The United States continues to strengthen Japan’s position as its main political and military “viceroy” in Northeast Asia. Is a war with China imminent by the hands of the people of Japan and the Republic of Korea? How do the citizens of these countries feel about it?
Until recently, the escalating 2018 conflict between Japan and the Republic of Korea over several historical issues, including disagreements over compensation for South Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor, was a significant limiting factor in Washington’s alignment of its hierarchy of allies under Tokyo.
Though, the Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration did make a settlement offer in March of this year. Promptly, on March 16, Yoon Suk-yeol visited Tokyo and met with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Several initiatives to normalize the two countries’ relations were presented during the visit. Seoul specifically chose to fully reinstitute the General Security of Information Agreement (GSOIA). South Korea withdrew a complaint it had filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding export limitations, and Japan also lifted the 2019 tighter regulations on exports of technological nanomaterials and components to that country.
Reconciling the closest allies. It didn’t take long for Washington to actively seek to capitalize on its recent triumph. After a gap of three years, South Korea, the United States, and Japan resumed their Defense Trilateral Talks (DTT) at the deputy defense minister level on April 15. According to the joint statement, “the three sides discussed the regularization of missile defense exercises and anti-submarine exercises to deter and respond to DPRK’s nuclear and missile threats. The three sides also discussed ways to resume trilateral exercises, including maritime interdiction and anti-piracy exercises, in order to maintain peace and stability in the region.” The US backed further expansion of South Korean-Japanese military cooperation, including normalization of the General Security of Information Agreement (GSOIA). The parties also examined the Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement (TISA) concerning the nuclear and missile threats posed by North Korea for its full implementation.
The Japan-South Korea security policy two-plus-two foreign affairs and defense meeting was held again two days later on April 17 for the first time in five years to discuss “strategic issues of the security situation in the region, as well as the policies of the two countries in this area.”
A trilateral joint ballistic missile defense and anti-submarine drill comprising the U.S. Navy, the Japanese Navy, and the South Korean Navy was held on the same day this year, April 17.
During the visit of the South Korean president to the United States April 26-28 this year,
Washington assured Seoul that it is ready to defend the Republic of Korea from North Korean aggression, agreed to form a bilateral Nuclear Consulting Group with Seoul, and confirmed its readiness to continue deploying its “strategic assets” in the Korean Peninsula region.
On May 7-8 this year, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is scheduled to visit the Republic of Korea. The discussions will undoubtedly center on concerns of military and political collaboration on security.
It is worth noting that, despite the sharp increase in Japan-South Korea military and political contacts, actions that could have stifled any bilateral contacts earlier went almost unnoticed in public: a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine on behalf of Prime Minister Kishida from the Japanese side and a group of parliamentarians visiting the disputed Liancourt Rocks from the South Korean side.
This abrupt reversal in bilateral relations between Tokyo and Seoul, interpreted as Pyongyang’s acceleration of its missile programs, doesn’t look so definite. Because the DPRK hasn’t stopped its missile tests in past years.
The correct answer may be hidden beneath the recent announcement of NATO’s plans to create a liaison office in Japan in 2024, the alliance’s first institution of that kind in the Asia-Pacific area. Following Prime Minister Kishida’s trip to the NATO summit in Madrid in July 2022, the opening of the Mission of Japan to NATO in September 2022, and Secretary-General Stoltenberg’s trip to Tokyo in February 2023, this is yet another clear indication of Tokyo and Brussels’ desire to work together more closely.
In light of the likely and increasingly inevitable escalation of Washington and Beijing’s conflict in the region, a more thorough analysis of the situation suggests that the real motivations are likely the US desire to quickly fortify its political-military alliances in the area and to establish their cooperation with NATO.
It is difficult to disagree with the assessment of the alliance’s plans made by the representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in this case, who claimed that NATO’s eastward expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and interference in the region would jeopardize regional peace and stability.
It will be fascinating to see if citizens of governments, whose political elites support an alliance with the United States, and the blocs and coalitions it leads in Asia-Pacific region and beyond, realize what sort of repercussions of this policy they might face if the situation follows a negative scenario in the region.
Bakhtiar Urusov, a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”