The United States, Japan and South Korea have agreed to a new security pledge committing the three countries to consult with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Pacific, according to Biden administration officials.Details about the new “duty to consult” commitment emerged as President Joe Biden prepared Friday to welcome South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. The agreement is one of several joint efforts that the leaders are expected to announce at the daylong summit, as the three countries look to tighten security and economic ties amid increasing concerns about North Korea’s persistent nuclear threats and China’s provocations in the Pacific. “Suffice it to say, this is a big deal,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday shortly before the formal start of the summit. “It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America,”
Kishida, before departing Tokyo on Thursday, told reporters the summit would be a “historic occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation” with Seoul and Washington.
“I believe it is extremely meaningful to hold a Japan-US-South Korea summit where leaders of the three countries gather just as the security environment surrounding Japan is increasingly severe,” he said.
Before it even began, the summit drew harsh public criticism from the Chinese government.
“The international community has its own judgment as to who is creating contradictions and increasing tensions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Friday.
“Attempts to form various exclusive groups and cliques and to bring bloc confrontation into the Asia-Pacific region are unpopular and will definitely spark vigilance and opposition in the countries of the region,” Wang said. Sullivan pushed back against the Chinese concerns. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” Sullivan said.
“This partnership is not against anyone, it is for something. It is for a vision of the Indo Pacific that is free, open, secure and prosperous.”
The “duty to consult” pledge is intended to acknowledge that the three countries share “fundamentally interlinked security environments” and that a threat to one of the nations is “a threat to all,” according to a senior Biden administration official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the coming announcement.
Under the pledge, the three countries agree to consult, share information and align their messaging with each other in the face of a threat or crisis, the official said. The commitment does not infringe on each country’s right to defend itself under international law, nor does it alter existing bilateral treaty commitments between the US and Japan and the US and South Korea, the official added. The United States has more than 80,000 troops based in the two countries.
The summit is the first Biden has held during his presidency at the storied Camp David. Yoon arrived first. The three leaders will hold formal talks and a press conference. But Biden is hoping to use much of the day with the two leaders as a more informal opportunity to tighten their bond.