Why Biden’s Summit With Japan and South Korea Is a Big Deal

At first glance, President Biden’s summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea—being held at Camp David today—may not seem newsworthy, much less extraordinary. But in fact, it’s a very big deal, taking place at a tensely pivotal moment.

Though Japan and South Korea are America’s two largest allies in eastern Asia, and while both countries’ leaders greatly value that alliance, their relations with each other have long been bristling with mistrust.

As one sign of its significance, the summit marks the first time ever that an American president has wrangled the South Korean president and the Japanese prime minister together into a “trilateral summit” where they are the only participants and their common concerns form the only agenda.

The summit—which Biden sees as crucial to weaving together a network of allies across Asia—is the culmination of meetings and talks that have gone on between the leaders and their senior aides for two years. The fact that it is taking place at all reflects the progress that has been made in those years.

Yet tensions and differences remain, and even the points of accord and compromise are seen as fragile—due in part to upcoming elections in all three countries.

The 2024 U.S. presidential election is only the most prominent political concern. Officials in Tokyo and Seoul trust Biden and know his deep commitment to alliances, but they wonder whether his successor will share that commitment. Specifically, if Donald Trump is elected again, they fear—from watching him the first time around—that their progress will be wiped out, and so they are hesitant to take many political risks on their own. (U.S. allies in Europe have expressed the same concern.)

And moving into a truly trilateral security arrangement—in which Seoul and Tokyo share the same obligations to each other that they each hold with Washington—is a politically risky step for both.

Their mutual enmity dates back to the early 20^th century, when Japan held Korea as a colony, and especially to World War II, when Japanese troops forced Korean men into slave labor and Korean women into forced prostitution. South Koreans’ demands for compensation and apologies—and Japan’s refusal to comply—have been central issues in the two countries’ relations.

In March, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol took the extraordinary step of compensating families of enslaved workers with local funds—then asked Japanese companies to chip in as well. The companies did nothing, and the government in Tokyo did nothing to pressure them.

Still, Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida—at Biden’s urging—started cooperating in other areas, especially in sharing intelligence, with Washington and with each other, on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, which threaten both directly. There have been other advances, at least in discussing shared interests and concerns.

Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in international policy at Stanford University, wrote in this week’s Oriental Economist that the leaders—especially Biden—hope that Friday’s summit will “lock in” this past year’s progress, in the form of official declarations and new trilateral institutions that future leaders can’t easily overturn.

At a news conference on Thursday, two senior U.S. officials, speaking on background, said that the summit will institute a three-way “hotline,” where the leaders can speak securely and instantly, as well as a pledge to consult with one another in the event of crises affecting their interests. They also hope to make commitments on trade, cybersecurity, and nuclear deterrence.

One of the officials, who said he has been “doing diplomacy in Asia for 30 years,” said the “alignment” between Tokyo and Seoul “has never been greater.” The summit will “build on” the “rock-solid” bilateral treaty commitments that the U.S. has with South Korea and Japan separately—and try to extend these into a trilateral arrangement (all three countries committed together) where this is “possible” and “appropriate.” The other official stressed that the summit would not be heralding a “formal alliance or collective-defense commitment,” such as the NATO treaty binding the U.S. with much of Europe.

Sneider, who has been writing for years on the tensions between Japan and South Korea, told me in a phone conversation Wednesday that he is encouraged by the existence of the summit and by the steps that all three leaders have taken toward making it possible. However, he also noted the “fragility” of the politics that produced it—noting that it wouldn’t have happened at all without President Yoon’s electoral victory in 2022 and if South Korea’s more left-wing party, which is more suspicious of Japan and holds a majority in parliament, wins the next election.

Yoon and Kishida both face low ratings in their home countries, Kishida for Japan’s domestic troubles, Yoon for making overtures toward Japan that many South Koreans view as too one-sided.

Sneider also noted remaining differences on crucial issues between both countries and the United States. Particularly sensitive is the status of relations with China. Biden sees the trilateral summit as, in part, forming a strengthened joint bulwark against Chinese expansion—especially at a time when China, Russia, and North Korea have formed trilateral relations of their own. However, Japan and South Korea have much closer ties with China—in trade and investment—than does the United States, and they have no great desire to loosen those ties.

In an awkward moment during Thursday’s press conference, the two senior officials were asked whether the new trilateral hotline and the pledge to consult would be activated if China invaded Taiwan. The officials declined to discuss specifics. However, they did say that one of the documents coming out of the summit would contain “robust language” on security in the South China Sea—where the Chinese navy has been expanding bases.

It is also unclear, as of a few hours before the summit begins, whether or to what extent the three leaders will discuss nuclear deterrence. In its long-standing separate treaties with Japan and South Korea, the United States has pledged to defend each country from attack, even if doing so means using nuclear weapons. Biden hopes to incorporate this assurance into the trilateral security arrangement with both countries, but officials in South Korea and Japan are reluctant to be drawn into a war that involves the other country but not themselves.

One of the senior officials said Thursday that the three leaders at the summit will engage in “the task of doing what’s possible and what’s appropriate.” It’s not entirely clear what all that does and does not include.