Voice of America
21 May 2023, 19:05 GMT+10
hiroshima, japan - In a sign of warming relations between America's two closest allies in Asia, U.S. President Joe Biden met Sunday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, in a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Seven advanced democracies' summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Topping the meeting's agenda was the growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea and China's rising assertiveness, two regional threats that have aligned the three countries more closely.
In a statement, the White House said the leaders discussed "how to take their trilateral cooperation to new heights," including with new coordination in the face of North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, on economic security, and on their respective Indo-Pacific strategies.
"A big focus for our three countries is improving our interoperability militarily and improving our readiness and looking for ways in which we can better prepare ourselves to meet our individual and our collective national security commitments to each other and to the region," a senior administration official said in a briefing to reporters Saturday.
China challenge
The leaders would also discuss the "economic challenges that they all face from the PRC when it comes to coercion," the official added, referring to the People's Republic of China's use of punitive trade measures for its political goals.
The three leaders are largely aligned in their views of the regional threat posed by Beijing, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with VOA Friday.
"Japan has put forward a new national security strategy which really gives them a stronger voice and presence here in the Indo-Pacific in terms of regional security," Kirby said. "And President Yoon helped author a new Indo-Pacific strategy that the Republic of Korea put out that dovetails nicely with our national security strategy."
Yoon has sought closer ties with Tokyo and Washington, a departure from his predecessor, former President Moon Jae-in, who worked to strengthen relations with Pyongyang.
Treaty allies
Japan and South Korea are both U.S. treaty allies. After Tokyo's defeat in World War II, the United States occupied and pledged to defend Japan in exchange for maintaining a large military presence in the country. In 1953, in the aftermath of the 1950-53 war on the Korean Peninsula, the two sides signed the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty which became the basis of U.S. continued military presence on the Korean Peninsula.
However, Japan-South Korea ties have long been strained by historical animosity following Tokyo's brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 until Japan's defeat at the end of World War II. Despite some domestic opposition, Yoon and Kishida have continued their rapprochement by expanding bilateral security and economic cooperation.
South Korea, which is not a G7 member, was invited by Kishida to Hiroshima as an observer, along with the leaders of Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam.
The city, now rebuilt from the devastation caused by the atomic bomb dropped by American forces that ended World War II, provided a poignant backdrop for the trilateral meeting amid increasing saber-rattling by Pyongyang. This year alone North Korea has launched at least 13 missiles this year, including three intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Extended deterrence
During the South Korean leader's state visit to the White House in April, Yoon and Biden signed the Washington Declaration, whereby Seoul agreed not to pursue its own nuclear weapons program, in return for a greater decision-making role in U.S. contingency planning in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack and a more muscular U.S. presence in the region.
Yoon called the Washington Declaration "an unprecedented expansion and strengthening" of the extended deterrence strategy - a term also known as the American nuclear umbrella.
The trilateral meeting in Hiroshima is an opportunity for the leaders to discuss whether elements of U.S. extended deterrence can plausibly be applied to both South Korea and Japan, said Ken Jimbo, former adviser to Japan's Defense Ministry who now teaches at Keio University.
"In that context, I think there will be a lot of chance that we will develop some kind of coordination mechanism together rather than one by one," he told VOA.
In April, senior officials from the three countries agreed to hold regular missile defense and anti-submarine exercises together.
Get a daily dose of North Korea Times news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to North Korea Times.
More InformationWASHINGTON D.C.: The White House announced this week that President Joe Biden has chosen US Air Force chief General Charles ...
GUAM: After Typhoon Mawar brought strong winds and torrential rains, large areas of the US Western Pacific territory of Guam ...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: In one of the largest known Chinese cyber-espionage campaigns against American critical infrastructure, a state-sponsored ...
SAN FRANCISCO, California: Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, has said the company could consider leaving Europe if it could ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: Reuters has reported that US President Joe Biden's nominee for a federal judge position in Kansas, Jabari Wamble, ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: Jennifer Homendy, head of the US National Transportation Safety Board, has said the US will investigate recent near ...
FRANKFURT, Germany - With U.S. and UK. markets closed for public holidays, it was left to European and broader global ...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: The Verge has reported that Verizon Communications met with more than 6,000 customer service employees ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: In response to a safety warning issued by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Vietnamese electric vehicle ...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: Electric truck manufacturer Nikola Corp said that Nasdaq has delivered a delisting notice for not ...
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota: Reuters reported that after facing a backlash from customers, Target is pulling some products from its Pride Collection ...
LONDON, England: The BBC has reported that Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors is planning to build a multi-billion pound ...