A Fragile Convergence: The US–Japan–South Korea Camp David Summit

AbstractThe US–Japan–South Korea summit was historic, not least because it was the first stand-alone summit between the three countries. The severe deterioration in the security environment in East Asia, in particular China’s menacing of Taiwan and North Korea’s continued nuclear-weapons programme, has been a significant driver of the recent rapprochement between Japan and South Korea. The warming of bilateral ties thus helps to buttress the United States’ separate, formal security alliances between Japan on the one hand and South Korea on the other. But previous thaws have failed, reflecting lingering differences between Japan and South Korea in areas such as their shared history and territorial claims. This convergence is therefore a fragile one.Key words: Camp David SummitChina‘comfort women’East China SeaIndo-PacificJapanKishida FumioKorean PeninsulaPhnom Penh StatementSouth KoreaYoon Suk-yeol Notes1 US Embassy and Consulates in Japan, ‘Trilateral Leaders’ Summit of the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea’, 19 August 2023, https://jp.usembassy.gov/trilateral-leaders-summit-us-japan-south-korea/#:~:text=President%20Biden%20welcomed%20Japanese%20Prime,David%20during%20the%20Biden%2DHarris.2 Victor D. Cha, ‘Bridging the Gap: The Strategic Context of the 1965 Korea– Japan Normalization Treaty’, Korean Studies, vol. 20, 1996, p. 125.3 White House, ‘Phnom Penh Statement on US–Japan–Republic of Korea Trilateral Partnership for the Indo-Pacific’, 13 November 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/13/phnom-penh-statement-on-trilateral-partnership-for-the-indo-pacific/.4 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan–ROK Summit Telephone Call’, 28 December 2015, https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/na/kr/page4e_000366.html.5 White House, ‘The Spirit of Camp David: Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States’, 18 August 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/18/the-spirit-of-camp-david-joint-statement-of-japan-the-republic-of-korea-and-the-united-states/.6 One early example of this was the ‘Korea clause’ in the November 1969 communiqué between US president Richard Nixon and Japan’s prime minister Sato Eisaku. This was the first public recognition by Japan that South Korea’s security ‘was essential to Japan’s own security’, although support for the clause ebbed and flowed with the Japanese governments that followed. The communiqué came at a time of increased security tensions in Asia against the background of the Vietnam War and the threat of a newly nuclear China. See ‘The Nixon–Sato Communique’, New York Times, 22 November 1969, p. 14, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/11/22/issue.html; and Victor D. Cha, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US–Korea– Japan Security Triangle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), chapter 1.7 Prime Minister’s Office of Japan, ‘Keynote Address by Prime Minister Kishida Fumio at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue’, 10 June 2022, https://japan.kantei.go.jp/101_kishida/statement/202206/_00002.html.8 Republic of Korea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Introducing the Indo-Pacific Strategy’, https://www.mofa.go.kr/eng/wpge/m_26382/contents.do.9 For a map of Chinese and Russian joint patrols and exercises, see Yuka Koshino and Robert Ward, ‘Japan Steps Up: Security and Defence Policy Under Kishida’, Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023: Key Developments and Trends (Abingdon: Routledge for the IISS, 2023), p. 119.10 See, for example, James Politi, ‘North Korea’s Kim Plans to Visit Putin to Discuss Arms Sales, US Says’, Financial Times, 4 September 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/11cc1d36-6783-4ab0-96d1-edd27d06b54d.11 White House, ‘The Spirit of Camp David’.12 White House, ‘Commitment to Consult’, 18 August 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/18/commitment-to-consult/#:~:text=We%2C%20the%20leaders%20of%20Japan,our%20collective%20interests%20and%20security.13 White House, ‘The Spirit of Camp David’.14 Samsung already has a research and development facility in the city. See Kotaro Hosokawa, ‘Samsung to Build Chip Development Facility in Japan’, Nikkei Asia, 13 May 2023, https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Samsung-to-build-chip-development-facility-in-Japan.15 ‘Chugoku Sei, Sentan Hin de Sekai Shea Kakudai, 22 Nen Chosa’ 中国 勢、先端品で世界シェア拡大22年 調査 [China expands global share of advanced products, 2022 survey], Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 5 September 2023, https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGKKZO74169420V00C23A9MM8000/.16 Huaxia, ‘Xinhua Commentary: Trilateral Meeting at Camp David Stokes Embers of Cold War’, Xinhua, 20 August 2023, https://english.news.cn/20230820/55275e1196b14b6db7d7a099c91e842c/c.html.17 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan–Republic of Korea Joint Declaration: A New Japan–Republic of Korea Partnership Towards the Twenty-first Century’, 8 October 1998, https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/korea/joint9810.html.18 In 1973, for example, Kim Dae-jung was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by agents from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency on account of his criticism of Park Chung-hee’s regime. In 1980, he was sentenced to death after the uprising in Gwangju triggered by the coup that brought Chung Doo-hwan to power, although this sentence was later commuted to a prison sentence.19 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Issues Regarding History, Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary’, 4 August 1993, https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/rp/page25e_000343.html. For an account of the deterioration in bilateral ties in this period, see Kimiya Tadashi, Nikkan Kankei Shi 日韓関係史 [A history of Japan–South Korea relations] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 2021), pp. 169–71.20 Lee Jong Won et al., Sengo Nikkan Kankei Shi 戦後日韓関係史 [A contemporary history of Japan–South Korea relations since the Second World War ] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 2017), p. 252.21 See United Nations, ‘No. 8473 Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Cooperation Between Japan and the Republic of Korea. Signed at Tokyo, on 22 June 1965’, Treaty Series, 1966, p. 260, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20583/volume-583-I-8473-English.pdf.22 Kim Han-joo, ‘Yoon’s Approval Rating Inches Up to 33 pct’, Yonhap News Agency, 21 July 2023, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230721003000315.23 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan–Republic of Korea Relations, Announcement by Foreign Ministers of Japan and the Republic of Korea at the Joint Press Occasion’, 28 December 2015, https://www.mofa.go.jp/a_o/na/kr/page4e_000364.html.24 Kiyomiya Ryo, Nishimura Keishi and Inada Kiyohide, ‘Nichibeikan, “Zenrei Nai Reberu” de Anpo Kyoryoku e, Mae Nomeri no Beikoku, Nikkan wa?’ 日米韓、「前例ないレベル」 で安保協力へ前のめりの米国、日 韓は？ [Towards unprecedented Japan–US–South Korea security cooperation: forward-leaning US, but what about Japan and South Korea?], Asahi Shimbun, 19 August 2023, https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASR8M62SRR8MUTFK00B.html.25 Choe Sang-hun, ‘In a First, South Korea Declares Nuclear Weapons a Policy Option’, New York Times, 12 January 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/world/asia/south-korea-nuclear-weapons.html.26 Koshino and Ward, ‘Japan Steps Up’, pp. 121–6.Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobert WardRobert Ward is IISS Japan Chair and Director of Geo-economics and Strategy.