Korea-Japan and US-ROK-Japan Summits Discuss Strengthening Security Cooperation Against North Korean Threat

Following the US-ROK summit at the end of last month, Korea-Japan and US-ROK-Japan summits will be held one after another this month. Strengthening security cooperation among the three countries in response to the advanced North Korean nuclear threat is expected to gain momentum. Reporter Kim Hwan-yong reports from Seoul.

The Office of the President of the Republic of Korea announced on the 2nd that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will visit Korea for two days and one night from the 7th and hold a summit meeting with Korean President Seok-yeol Yoon.

Just like when President Yoon visited Japan for the first time after taking office on March 16-17, it is in the form of a working-level visit and the duration is the same as 2 days and 1 night.

The Korea-Japan summit is scheduled to take place on the 7th, the first day of Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Korea.

The ROK President’s Office gave meaning to the restoration of ‘shuttle diplomacy’, in which the heads of both countries regularly travel to and from each other.

In a press release, the Office of the President stated, “With Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Korea, shuttle diplomacy between the leaders will be fully operational.”

The Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to Korea is the first in five years and three months since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in February 2018.

In terms of shuttle diplomacy, it has been 12 years since Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s visit to Seoul in October 2011.

Through this meeting, the two leaders are expected to reaffirm the importance of improving bilateral relations as agreed upon at the Korea-Japan summit in March, and to share the importance of trilateral cooperation between the United States and Japan against the North Korean threat.

There were predictions that Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Korea would happen this summer, but analysts say that the Japanese side has sped up considering the situation in which the United States and South Korea announced strengthening cooperation between the United States and South Korea and Japan through their summit on the 26th of last month.

Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University, said at the US-Korea summit that President Joe Biden highly appreciated South Korea’s active role in improving Korea-Japan relations and that Japan’s response was needed.

The two leaders are expected to discuss ways to cooperate with each other in preparation for North Korea’s escalating nuclear threat.

This is Professor Park Won-gon.

[녹취: 박원곤 교수] “There was a military consultative body between the two countries, Military Dialogue. There was another cross-visit of traps. What we need to pay attention to at the Korea-Japan summit this time is that we will not do anything new, but we will restore and normalize what we have done before.”

Following the G7 summit to be held in Hiroshima, Japan on the 19th and 21st, the US-ROK-Japan summit will also be held.

See also: High-ranking U.S. official “holding a summit between the U.S. and Japan during the G7 summit”

Although Korea is not a G7 country, President Yoon attended at the invitation of Prime Minister Kishida.

The US-Korea-Japan summit is the first in six months since it was held on the occasion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-related summit held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in November last year.

The meeting is said to have been held at the request of the United States, and it is expected that the importance of trilateral cooperation in response to North Korea’s nuclear advancement and increasing threat will be emphasized.

In the wake of President Yoon’s recent state visit to the United States, the United States and South Korea have drawn the “Washington Declaration,” a Korean-style extended deterrence plan, with the main focus being the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a consultative body of deputy ministers.

Experts believe that cooperation between the US and Japan will begin in earnest as the Korea-Japan and US-Korea-Japan summits are held in succession following the US-ROK summit.

It is an observation that the will to expand trilateral cooperation will be expressed, especially in the field of security.

Some in diplomacy predict that a trilateral extended deterrence consultative body of the US, Korea and Japan, linked to the US-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group of the ‘Washington Declaration’, will be established with the G7 as an opportunity.

However, Cho Tae-yong, head of the National Security Office of Korea, said in an interview with YTN, a Korean news cable TV station on the 1st, “The first thing we need to do is to establish a bilateral system to stabilize the bilateral system and make specific arguments.” ”he said.

Hong-min, head of the North Korean research department at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-run research institute under the South Korean government, said that the US-ROK-Japan summit could provide an opportunity to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation, including regularization of military exercises.

[녹취: 홍민 실장] “The ROK, the US and Japan have already brought a coordinated system for a series of exercises such as anti-submarine training and missile defense training with each other in terms of providing the US extended deterrence, and in terms of a series of steps to strengthen the extended deterrence that the US is talking about now, the future regularity and intensity of training and It seems that such work that increases the scale will be further progressed.”

In addition to the North Korean nuclear issue, the US-Korea-Japan summit is expected to discuss issues such as the Taiwan Strait issue, advanced technology, supply chain, energy, and other economic security cooperation issues.

In South Korea, analysts say that Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Korea will lead to strengthening security cooperation between the United States and Japan, but conflicting issues such as past history and the territorial dispute over Dokdo are still acting as stumbling blocks.

Public opinion in South Korea is voicing that Prime Minister Kishida should take this visit to Korea as an opportunity to apologize for the issue of compensation for victims of forced labor during the Japanese occupation, but the prevailing view is that it will not be easy to express a position beyond what he stated at the Korea-Japan summit in Tokyo last March. no see.

Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, “The two countries are in dire need of regional security cooperation.”

[녹취: 김현욱 교수] “Since South Korea faces the threat from North Korea and Japan also faces the threat from China in the Taiwan Strait, the fact that South Korea and Japan are simultaneously demanding the strengthening of the US extended deterrence to prepare for the threat at the regional level ultimately leads to extended deterrence. It should be seen that we have a common goal of finding a solution at the third party level.”

There are observations that China’s move to block trilateral security cooperation will be further strengthened ahead of the US-Korea-Japan summit.

Lim Chul, a professor at the Center for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said that China, which judged through the US-Korea summit that South Korea had turned into a force to check China, could put pressure on it, including economic retaliation.

[녹취: 임을출 교수] “I clearly oppose changing the status quo in relation to the Taiwan issue. Since this position itself is evaluated to have already sent a message sympathetic to the position of containment against China, China is more fiercely pursuing a strategy of separating Korea, the United States and Japan. It shows that there is a possibility to pursue it strongly.”

Meanwhile, President Yoon Seok-yeol evaluated the performance of his recent state visit to the United States through a 16-minute opening remark at the cabinet meeting presided over by the Presidential Office in Yongsan on the 2nd.

President Yoon said, “The results and achievements of the US-ROK summit are just the beginning,” and “the territory will continue to expand, and the opportunities for the people of both countries will grow.”

In particular, President Yoon repeatedly emphasized the extraordinary significance of the US-ROK alliance.

[녹취: 윤석열 대통령] “We should be proud of our history in which the Republic of Korea has grown and developed while the alliance has been going on for 70 years, as well as our people’s hard work and the United States’ strong support for our economic growth as a strong ally.”

President Yoon said, “The United States has helped us a lot until the Republic of Korea overcame the terrible scars and ruins of the war, cultivated today’s prosperity, and stood tall as the center of the world.” ”he said.

This is VOA News Kim Hwan-yong from Seoul.