WASHINGTON—A meeting between the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David would have been unimaginable a few months ago, given the century-long tension between the two nations, according to foreign policy observers.
However, come Aug. 18, this implausible scenario will become a reality.
U.S. President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David in Maryland on Aug. 18 to discuss trilateral concerns in light of rising threats from China and North Korea. This will be the first standalone meeting between the United States and its two North Asian allies.
According to the White House, the summit is “a historic milestone,” as it’s the first visit of foreign leaders to Camp David since 2015.
Camp David, which is a mountainside retreat for U.S. presidents, has been a site of many important diplomatic and historical events over the years.
The president “very consciously chose” to invite both leaders to Camp David for the first foreign-leader summit of his presidency, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Aug. 16.
The meeting “marks a turning point and recognizes that we have entered a new and more ambitious era of trilateral partnership, in which we come together to address unprecedented regional and global challenges,” she said.
The leaders are expected to announce several outcomes of their summit, including an agreement on improving intelligence sharing, holding joint military exercises, and establishing a crisis hotline. The leaders will also unveil a general statement of principles for the three countries, called the “Camp David Principles.”
“I think it’s fair to say that a few months ago, both President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida might have been a bit uncomfortable with the prospect of a meeting at Camp David,” Christopher Johnstone, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said during a press briefing on Aug. 14.
“But we’re in a very different stage now. The relationship between the two countries has improved markedly since March due to the efforts of the leaders themselves,” Mr. Johnstone said.
The meeting, according to the White House, is the direct result of the prime minister of Japan and the president of the Republic of Korea’s “courageous leadership.”
Japan–Korea Disputes
Disputes between the two countries date back to Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910–45. This period is remembered for its harsh treatment of Koreans, including forced labor and the use of “comfort women,” or Korean women who were subjected to sexual slavery by the Japanese military. South Korea has consistently demanded that Japan take full responsibility for those historical injustices, including issuing a formal apology and providing reparations to surviving victims and their families.Despite Japan’s formal apology and the establishment of a fund to assist victims, South Koreans argued that these efforts were insufficient.
According to Victor Cha, Korea chair at CSIS, China’s assertive behavior in the Taiwan Strait, economic coercion, and plans for a nuclear weapons program bind these countries together.
Another factor, he said during the CSIS press briefing, is North Korea’s missile campaign, which has included two solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
Some experts believe that, while China will be a significant focus of the summit and that there will be many discussions behind closed doors, the trilateral statement may not contain specific content regarding China.
“What you will see on Friday is a very ambitious set of initiatives that seek to lock in trilateral engagement, both now and in the future,” Kurt Campbell, the top White House official for the Indo-Pacific region, said at a Brookings Institution event on Aug. 16.
Camp David has previously hosted several historic summits. The Camp David Accords, a crucial peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, was negotiated there in 1978 with the support of U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Just before Christmas in 1984, the UK’s then-prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, visited the retreat to meet with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. U.S. President Barack Obama also chose the site to hold the 38th G8 summit in 2012.
Message to China
Speaking at the Brookings event, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said President Biden’s Camp David summit will refute China’s belief that the trilateral relationship can’t coexist.“Our message is, ‘We’re a permanent Pacific power and presence, and you can bet long on America,’” Mr. Emanuel said, noting that the trilateral summit will be “a fundamental advancement of America’s interests.”
“China’s entire strategy is based on the premise that America and its number one and number two ally in the region can’t get together and get on the same page.”
He went on to say that deterrence is multi-faceted.
“We have to start changing and have a wider version of what deterrence is. It has an economic component, it has a political component, it has a diplomatic component, it has a military component, it has an intelligence component,” Mr. Emmanuel said. “This, on the political-diplomatic side, is a major level of deterrence when you have this cooperation, this collaboration, and this coordination going forward. It’s a foundational piece that alters all calculations going further.”
The Biden administration has treated China as a mere competitor, as opposed to calling it an adversary.
During the Aug. 15 State Department press briefing, Vedant Patel, the department’s principal deputy spokesperson, reiterated that the United States “doesn’t seek conflict or confrontation, or a new Cold War” with China and that “we are not asking countries to choose” between Washington and Beijing.
He said the summit “is about offering countries a choice of what partnership with the United States could look like and what a shared vision for a free and open world and a free and open Indo-Pacific can look like.”
