By Ling Yunzhi
US-Japan-ROK joint anti-missile exercise featuring Aegis destroyers
Leaders of the US, Japan and ROK announced after their Camp David summit that the three countries will carry out more joint military exercises and improve trilateral security cooperation mechanism to coordinate their response to regional challenges and threats. It's getting clearer that the trilateral security cooperation is undertaking substantive changes.
Recent years have seen the Japan-ROK relationship significantly improved under the mediation of the US. The promotion of their exclusive cooperation has not only intensified tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but also undermined the strategic stability in Asia Pacific.
The US-Japan alliance and US-ROK alliance are two pillars propping up Washington's Asian Pacific alliance system, but the other two countries, owing to historical issues and disputes, are not as close "pals" as Washington wishes. After Biden took office, his administration has actively improved the Japan-ROK relations and the coordination and interaction among the three has consequently been reinforced. In June 2023, their defense ministers signed a Joint Press Statement after meeting in Singapore, reiterating the importance of deepening their cooperation on key issues, including information sharing, high-level policy consultations, and trilateral exercises.
The three countries have also strengthened joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, and collaboration mechanisms on the excuse of tension on the Korean Peninsula. In April 2023, they held two military exercises in the East China Sea and Sea of Japan, covering real-combat subjects like anti-submarine operations, search and rescue, anti-missile operations, and interception on the sea. In March 2023, Seoul officially restored the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA, with Tokyo, which restarted the exchange of military intelligence between the two countries, and placed the intelligence-sharing as a key to repair and deepen bilateral relationships. Presently, the US, Japan and ROK have also put on the agenda a plan to form a "Northeast Asian Three Eyes Alliance", which, apart from intelligence about DPRK's missile launch, may also cover other domains.
Washington's efforts to improve the Tokyo-Seoul relationship are aimed at furthering its Indo-Pacific strategy and elevating its regional competitiveness.
Given the aggravating major-country competition around the globe and America's declining national strength, the hub-and-spoke system the US has been keeping in the Asia Pacific through a series of bilateral pacts is no longer enough to sustain the "Indo-Pacific strategy". To maintain its regional dominance, Washington has to integrate these bilateral allies into several "small multilateral alliances" and gradually merge them into a NATO-like "large multilateral alliance".
The US has made constant moves in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific in recent years and has formed "small multilateral alliances" successively from Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India) to AUKUS (US-UK-Australia) to the Five Eyes (US-UK-Canada-Australia-New Zealand). It's a cut-and-dried modus operandi – creating tension and then forming alliances to maintain hegemony in the name of safeguarding security. ROK and Japan, for their unique geo-strategic location, hold special value in America's alliance system.
By trying to break the ice between Japan and the ROK and facilitating their military development, the US attempted to tie them onto its chariot of war and turned them into the cat's paw in maintaining its hegemony. The two countries can act in coordination to contain DPRK and curb China and Russia, serve America's interests, and put a stronger strategic check on major countries in the region.
Although three countries have been deepening defense collaboration and made some results, the prospects of the trilateral alliance are not as optimistic as it seems since their interests don't totally match and each country has its own ax to grind.
In fact, Japan and the ROK do have some concerns over America's strategic intention. They realize that once a trilateral alliance is established, they will be exposed to more dangers as their "big brother" is very likely to push them to the forefront of conflict. Some Japanese analysts pointed out that once a conflict broke out in Asia Pacific, Japan would bear the brunt while America would keep a distance. ROK media also held that it would be a dangerous game to go ahead with a quasi-alliance with Japan before convincing the public because a real reconciliation has not materialized between the two countries. Structural problems such as disputes over island sovereignty and historical issues have not been effectively resolved and will probably affect bilateral relations in the long term.
Therefore, although the US, Japan and ROK have kept deepening their defense cooperation and reaped some results from it, the prospects are by no means sanguine considering their varied strategic objectives, mismatched interests, and many other hindrances.
(The author is a researcher at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Development Studies, Nanjing University)
Editor's note: Originally published on thepaper.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
