as they can to it talking about how the security of the countries are interlinked.”

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last five presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. He is the author of seven books, most recently “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” with Susan Glasser. More about Peter Baker

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 18, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Biden to Cement A 3-Way Alliance To Check Beijing. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Camp David summit could be 'starting shot' for new cold war
GT By Liu Xin and Yu Xi  Aug 18, 2023

The leaders of the US, Japan and South Korea are set to meet at Camp David, Maryland on Friday to upgrade "cooperation," a move criticized by observers as being a starting shot for a cold war, and experts warned that the summit would bring more regional risks.

It has been reported that the summit at Camp David is scheduled to adopt two documents, tentatively titled the "Camp David Principles" and the "Spirit of Camp David."  The first will contain guidelines for trilateral cooperation and the other will outline their vision for cooperation and its implementation plan, Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday.

The Asia-Pacific region is a highland of peace and development, and a land of cooperation that must not become an arena for geopolitical games again, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday, commenting on the US-South Korea-Japan summit at Camp David, and urged all parties to uphold true multilateralism amid a complex international security situation.

"Who is creating conflicts and intensifying tensions? The international community has its own consensus," said Wang. The attempts to form exclusive small cliques and groups and bring camp confrontation and military blocs into the Asia-Pacific region is unpopular and will prompt caution and opposition from the countries in the region, Wang noted.

The security of one country should not come at the expense of that of any other or of regional peace and stability, said Wang.

US President Joe Biden invited the leaders of Japan and South Korea to attend the Camp David summit on Friday. However, the atmosphere of a cold war has spread before the summit even started. "It is appropriate to say that the Camp David summit is possibly a starting shot for a new cold war," Lü Chao, an expert on Korean Peninsula issues with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.

As for Japan and South Korea, we hope that we can co-develop and co-exist peacefully as neighbors. Meanwhile, sincere economic cooperation among the three countries could be a boon to the entire world economy, Lü said. "The summit is clearly a US-led effort to tie Japan and South Korea to its chariot, especially as pawns, in pursuit of a new-generation US strategy," Lü noted. 

This is the first time in history that the US, Japan and South Korea have held a trilateral summit on an occasion other than an international conference, and also the first time that Biden has hosted foreign leaders at Camp David since taking office in 2021, according to media reports.

However, it will not be easy to tie the three countries' interests together. For instance, South Korea believes that the Korean Peninsula issue is a top priority, but the US and Japan obviously do not concern themselves with this, and their focus is more on China or other issues serving the US' global strategy. In this regard, the US, Japan and South Korea have certain differences, according to Lü.
Also, discussions on science, tech, industrial chain and other fields at the summit will have a more far-reaching negative impact on the South Korean economy. If the three countries engage in so-called joint advance and retreat, especially in the field of science and technology, the extent of the losses suffered by each country will be different. However, South Korea's losses are likely to be the biggest, and this is something its government has to consider, said Lü.

"The Camp David summit may not be a good thing for South Korea or Japan, in terms of military, security and economic cooperation," noted Lü.

World

US, South Korea and Japan to deepen military and economic ties at Camp David summit

By Trevor Hunnicutt and David Brunnstrom  CAMP DAVID, Maryland, Aug 18 (Reuters) 

At a Camp David summit on Friday, the United States, South Korea and Japan will deepen military and economic ties as the allies seek to project unity in the face of China's rise and nuclear threats from North Korea.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told a Camp David news briefing the meeting would announce "significant steps" to enhance trilateral security cooperation, including a commitment to consult each other in times of crisis.

Sullivan said the steps would include a multi-year military exercise plan, deeper coordination and integration on ballistic missile defense and improved information sharing, crisis communication and policy coordination "that goes along with responding to contingencies in the Indo-Pacific."

He said the leaders would also unveil new economic and energy security initiatives including an early warning mechanism for supply chain disruptions.

The commitments, which fall short of a formal alliance, will be the centerpiece of U.S. President Joe Biden's first Camp David summit for foreign leaders and represents a significant move for Seoul and Tokyo, which have a long history of mutual acrimony and distrust.

Biden is welcoming South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the mountainside presidential retreat, where they are expected to have several hours to strategize over how to manage tensions in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

The summit is expected to produce a series of joint statements, including commitments to establish a crisis hotline, work together on emerging technologies and to meet annually.

The meeting is freighted with symbolism: with Washington's encouragement, Tokyo and Seoul are navigating their way past disputes dating to Japan's 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

Those disputes are among the reasons the leaders would not now consider a mutual-defense pact along the lines of what the United States has separately with both South Korea and Japan - who are not themselves formal allies - according to U.S. officials who declined to be identified while previewing the summit.

"What we have seen over the last couple of months is a breathtaking kind of diplomacy, that has been led by courageous leaders in both Japan and South Korea," said Kurt Campbell, Biden's coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs.

"They have sometimes gone against the advice of their own counselors and staff and taken steps that elevate the Japan-South Korea relationship into a new plane," Campbell said.

CHINA VIEWS SUMMIT WARILY

No specific action by the trio in Camp David is expected to sharply increase tensions with China, though Beijing has warned that U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with South Korea and Japan could "increase tension and confrontation in the region."

While South Korea, Japan and the United States want to avoid provoking Beijing, China believes Washington is trying to isolate it diplomatically and encircle it militarily.

Responding to a question about charges leveled by China, Sullivan said the aim was "explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific" and also said a trilateral alliance had not been set as an explicit goal.

"We have not set an endpoint of a formal trilateral alliance," Sullivan said, while adding that the commitment to consult was "a very significant step because it means that the three countries recognize their common interest in having a coherent and coordinated response to any security contingency."

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told MSNBC the summit was "not about containing China" despite charges to that effect from Beijing.

"It's about dealing with a wide set of threats and challenges and quite frankly opportunities in that part of the world," he said.

Tensions in the South China Sea have flared between U.S. ally the Philippines and China over a grounded warship that serves as a Philippine military outpost in the strategic waterway, a major global trade route.

North Korea's military said it had scrambled jets after a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft intruded into its economic zone off its east coast, state news agency KCNA reported on Friday.

Biden, an 80-year-old Democrat seeking another four-year term in the 2024 presidential election, faces a likely opponent in Republican former President Donald Trump, who has voiced skepticism about whether Washington benefits from its traditional military and economic alliances.

South Korea has legislative elections next year and Japan must hold one before October 2025, and what analysts see as a still fragile rapprochement between the two nations remains controversial among the countries' voters.

The White House, conscious of the electoral clock, wants to make the progress between South Korea and Japan hard to reverse, including by establishing routine cooperation on military exercises, ballistic missile defense, the economy, and scientific and technological research.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Hagerstown, Maryland; Editing by Don Durfee, Grant McCool and Chizu Nomiyama Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.