Biden hopes to strengthen ties between South Korea and Japan at Camp David

WASHINGTON/SEOUL/TOKYO, Aug 17 (Reuters) – As Yoon Suk Yeol this week commemorated his country’s independence from Japan in 1945, the South Korean president made no reference to the 35 years of brutal occupation his people endured under His neighbor.

Instead, the 62-year-old leader, too young to remember the humiliations of the Japanese government, celebrated to the country as a “partner” who now shares the same values ​​and interests. Faced with nuclear threats from North Korea, a constant concern for both Seoul and Tokyo, Yoon reserved his sentence for “communist aggression.”

The Biden administration believes a seismic but fragile realignment is underway in East Asia: a deeper relationship between two close US allies with long histories of acrimony and mutual mistrust. The change would speed up Washington’s efforts to counter China’s influence in the region and help it defend Taiwan.

US President Joe Biden hopes to cement those ties with a summit at Camp David, the historic presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, this Friday.

While the summit is unlikely to produce a formal security agreement committing nations to defend each other, agree a mutual understanding on regional responsibilities.

“The meeting at Camp David sounds amazing to me,” wrote Dennis Wilder, a Georgetown University professor who once led the Japan-South Korea relationship under former President George W. Bush, on the X social media platform. The leaders of South Korea and Japan will meet with us in the same room.”

Behind the easing of tensions, diplomats from the three countries say, is a shared concern about an increasingly aggressive China and an erratic North Korea.

But they credit, in particular, the initiative of Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida personally in seeking better ties.

Yoon’s push to break the stalemate has provided an “important impetus” for further cooperation, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told reporters, adding that the three leaders would spend “the time longer together” at Camp David.

A FRAGILE TRUCE?

To be sure, past efforts to build closer ties between South Korea and Japan have stumbled. In 2019, a dispute over Japan’s treatment of Koreans during the war led Seoul to cancel a military intelligence sharing agreement. Later that year, Japan placed restrictions on exports needed by Korean chipmakers.

This time, reliance on the initiative of the three leaders is a risk. Some four out of ten voters approve Yoon, In person either Biden in the countries they govern, and there is little evidence that outreach is a priority for ordinary citizens.

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

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

US Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said leaders announce plans to make the summit an annual event and invest in technology for a three-way crisis hotline. White House Senior Director for East Asia Mira Rapp-Hooper said she would also highlight progress toward sharing early warning data on missile launches.

“We will confirm cooperation on a wide range of issues,” said a Japanese Foreign Ministry official.

THE SUSPICIONS OF CHINA

However, challenges remain.

On the same day that Yoon praised the association with the Japanese, Kishida angered the South Koreans by allegedly sending offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine that honors some convicted World War II war criminals.

Porcelain exploded movement, seizing the opportunity to embarrass Tokyo ahead of the Camp David summit. Japan’s decision to soon release radioactive treated water from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean is giving Beijing another such opportunity.

No specific action by the trio at Camp David is expected to dramatically escalate the rhetoric with Beijing. However, while each country wants to avoid provoking Beijing, China believes that Washington is trying to isolate it diplomatically and encircle it militarily.

biden aides have been trying to ease tensions ahead of potential talks between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Meanwhile, North Korea has criticized deepening military ties between the three nations as part of a dangerous prelude to creating an “Asian version of NATO.”

For his part, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has been courting Washington’s biggest adversaries, China and Russia.

Last month, Kim hosted Russia’s Defense Minister and a Chinese Communist Party Politburo member in Pyongyang to an event celebrating the end of the 1950-1953 war between North Korea and South Korea. The event’s backdrop was Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles.

(This story has been resubmitted to add the Japanese Prime Minister’s full name and title in paragraph 8)

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