Real test of Camp David summit

By Kim Sang-woo

On Aug. 18, U.S. President Joe Biden held a trilateral summit at Camp David, Maryland with the leaders of the main U.S. allies in Asia, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, where a series of new commitments on diplomatic, economic and military cooperation were formalized.

The military agreements include annual military exercises, deeper coordination on ballistic missile defense, and a new crisis communication hotline. The three countries also promised to hold trilateral summits annually.

In a joint press conference, Biden stressed that “our world stands on an inflection point,” in which it's particularly important to find “new ways to work together.”

The three leaders agreed to a new “commitment to consult” security pledge committing them to speak with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Indo-Pacific. The pledge is intended to acknowledge that they share “fundamentally interlinked security environments and that a threat to one, is a threat to all.”

The trilateral collaboration aims to demonstrate a shared commitment to a peaceful regional and global rules-based community. All three countries have their interests, but increasingly they see benefits in forging a united front.

The international order is not just about the balance of power but also about values and norms. E.H. Carr wrote, “If it is utopian to ignore the element of power, it is an unreal kind of realism which ignores the morality in any world order.” And, “No political society can exist without law.”

The three nations also adopted the “Camp David Principles,” a series of values and norms on peace and prosperity within the Indo-Pacific region. “And together ― together, we're going to stand up for international law, freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea,” Biden said on the back of addressing united opposition to economic coercion.

Without directly mentioning China by name, Kishida said, “Unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas are continuing,” while adding that the North Korean nuclear and missile threat is “only becoming ever larger.”

Yoon said that the summit agreement meant that “any provocations or attacks against any one of our three countries will trigger a decision-making process of this trilateral framework and our solidarity will become even stronger and harder.”

Beijing has warned that the U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with South Korea and Japan could “increase tension and confrontation in the region.”

China believes Washington is trying to isolate it diplomatically and entice it militarily. Asked about charges by China, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters the aim was “explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific” and also said that a trilateral alliance had not been set as an explicit goal.

The Biden administration is trying to lock in the gains of the past year to create structures of cooperation that could endure beyond the current administrations in Seoul and Tokyo. Lurking behind that there is a fear, strongly felt in South Korea and Japan that the U.S. elections could return to power an American president who has no real commitment to these alliances.

There are considerable forces in both South Korea and Japan that seek to undermine, if not reverse, what has taken place in the past year. Both South Korean President Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida both suffer from low popularity and ongoing challenges to their leadership.

The greatest potential challenge to the progress toward a trilateral security pact is the attempt to push ahead South Korea-Japan relations without really resolving the issues of colonial and wartime history.

Many Koreans believe Japan owes more in terms of apologies and reparations. While many in Japan feel they've already complied. It remains unclear whether the new turns in diplomacy and security can overcome the mistrust. Shihoko Goto, the director for geo-economics and Indo-Pacific enterprise and acting director for the Asia Program at the Wilson Center said, “Does it speak to the hearts and minds of the people? I would say that it could speak to the minds, but not necessarily the heart.”

Despite the concerns over whether the agreements will survive future governments, U.S. officials are stopping short of making the new terms part of a formal treaty, because China and North Korea would likely deem that a major provocation.

Prior to the summit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, described the summit as “countries forming various cliques” with “their practices of exacerbating confrontation and jeopardizing other countries' strategic security.” Sullivan pushed back on that critique, saying that the summit is not against anyone and “It is for a vision of the Indo-Pacific that is free, open, secure and prosperous.”

It goes without saying that the strong trilateral partnership of the U.S., South Korea and Japan is indispensable in light of the global security environment today.

There are growing concerns that a serious situation similar to Russia's aggression against Ukraine may arise in the Indo-Pacific. An important lesson from the Russia-Ukraine war is that no country can achieve its national security on its own in today's highly connected world. International partnership is crucial.

The success of the trilateral summit will ultimately lie in the durability of the partnership between South Korea and Japan. While both Washington and Tokyo welcomed the initiatives by Yoon, he still faces considerable domestic political opposition to his vision to strengthen ties with Japan. Opinion polls show that a majority of South Koreans oppose Yoon's handling of the forced labor issue that's been instrumental in mending relations with Japan.

Personalities matter in diplomacy, and the demonstrated rapport between President Yoon, Prime Minister Kishida, and President Biden is a prerequisite for the summit's success. But the real test of the Camp David summit will be whether the three leaders will be able to ensure that the trilateral summit can be institutionalized so that it can withstand political changes in their respective countries.

Kim Sang-woo (swkim54@hotmail.com), a former lawmaker, is chairman of the East Asia Cultural Project and a member of the board of directors at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation