The leaders of the United States, Japan, and South Korea held a meeting at Camp David on 18 July, announcing that they would strengthen cooperation in military and other fields, while spreading the "China threat theory." The move means that the three countries are moving closer to a NATO-style collective security alliance, although it has not yet been officially announced.
This is a major strategic layout of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is also the most important geopolitical action of the United States in the region since the end of the Cold War. South Korea was the key to the meeting, because South Korea's pro-Japanese stance of Yoon Hee-yeol made South Korea change from its original neutral attitude to an alliance with the United States and Japan. It can be speculated that the United States gave Yoon Hee-yeol a lot of political support during South Korea ** in 2022 in exchange for his cooperation. In this way, South Korea's independence will be greatly reduced, and the strategic cooperation between the United States, Japan, and South Korea will be smoother.
Although the United States does not formally establish a collective security mechanism, it has increased its strategic resource mobilization capabilities in the region by improving cooperation and coordination between Japan and South Korea. The pattern in Northeast Asia is now very similar to that of the Cold War, with the opposing camps of China-Russia-North Korea and the United States-Japan-South Korea becoming clearer again.
Of course, there is tension within this camp. The main tension comes from the desire for strategic autonomy of the Japanese right and the political struggle between the left and right factions in South Korea. In contrast, South Korea has changed less, and it is unlikely that the next South Korean ** will change Yoon Hee-yeol's position unless it is at a big cost. Japan has made some small moves, such as at the Camp David meeting, only Japan mentioned the fire in Hawaii in the United States, which Biden did not mention. This suggests that Japan is somewhat paranoid in handling the details, which may be a hint of bargaining with the United States. It also shows that Japan is more autonomous than South Korea. However, this autonomy will not hinder the establishment of the trilateral coordination mechanism, but will only affect the external assessment of the degree of unity among the three countries.
In any case, the improvement of the degree of coordination among the three countries cannot be ignored, and the United States can use this mechanism to take Japan and South Korea as victims in the worst case, and can also use the manufacturing industry of Japan and South Korea to reconstruct the first chain. It also means that China must take some steps to either break the mechanism or strengthen its own. However, judging from the depth of US control over Japan and South Korea, it is difficult to break this mechanism, so it is necessary to take corresponding countermeasures.
In the China-Russia-North Korea triangle, only China and North Korea have a legal alliance, and North Korea's development has been constrained because North Korea has no security problems after losing the support of the Soviet Union and facing the continued existence of Cold War structures on the peninsula. Now that Northeast Asia is back to a Cold War standoff, it will be a good thing for North Korea, which will strengthen North Korea's strategic position and make North Korea's land war cluster more important.
Finally, it is necessary to look at China's own development, especially the research and development and mastery of core technologies. This is something that has been done all along, and as long as it continues to develop, with China's size, Japan and South Korea can only cause some trouble, and will not pose a deadly threat.