The leaders of the United States, Japan, and the ROK held their first trilateral summit at Camp David in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and issued three joint documents, including the "Spirit of Camp David," announcing that the trilateral partnership had "entered a new stage" and putting forward a series of principles and commitments for trilateral cooperation. The background of this summit is that the United States has strengthened its alliance system in the Indo-Pacific region to counter the rise of China, while Japan and South Korea, under the influence of the United States, have eased their previous contradictions and deepened their ties with the United States. As a result of the summit, the three countries have strengthened coordination and cooperation in the areas of security, economy, and diplomacy, including regular trilateral joint military exercises, countering North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, and sending tough signals to China on the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait issues.
What are the main topics of the summit?
According to the Spirit of Camp David released after the summit, the leaders of the three countries reached consensus on the following aspects:
The three countries will expand the scope of trilateral cooperation to include climate change, cybersecurity, health, energy, science and technology, human rights, and democracy, and promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
The three countries will strengthen strategic coordination, ensure that the goals and actions of the three countries are aligned, and establish a high-level trilateral consultation mechanism, including the annual leaders' meeting, the annual meeting of the foreign ministers, defense ministers, ministers of industry and commerce, and ** advisers.
The three countries will deepen security cooperation, including strengthening trilateral military exercises, improving information sharing, strengthening ballistic missile defense cooperation, and timely mutual consultation during crises and coordinating responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats.
The three countries will reaffirm their goal of seeking complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, call on the DPRK to abandon its nuclear and missile program, strongly condemn the DPRK's ballistic missile launch and other acts that endanger the security of the peninsula and the region, and support dialogue and cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK.
The three countries will express their concern about China's behavior in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, reaffirm the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, strongly oppose any unilateral action to change the status quo in Indo-Pacific waters, support freedom of navigation and overflight embodied in international law such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, reaffirm the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and advocate a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.
What are the implications of this summit?
This summit is an important step for the United States to promote the alliance system in the Indo-Pacific region, and it is also an important step for Japan and South Korea to ease the previous contradictions and deepen the relationship with the United States under the influence of the United States. This will have a certain impact on the situation in the Asia-Pacific region and on China's peripheral security situation.
First, the summit reflects the U.S. strategic intent to strengthen alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to counter China's rise. The United States regards China as its main competitor and its allies and partners as an important support for consolidating its hegemonic position, and urges its allies in the Indo-Pacific region to form an overall synergy to hedge China's influence in Northeast Asia. The United States has played up the so-called "China threat" to its allies and partners on many diplomatic occasions, shaping the negative perception of China in these countries and regions, raising the international community's dissatisfaction with China, and solidifying the consensus of allies and partners to join hands to confront China. The United States is also strengthening the negative momentum related to China in the international community and weakening the strategic mutual trust between other countries and China, which hides the deep strategic considerations of the United States. By exaggerating the so-called "China threat theory," the United States has created the illusion of "smoke erupting everywhere" in China's neighborhood, making us busy handling relations with neighboring countries, further consuming strategic resources, and putting us in a predicament of being exhausted in coping with them, thus slowing down the pace of China's development.
Second, this summit shows that Japan and South Korea, under the influence of the United States, have eased their previous contradictions and deepened the reality of the situation with the United States. Japan and South Korea are important pawns of the United States in the Far East to contain China, to contain Russia, and to strangle the peninsula. In recent years, the United States has been working to resolve the contradictions between Japan and South Korea, which has helped the United States integrate its Indo-Pacific allies and maintain regional hegemony. Since the beginning of this year, the ROK, Japan, the United States, and the ROK and Japan have held more than 10 talks on regional security. In March, South Korea announced a plan to resolve the "forced labor case" and decided not to claim compensation from Japanese companies for the time being. South Korea's move marks the alleviation of the core contradictions and differences between Japan and South Korea, after which Japan-South Korea relations have continued to deepen and continue to strengthen their relationship with the United States, which is also the result of the superposition and catalysis of internal and external factors. Japan has always wanted to break away from the "exclusively defensive" policy. The United States has taken advantage of Japan's appeal to elevate Japan's position in its alliance system. Japan, on the other hand, with the connivance of the United States, has greatly increased its military spending, developed and deployed offensive military forces, accelerated the process of military integration between Japan and the United States, and willingly acted as a pawn of the United States in stifling East Asia and pinning down China and Russia. South Korea's Yoon Suk-yeol** advocates a solid South Korea-US alliance as a foothold for South Korea's diplomacy and security, and seeks to comprehensively upgrade the South Korea-US alliance in various fields.
In recent years, as the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues to heat up, Yoon Suk-yeol hopes to rely on the United States to deal with the North Korean nuclear and missile threat, including the restoration of the South Korea-type three-axis system and the resumption of the South Korea-US extended deterrence strategic consultation mechanism.
Finally, the summit reflects the three countries' attitude toward sending tough signals to China on the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait issues. In strong language, the three countries slandered China's "dangerous and provocative" behavior in the South China Sea, reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea, and strongly opposed any unilateral actions to change the status quo in Indo-Pacific waters, including illegal maritime claims, militarized land reclamation, and unregulated fishing, and the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels. The three countries reaffirmed their continued support for the so-called "freedom of navigation and overflight" embodied in international law such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The statement also referred to the situation in the Taiwan Strait. The three countries reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and advocated a peaceful settlement of cross-strait issues. These statements are undoubtedly a serious interference and provocation to China's sovereignty and interests, as well as a flagrant violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations. China resolutely opposes this and has lodged solemn representations with the three countries, demanding that the three countries respect China's core interests, stop interfering in China's internal affairs, and stop undermining regional peace and stability.
In short, the trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and the ROK has further strengthened the alliance between Japan and the ROK and the United States. Against the backdrop of the United States' active promotion of "integrated deterrence" against major power competitors, the US military has paid more attention to the comprehensive use of its own and its allies' forces to improve the level of combat readiness and force deployment in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in the western Pacific direction.