WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (AP): The United States, Japan and South Korea are set to sign on to a new
security pledge, committing the three countries to consult with each other in the event of a security
crisis or threat in the Pacific, according to Biden administration officials.
Details about the new “duty to consult” commitment emerged as President Joe Biden prepared
Friday to welcome South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio
Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
The move is one of several joint efforts that the leaders are expected to announce at the daylong
summit, as the three countries look to tighten security and economic ties amid increasing concerns
about North Korea’s persistent nuclear threats and Chinese provocations in the Pacific.
Kishida, before departing Tokyo on Thursday, told reporters the summit would be a “historic
occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation” with Seoul and Washington.
“I believe it is extremely meaningful to hold a Japan-US-South Korea summit where leaders of the
three countries gather just as the security environment surrounding Japan is increasingly severe,” he
said.
The “duty to consult” pledge is intended to acknowledge that the three countries share
“fundamentally interlinked security environments" and that a threat to one of the nations is “a
threat to all," according to a senior Biden administration official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the coming announcement.
Under the pledge, the three countries agree to consult, share information and align their messaging
with each other in the face of a threat or crisis, the official said.
The commitment does not infringe on each country’s right to defend itself under international law,
nor does it alter existing bilateral treaty commitments between the US and Japan and the US and
South Korea, the official added. The United States has more than 80,000 troops based between the
two countries.
The summit is the first Biden has held during his presidency at the storied Camp David.
The retreat 65 miles (104.6 kilometers) from the White House was where President Jimmy Carter
brought together Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in
September 1978 for talks that established a framework for a historic peace treaty between Israel
and Egypt in March 1979. In the midst of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the retreat — then known as Shangri-La — to plan the
Italian campaign that would knock Benito Mussolini out of the war.
Biden’s focus for the gathering is to nudge the United States’ two closest Asian allies to further
tighten security and economic cooperation with each other. The historic rivals have been divided by
differing views of World War II history and Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910
to 1945.
But under Kishida and Yoon, the two countries have begun a rapprochement as the two conservative
leaders grapple with shared security challenges posed by North Korea and China.
Both leaders have been unnerved by the stepped-up cadence of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests
and Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, the self-ruled island that is claimed by Beijing as part of
its territory, and other aggressive action.
Yoon proposed an initiative in March to resolve disputes stemming from compensation for wartime
Korean forced labourers. He announced that South Korea would use its own funds to compensate
Koreans enslaved by Japanese companies before the end of World War II.
Yoon also travelled to Tokyo that month for talks with Kishida, the first such visit by a South Korean
president in more than 12 years. Kishida reciprocated with a visit to Seoul in May and expressed
sympathy for the suffering of Korean forced labourers during Japan’s colonial rule,
The leaders are also expected to detail in their summit communique plans to invest in technology for
a three-way crisis hotline and offer an update on progress the countries have made on sharing early-
warning data on missile launches by North Korea.
Other announcements expected to come out of the summit include plans to expand military
cooperation on ballistic defenses and make the summit an annual event.
The White House has billed the gathering of the three leaders at the rustic retreat in the Catoctin
Mountains as a historic moment in the relationship and an opportunity for South Korea and Japan to
move beyond decades of antagonism.
The leaders are also likely to discuss the long-running territorial conflicts in the disputed South China
Sea involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.
Earlier this month, the Philippine government summoned China’s ambassador and presented a
strongly worded diplomatic protest over the Chinese coast guard’s use of water cannons in a
confrontation with Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.
The tense hours-long standoff occurred near Second Thomas Shoal, which has been occupied for
decades by Philippine forces stationed onboard a rusting, grounded navy ship. But it is also claimed
by China.
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, Biden’s envoy to Japan, said the administration is in part looking to
counter what he calls Beijing’s bullying tactics and its confidence that Washington can’t get its two
most important Pacific allies — Japan and South Korea — to get along.
“Our message is we’re a permanent Pacific power and presence and you can bet long on America,”
Emanuel said at a Brookings Institution event focused on the summit. “China’s message: ”We’re the
rising power, they’re declining. Either get in line or you’re gonna get the Philippine treatment.”
