CAMP DAVID, Md.—President Joe Biden is convening a “historic” gathering at Camp David with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, where the three powers will announce robust new security cooperation agreements.
President Biden welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to the presidential retreat with a handshake this morning, where the three leaders are discussing common security concerns in light of escalating threats from China and North Korea.
The president said that the three nations were opening a “new chapter” in their partnership and that the trio had never before participated in a “standalone summit.”
President Biden did not answer questions from the press at the beginning of the summit, but said that the United States, Japan, and South Korea will grow stronger and help make the world safer by working together.
“Our countries would be stronger and the world would be safer if we stand together,” President Biden said.
President Biden held bilateral talks with both Mr. Kishida and Mr. Yoon earlier in the day, and the three are expected to make several announcements regarding new security cooperation efforts later in the day.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said earlier this week that the trilateral summit is not a “provocative” act.
“What this is about is deepening our partnership and collaboration on a number of areas that we believe are in the mutual shared interest of our three countries.”
Trilateral Partnership Entering a ‘New Era’ of Cooperation
The United States maintains robust alliances with both Japan and South Korea. Only recently, however, has the possibility of defensive cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul begun to emerge.Historic tensions dating to Japan’s occupation of Korea in the first half of the twentieth century previously prevented much deep cooperation between the two nations. But in recent years, the growing aggressiveness of communist China and North Korea has served to thaw those tensions and push the two powers toward a more cooperative posture.
White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that the summit will take bold action to cement that warming relationship and build out institutional frameworks for more robust, trilateral security cooperation between the three powers.
“We’re opening a new era and we’re making sure that era has staying power,” Mr. Sullivan said during a press briefing earlier in the morning.
“President Biden encouraged both leaders to take bold steps to improve their bilateral relationship which could help set the foundation for the significant breakthrough and trilateral cooperation that will be on display today.”
To that end, Mr. Sullivan said that the three leaders will announce significant steps to enhance trilateral security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, including a multi-year military exercise plan across the air, land, sea, undersea, and cyber domains, deeper coordination and integration on ballistic missile defense, and improvements to information sharing and crisis communication.
Notably, the security cooperation goes beyond military preparations, and will also include coordination to prevent and respond to possible supply chain disruptions.
Mr. Sullivan clarified that the trilateral partnership is not a military alliance in the traditional sense, and is not intended merely to respond to aggression from either China or North Korea. Rather, he said, the new cooperation would build a “commitment to consult” between the three powers on security and other issues.
“It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” Mr. Sullivan said. “We’ve said that we will continue to underscore that and so we'll both Japan and Korea.”
“We have not set an endpoint of a formal trilateral alliance,” Mr. Sullivan added. “We have strong and deep decadeslong bilateral alliances with both Japan and the [South Korea]. We would like to see them continue to strengthen their cooperation, and for this three-way cooperation to get deeper and more institutionalized.”
The partnership, Mr. Sullivan said, would promote a positive vision for the future of the Indo-Pacific, and work to ensure a more just and stable region.
“This partnership is not against anyone, it is for something,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It is for a vision of the Indo-Pacific that is free, open, secure, and prosperous.”
