Costs and Repercussions of a US-Japan-South Korea Alliance

President Joe Biden recently hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David, a meeting the U.S. regarded as a huge milestone and one that is a prelude to a military alliance among the three countries. This meeting has a far-reaching impact that cannot be overlooked!

Many people are asking whether an alliance among the U.S., Japan and South Korea will intensify cooperation and ties between China, Russia and North Korea. Will it create a new Cold War confrontation in East Asia? Will it endanger the security of the Korean Peninsula and the areas around Japan? Who will benefit from the outcome of such an alliance?

In his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard,” famous American military strategist and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out that “a close political relationship with Japan is in America’s global geostrategic interest. But whether Japan is to be America’s vassal, rival, or partner depends on the ability of the Americans and Japanese to define more clearly what international goals the countries should seek in common and to demarcate more sharply the dividing line between the U.S. geostrategic mission in the Far East and Japan’s aspirations for a global role. … A disoriented Japan, lurching toward either rearmament or a separate accommodation with China, would spell the end of the American role in the Asia-Pacific region.”

From this perspective, the Biden administration is working hard to form a three-nation military alliance. On the one hand, this is to prevent Japan and South Korea from becoming friendly with China, which would end U.S. hegemony in the Asian-Pacific region. On the other hand, the Biden administration hopes that Japan and South Korea will overcome long-held animosity and prejudice and become agents through which the U.S. can achieve its geostrategic mission in the region. This reflects the three positions that President Biden holds on China: invest in U.S. infrastructure to consolidate national strength; work with allies to restrain China; and compete and cooperate with China, yet never hesitate to confront it!

Still, Brzezinski sounded a profound warning about this, saying, “it would be counterproductive to organize a coalition designed to contain China’s rise to global power. That would only ensure that a regionally influential China would be hostile. At the same time, any such effort would strain the American-Japanese relationship, since most Japanese would be likely to oppose such a coalition. … Efforts to that effect will merely hinder the emergence of a stable relationship between Japan and China, while also further isolating Japan in the region.” [ibid] {PS]

Why is the Japanese government so willing to be a pawn in U.S. efforts against China? On the one hand, it reflects Japanese uneasiness about their own security. They have not had good relations with China for a long time and are also at odds with Russia and North Korea. Japan can rely only on American military protection.

On the other hand, the Japanese have always been self-centered and self-serving. For example, defying universal condemnation, Japan released radioactive wastewater into the ocean on Aug. 24, and will continue to do so for an estimated 30 years! This is a reckless act that makes a garbage dump of Japan’s neighbors, and yet Japanese politicians are willing to do it.

However, South Korea is cautious. When Minister of Foreign Affairs Park Jin visited Qingdao in early August, he expressed the desire to strengthen the economic relationship between China and Japan and “promote cooperation with China in the spirit of being different but harmonious.” He also hopes that China can play a constructive role in efforts urging North Korea to abandon provocation and choose dialogue. In other words, South Korea is fearful in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat.

From the above analysis, we can see that as soon as a U.S.-Japanese-South Korean alliance is formed, the greatest beneficiaries will be American politicians and military-industrial groups, who will receive a massive injection of defense funding. On the other hand, U.S., Japanese and South Korean politicians have also received support in political donations and arms sales kickbacks. Still, if Japan and South Korea shoulder the heavy burden of being agents of war, they will face backlash, disgust and excoriation from their people.

The author is a political scholar and academic advisor for the Democracy Foundation.