The United States, Japan and South Korea strengthen their cooperation against the Chinese and North Korean threat

2023-08-19 19:27:25
Joe Biden (center) with South Korean President Yoon Seok-youl, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, at Camp David (United States), August 18, 2023. ANDREW HARNIK / AP

Gathered Friday, August 18 at the summer residence of Camp David (Maryland, United States), Americans, Japanese and South Koreans affirm their desire for rapprochement in the security and economic field in the face of Chinese and North Korean threats. Overriding old differences and despite some reluctance to blindly follow the United States in its antagonism of China, Joe Biden, Fumio Kishida and Yoon Seok-youl summoned a “Spirit of Camp David” to promise “a new era of trilateral partnership”. The three partners, however, denied wanting to formalize a real alliance.

The meeting was organized against a backdrop of tensions with Chinese and North Koreans. Japan launched fighter jets Aug. 18 after two Russian II-38 spy planes were spotted at the edge of the Sea of ​​Japan. A few days earlier, the Russian and Chinese navies, currently in joint exercises in the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea, passed nine ships between the islands of Okinawa and Miyakojima (southwest of Japan).

“Illegal maritime claims”

After clashes with the Philippines around a disputed atoll, China then launched operations in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday in response to the visit to the United States of the Taiwanese Vice President, William Lay. North Korea, for its part, sent fighters on August 17 to face an American strategic reconnaissance plane that had penetrated its airspace. In July, it fired a new Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile.

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Participants at the Camp David meeting called on North Korea to “abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile program”. While refusing to participate in a “China Summit”they condemned the “dangerous and aggressive behavior” and the “illegal maritime claims” from Beijing. They also reaffirmed “the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.

Concretely, the meeting at Camp David should result in reinforced security cooperation, in particular by a “consultation undertaking” in case of common threats. This is a first between the three partners, who will also set up a program of joint military exercises over several years and intensify the sharing of information.

Read also: Taiwan: Chinese military maneuvers detected after the stopover in the United States of the island’s vice-president

The economic component is not neglected since the three leaders want to make it a new pillar of their partnership. They thus evoked an alert mechanism to the risks of shortage of certain products or raw materials. And want to expand their cooperation to technological standards or even clean energy, biotechnology and artificial intelligence.

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