US, Japan and South Korea agree to expand security ties at summit amid China, North Korea worries
CAMP DAVID, Md. — President Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea agreed Friday to expand security and economic ties at a historic summit at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David, cementing a new agreement with the allies that are on an increasingly tense ledge in relations with China and North Korea.
Biden said the nations would establish a communications hotline to discuss responses to threats. He announced the agreements, including what the leaders termed the “Camp David Principles,” at the close of his talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
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“Our countries are stronger and the world will be safer as we stand together. And I know this is a belief that all three share,” Biden said
“The purpose of our trilateral security cooperation is and will remain to promote and enhance peace and stability throughout the region,” the leaders said in a joint statement.
Biden maintained, as have US, South Korean and Japanese officials, that the summit “was not about China” but was focused on broader security issues. Yet, the leaders in their joint summit concluding statement noted China’s “dangerous and aggressive” action in the South China Sea and said they “strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.”
Yoon noted in particular the threat posed by North Korea, saying the three leaders had agreed to improve “our joint response capabilities to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, which have become sophisticated more than ever.”
He said as the three appeared before reporters that “today will be remembered as a historic day, where we established a firm institutional basis and commitments to the trilateral partnership.”
Japan’s Kishida said before the private talks that “the fact that we, the three leaders, have got together in this way, I believe means that we are indeed making a new history as of today. The international community is at a turning point in history.”
The visitors spoke in their home languages, their comments repeated by a translator.
The U.S., Japan and South Korea agreed to a new “duty to consult” security pledge committing them to speak with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Pacific.
The pledge is intended to acknowledge that they share “fundamentally interlinked security environments” and that a threat to one is “a threat to all,” according to a senior Biden administration official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the 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.
