South Korea - Japan - United States News in the East

Barely three months after pledging their allegiance to the United States to tackle the greatest challenges of our time together, the foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and China met to announce a forthcoming meeting between their three heads of state. Reconciled at last, thanks to Yoon Suk Yeol's initiative, Japan and South Korea were able to act independently and distance themselves from the USA. They are now close, and are even considering forming a military alliance. In financial terms, it would be the world's third-largest, and the world's third-largest military power if it were equipped with nuclear weapons. That's what their heads of state openly want. The United States, Japan and South Korea have the immediate capacity to assemble them, if they don't already have them.

This is not a small paradox, but almost simultaneously:

• On August 18, 2023, the leaders of the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea met at Camp David. They announced a new era of trilateral cooperation, embodied in a set of principles: The principles of Camp David. In a final declaration, looking to the future and their cooperation, they announced the holding of annual trilateral meetings.
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• On November 26, three months later, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and his Japanese colleague Yoko Kamikawa met their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to re-launch cooperation between Asian neighbors. A surprise turnaround that deserves some explanation.
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Prejudice and disappointment

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The purpose of the Camp David meeting was twofold:

• seal the long-awaited reconciliation between South Korea and Japan, with the United States acting as notary public,
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• assert that Japan, the Republic of Korea and the USA will work together to meet the greatest challenges of our time. Their strategy: a Statement of Principles, which is nothing more than a summary of US policy in the Asia-Pacific region. China is described as an adversary who threatens the world order1 .

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But with little regard for Japanese and Korean strategic positioning.

• The relationship between the USA, Japan and South Korea and China is fundamentally different. Seoul and Tokyo are not in competition with Beijing to rule the world.
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• Rather than an adversary, China is their leading trading partner. Both countries export first to China, then to the United States, 30% to Seoul's 14.7%, 23.8% to Tokyo's 18.7%.
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• Nuclear North Korea, not China, is the most pressing threat to South Korea and Japan,

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For Tokyo, as for Seoul, China is a close country, an Asian nation, unlike the USA.

Camp David turned out to be all show, so much so that after three months, Park Jin and Yoko Kamikawa could be found flirting for over an hour with their counterpart Wang Yi in Busan, Korea.

This meeting, however, was merely the resumption of annual gatherings that Covid had interrupted. It was first and foremost an opportunity to exchange a few kind words. "In line with the policy of friendship and partnership with its neighbors, China will continue to work with South Korea and Japan to make further contributions to regional and global peace and prosperity." Negotiations on the trilateral free trade agreement between China, Japan and South Korea will be relaunched as soon as possible. The aim of these meetings is to contribute to the creation of the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area. The only specific measure announced is the organization of a meeting of the three heads of state in the near future. "We have agreed to speed up the necessary preparations," said Park Jin2 .

So it's not the content of this meeting that should be the focus of attention, but what it achieved: the first presentation to the world of the young Chinese-Korean alliance at a distance from the United States.

Korean reconciliation

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Two close countries, separated only by the tens of kilometers of the Korean Strait (Tsushima Strait for Japan). Two countries with shared interests in regional security and the economy.
Their relations remained poisoned 75 years after the brutal Japanese colonization. These relations were considerably damaged in 2018, following a South Korean court ruling ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation for the forced labor suffered by many Koreans. It was Yoon Suk-yeol, imaginative and determined, who came up with a solution to "break the vicious circle of mutual hostility, and work together", by presenting a compensation plan without financial participation: a foundation endowed with funds from South Korean companies providing3 .
This agreement was confirmed on November 17, on the sidelines of the Apec summit: "This year, bilateral cooperation is deepening with the reactivation of exchanges at the highest levels, with the re-establishment of consultation bodies between our governments", declared Yoon. Proof of the strength of the ties forged was provided by the close cooperation between the two countries in repatriating their nationals from Israel against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian war.

A military alliance in the making

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It's in the military sphere that the agreement is most marked, and not just in words: in April, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense used the expression "military cooperation", but also in deeds.
Yoon Suk-yeol announced the "complete normalization" of the GSOMIA information-sharing agreement. The two countries will once again exchange information on North Korean missile launches and trajectories. Tokyo will be directly alerted by South Korean observation resources, which are more agile than satellite observation systems, capable of detecting launches in the first few seconds, and without having to go through the American filter.
An agreement for the acquisition and cross-maintenance of equipment will shortly be signed, marking a decisive step in the materialization of military cooperation between the two countries. The agreement provides for the exchange of ammunition, food, fuel, transport and medical services4 .

Japan and the Republic of Korea have finally agreed not to stop at a simple understanding, but to consider forming a military alliance. Today separate, tomorrow close, what might be the dimensions of their combined forces?

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The world's third-largest defense budget

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In financial terms, a Sino-Korean alliance would rank third in the world, ahead of Russia.
(France, in eighth place, had a budget of US$53.6 billion).

However, it would not be the world's third-largest military power without deterrent forces.

Today, to be protected from North Korea's nuclear threats, the alliance must rely on the American nuclear umbrella. However, Washington shies away every time Korea or Japan tries to move closer to the nuclear forces deployed in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, Korea and Japan cannot help but doubt American resolve in the event of open conflict. To keep pace with the DPRK, South Korea and Japan need to look further ahead and acquire nuclear weapons. An expectation expressed by their Heads of State.

An ambition which, according to the experts, could become a reality at any time, with each of the two countries making its own contribution.

• Japan, which is the most advanced, possesses plutonium and uranium enriched by its own means in volumes sufficient to assemble bombs by the thousands. What's more, it is said to possess the know-how needed to build the warheads. With a "turn of the screwdriver", if it doesn't already have ready-to-assemble devices in its bunkers.
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• The Republic of Korea, which gives the program respectability and the ability to cross the forbidden line without causing too much of a scandal. And who will be able to provide the ocean-going vector, the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine that will give the program its credibility5 .

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South Korea and Japan, the third largest military alliance in the world, sooner or later nuclearized.A crazy prospect, these twin nuclear forces? Perhaps! But let's not forget: back in 1962, General de Gaulle proposed to British Prime Minister Macmillan that they should join forces to build a joint strategic missile.

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1. The Camp David U.S.-Japan-Korea Trilateral Summit, https://www.csis.org/, 23/08/2023.
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2. China, Japan, S. Korea should play more proactive role in promoting regional, global development, Xinhua, 27/11/2023.
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3. What's Behind Japan and South Korea's Latest Attempt to Mend Ties, United States Institute of Peace, 21/03/2023.
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4. How Yoon overhauled S. Korea-Japan military cooperation in the span of a year, https://www.hani.co.kr/,23/08/2023.
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5. Cf. Asie21 n° 178/2023-12 South Korea - United States: SNAs for Seoul