US-Japan Cooperation To Keep China in Check, South Korea’s Declining Diplomacy

On April 16, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met in Washington, D.C., where they declared full-scale cooperation to keep China in check. Quite unsurprisingly, this was the biggest agenda item of the first U.S.-Japan summit since Biden’s inauguration. The two countries zeroed in on pressuring China in areas such as human rights, territorial claims, technological advancements and more. The United States’ intent to demand South Korea’s cooperation in this effort during the Korea-U.S. summit in late May is all too obvious.

In their joint statement, U.S.-Japan summit leaders emphasized “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and encouraged “the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.” This marked the first time since 1969 that the Taiwan Strait has been explicitly referred to in a U.S.-Japan summit document. The two countries and Hong Kong also shared serious concerns about human rights issues in the Xinjiang region of China, as well as China’s coercive actions that go against international norms. The U.S. and Japanese leaders also reconfirmed their stance on the territorial claims of the Senkaku Islands, an area of dispute between China and Japan, stating that the islands are subject to the 1960 U.S.-Japan security treaty. Furthermore, the two men underscored their willingness to strengthen development of high-tech fields such as 5G networks and semiconductor supply chains to compete with China, to which China retaliated by calling it interference in China’s internal affairs.

It should also be noted that the two leaders emphasized trilateral cooperation between the U.S., Korea and Japan in the midst of heightened international tension between the U.S. and China. Currently, the Biden administration’s destructive offensive against China is pulling in its allies through strong calls for cooperation; given Korea’s position, our government is unable to ignore the demand. The government will need to consider international standards and show active cooperation in areas as needed, while preparing a diplomatic response to lower China’s level of resistance to them individually.

With regard to the issue of North Korea, the U.S. and Japanese leaders said, “[W]e confirmed our commitment to the [complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement] of all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles of all ranges.” Even if all concerned countries, including South Korea, China, the U.S. and others, were to cooperate, the denuclearization of North Korea would still be a difficult issue to solve. Moving forward, the South Korean government ought to play a greater role in improving U.S.-North Korea and U.S.-China relations by expressing a more active position regarding these matters.