A US-Seoul-Tokyo alliance is more crucial than ever as Kim chases his nuclear dream
Donald Kirk says a tight three-way defence grouping would not only help ease the legacy of bitterness in East Asia, but also give powerful leverage to efforts to contain North Korea
The dream of American diplomacy is for a trilateral alliance joining the US in common cause with its two northeast Asian allies, South Korea and Japan. The great obstacle to this alliance has always been the bitterness between Korea and Japan. US diplomats have often called for the two nations to get over the legacy of bitterness and look ahead by cooperating in defence against North Korea.
Such pleas have often been met with rebukes, with claims that Americans fail to understand the depths and complexities of antipathy on both sides of the East Sea, which the Japanese know only as the Sea of Japan.
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The result is that the US, maintaining separate alliances, generally cannot talk to leaders from both nations at the same time. Over the years, US presidents, and secretaries of state and defence, have often had to include visits to Seoul and Tokyo on the same trip, building rapport while hoping to foster trilateral cooperation.
Unquestionably, a Northeast Asia trilateral alliance would be in the best interests of all concerned. Japan was the rear base area from which supplies moved for the US, South Korean and other allied forces in the Korean war. Japan provides bases for 50,000 US troops, including the largest US air base in the region, nearly twice the 28,500 US troops in South Korea. If there were to be a second Korean war, the US and South Korea would be more reliant than ever on bases in Japan from which to move vital supplies in a hurry.
Might Japanese troops, however, be called on to assist the South Koreans and Americans in a crisis? If Japan is not allied with South Korea, the answer is probably no. Under the current arrangement, US troops and supplies could move from Japan to Korea, but Japanese troops would not be involved. Nor would Japan engage in high-level planning with South Korea. The US and Japan would work together, as would the US and South Korea, but not South Korea and Japan.
We cannot be intimidated by North Korean rhetoric