President Yoon Seok-yeol (second from left in the front row) speaks at the Korea-US-Japan summit held at a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on November 13 (local time). ⓒYonhap News South Korea’s choice in the face of the North Korean nuclear issue was to cooperate with South Korea, the United States, and Japan. On November 13, President Seok-yeol Yoon met with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After the meeting, the three leaders announced the ‘Phnom Penh Statement on the Indo-Pacific Tripartite Partnership among Korea, the US and Japan (Phnom Penh Statement)’. The North Korean missile was mentioned as a major issue, but it is evaluated that the purpose of ‘containment of China’ is strong. There are also concerns that the “balanced diplomacy” between the US and China, which has been maintained by successive governments, is leaning to one side. The statement self-assessed the outcome of the meeting as “an unprecedented level of trilateral cooperation.” The purpose of this cooperation is “common prosperity and security”, and the main target of alert is North Korea. The leaders of the three countries first condemned North Korea’s launch of ICBMs and ballistic missiles. He reaffirmed the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and said, “If a nuclear test is conducted, the international community will respond strongly and resolutely.” It wrote that it would mobilize “all categories of defense capabilities, including nuclear ones.” This is so-called “extended deterrence,” in which the United States uses force to defend its allies outside its territory. The leaders of the three countries agreed to share North Korean missile warning information in real time. The name does not specify China. Instead, it sent an indirect message of containment by citing Taiwan. “We strongly oppose any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific region.” It reaffirms its importance.” Last year, President Moon Jae-in also mentioned the phrase “maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait” in the ROK-US joint statement after meeting with President Biden. China immediately objected to this statement. On November 14, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said, “If you sincerely want to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, you must strictly adhere to the ‘one China’ principle and together with China clearly oppose Taiwan independence.” , the English version of the Chinese media , wrote that ‘the circumstances of Korea and Japan are different’. On November 13, the media wrote, “Unlike Japan, which has the ambition of containing China and actively sympathizes with the strategic goals of the United States, South Korea focuses more on how to safeguard peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.” South Korea’s security relies heavily on the United States. If North Korea provocations, the United States responds by reaffirming extended deterrence. It is South Korea’s traditional security strategy to halve North Korea’s nuclear ‘advantage’ by informing the fact that the ROK-US alliance is solid. What is new is Japan’s participation. South Korea and the US are allies through the Korea-US Mutual Defense Treaty, and the US and Japan are allies through the US-Japan Security Treaty, but Korea and Japan are not alliances. This is the first time that South Korea, the US, and Japan have adopted a comprehensive joint statement covering issues ranging from North Korea and Taiwan to economic security and support for Ukraine. Why did Japan enter? “It is difficult to cooperate with US forces in Japan if Japan is ignored.” Relations between South Korea and Japan under the previous administration were deteriorating. In 2017, then-President Moon Jae-in said in his first phone call with Shinzo Abe, “The 2015 ‘comfort women’ agreement is emotionally unacceptable to the people.” After the Abe administration’s export control measures in 2019, a nationwide boycott took place. In the same year, the Moon Jae-in administration announced the termination of the Korea-Japan Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). It is not the judgment of the Moon Jae-in administration alone that the two countries do not reach an alliance or a relationship equivalent to this. There are obstacles. First, it is a territorial dispute. It is difficult for South Korea to form a military alliance with Japan, which claims sovereignty over Dokdo. It may give wings to the Japanese right wing that wants to upgrade the Self-Defense Forces into an army. Second, the risk of involvement. If a treaty such as the Korea-US Mutual Defense Treaty is signed between South Korea and Japan, South Korea will also be involved in a dispute between Japan and a third country. For example, Japan is in a territorial dispute with China as well as Korea over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese). South Korea does not want to get caught up in a dispute between China and Japan. The previous government’s judgment was that the risk of involvement in the Dokdo issue and conflict outweighed the benefits of a joint response to the North Korean nuclear issue. Professor Lee Chang-wi of the University of Seoul Law School argues that Korea should now use Japan. ⓒKim Heung-gu By the way, Lee Chang-wi, a professor at the Graduate School of Law at the University of Seoul (international law), insists that Korea should take a more active approach to Japan. Recently, he published a book called , which evaluated the relationship between the two countries. This professor’s rationale is as follows. First of all, the result of the ‘calculation’ has changed as the North Korean threat has grown. North Korea announced that it had completed nuclear weapons and legalized the use of nuclear weapons. The danger facing this group and the two countries closest to it has grown to an extent that is difficult to compare with before. Professor Lee Chang-wi also argued that the decisive reason for the lack of close cooperation between Korea and Japan lies not in rationality but in emotional factors. He said, “It’s not that I didn’t hold hands because of the merits or disadvantages. After colonial rule, hatred of Japan took root as ressentiment (resentment or resentment of the weak against the strong). Politicians, both progressive and conservative, took advantage of this sentiment. Now, I think Korea has become strong enough to use Japan.” Would it be beneficial for South Korea to cooperate with Japan after reassessing the North Korean nuclear risk and clearing the ’emotional barrier’? First of all, Jeong Deok-gu, director of the NEAR Foundation, a think tank that studies Northeast Asian issues, said, “A military alliance between South Korea and Japan is premature.” “People’s emotions are not organized. Unlike Korea and the US and the US and Japan, Korea and Japan are currently ‘South and South’,” he added. However, he says that the improvement of Korea-Japan relations achieved through cooperation between Korea, the US and Japan is distinctly different from the ‘Korea-Japan military alliance’. Chairman Jeong said. “In security discussions, Japan should not be thought of only as ‘a bad country that colonized and ruled Korea’. It is better to regard it as ‘America’s bridgehead to Asia’ or, to put it more seriously, as ‘Avatar of America’.” When asked more specifically, the answer came back: “U.S. forces in Japan and weapons deployed in Japan.” The US regards Japan as the ‘last line of defense’, so it deploys more forces than South Korea. “In order to fully utilize the ‘resources’ of the United States in an emergency, an improvement in Korea-Japan relations must be decided first. If Japan is ignored, it will be difficult to cooperate with US forces in Japan.” However, Professor Jeong saw that the Yoon Seok-yeol government “would have had no choice” rather than actively taking a course to improve Korea-Japan relations at the Phnom Penh summit. It is said that the United States has moved according to the plan presented by the United States, from the operation of the US military power in East Asia to the establishment of a front line to contain the public. From the beginning of its inception, the Biden US administration recommended improvement of Korea-Japan relations through various channels. The protagonist is US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln. In a conversation with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on October 17, Minister Blincoln said, “From the past year, we have significantly increased work with our allies and collaborators, Korea and Japan. For example, it resumed (coalition) exercises that had been suspended several years ago. Joint training has many advantages, and one of them is that it brings Korea-Japan relations closer.” Blincoln’s plan for cooperation between Korea, the US and Japan is not a sudden idea. Blincoln, who was Deputy Secretary of State during the Obama administration in 2015, started trilateral talks with officials in Korea and Japan and suggested meeting once every three months. According to the on March 2, 2021, the US State Department held a meeting in February to discuss North Korean issues with high-ranking diplomats from Korea and Japan. According to a State Department official quoted by the media, it was “to send a strong signal that we are committed to restoring relations between Korea and Japan.” After winning the presidential election, President Biden said, “America is back.” The Biden administration has scrapped the former Trump administration’s ‘America First’. Abandoning America First does not simply mean improving relations with allies. It showed a willingness to intervene in countries around the world. Recommending improvement in Korea-Japan relations is also part of it. President Trump imposed high tariffs on Chinese companies to keep China in check, and threatened North Korea with a “lunatic strategy.” The Biden administration strengthens relations with allies, and together presses (potential) enemies. China is America’s biggest competitor. For years, the United States has been using China as a competitor and strategic adversary. This position was written in the Obama administration’s National Military Strategy in 2015 and the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy in 2017. As soon as the Biden administration was launched, it also defined China as a strategic competitor in the ‘Interim National Security Strategy Guidelines’ and ‘U.S. Forces Relocation Plan Overseas’. The reason why China is defined as a competitor is not simply because its size is second only to that of the United States. This is because it is a powerful country that stands against the values that the United States represents. In the book 〈The Future of Hegemony〉 published last June, Jeon Jae-seong, a professor at Seoul National University (diplomacy), wrote: “The Biden administration sees China’s challenge as the greatest threat to the prosperity and security of the United States. China is a revisionist force that threatens the US-led liberal order in Asia and around the world and forces other countries to submit. (…) Forming a coalition of liberal countries against authoritarian countries, we try to keep China in check in terms of values and norms.” The United States sees the confrontation with China not as a contest between the two great powers, but as a confrontation between an alliance that believes in ‘liberal order’ and countries leaning on ‘revisionism’ and ‘authoritarianism’. Why would the US actively intervene in a country that rejects the liberal order? University of Chicago Professor (Political Science) John J. Mearsheimer is an expert in international security and military strategy. Mearsheimer refers to the US strategic initiative that spread liberal values to the world as ‘Liberal Hegemony’. He cites liberalism, nationalism, and realism as the ideologies that influence the international order. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (right) greets Chinese President Xi Jinping, who visited Pyongyang in June 2019. ⓒREUTERS “Liberalism cannot overcome nationalism” Liberalism based on individual freedom and rights has a universal character. Because American-style liberalism is universally just, it is right to spread it to people all over the world. In his book The Great Illusion of American Diplomacy (2020), Mearsheimer calls liberal hegemony an “ambitious strategy,” but writes that “the urge to spread democracy is now imprinted in the DNA of American foreign policy makers.” . The liberal international order has nothing to do with the pursuit of peace. If necessary, the US will go to war with a “crusade mentality” against any country that rejects liberalism. In March 2003, two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush said: “The current Iraqi regime is demonstrating its totalitarian power to spread discord and violence. A liberated Iraq will (…) show off the power of liberalism.” China is a difficult target for “returned US” diplomacy to sit idly by. However, Mearsheimer critically views the intervention policy that pursues liberal hegemony. He believes that the reason why the United States was able to intervene in countries around the world is that it has risen as the only power after the Cold War. Mearsheimer supports realist diplomacy, which seeks appropriate intervention and balance of power, but sees nationalism as the strongest. He wrote in his book: “There is no question that nationalism and liberalism can coexist. But when nationalism and liberalism collide, the winner is always nationalism.” Liberal powers have a desire to spread ‘liberal international order’ around the world, but on the contrary, countries with strong nationalist influence emphasize ‘speciality’ and resist ‘interference in internal affairs’. China, where nationalism has almost become the ruling ideology, is a threat to the United States. Conflicts between the United States, which pushes universality, and China, which pushes particularities, happen from time to time. Last year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s remarks were straightforward. Regarding the Biden administration’s remarks that “the world order based on rules is at stake,” he responded by saying, “The logic of power elevates the domestic rules of some countries to international laws and norms.” The Biden government needs to prove that the value represented by the United States is not a ‘logic of power’ but a universal order by tying up multilateral allies, including Korea and Japan. The Trump administration’s isolation has proven that the United States alone is incapable of creating “new rules.” Each country has a subtly different view of the cooperation between South Korea, the United States, and Japan as drawn by the United States. In a Washington Post article, Daniel Russell, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said, “The challenges facing the United States from North Korea and China must be addressed as soon as possible. In this respect, the deteriorating Korea-Japan relationship is a fatal rupture at an important intersection that needs to be fixed somehow.” “It’s hard to invite friends over for dinner when there’s a serious rift in the house,” he said. Yoshihide Soeya, a professor at Keio University in Japan (political international relations), said that the approach of the Biden administration is more difficult than the Trump administration from the point of view of allies. “During the Trump administration, it was mostly about money. Now, the United States demands dialogue and cooperation not necessarily for South Korea or Japan, but for the re-entry of the United States into the region. It means that the responsibility has increased under the Biden administration.” There is a passage like this in 〈Resurgence of Diplomacy〉 published by the NEAR Foundation. “Japan is strengthening its anti-China solidarity, but the situation in Korea is a bit different. (…) It is because China’s strategic perception of China’s role in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue and feelings toward North Korea as a nation cannot be the same as Japan’s.” Government figures such as Shin Beom-cheol, Vice Minister of National Defense, and Kim Seong-han, Director of the National Security Office, were also included in the writing team for this book.
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