The US and the Japan-South Korea Summit

Sharing a beer. Devouring comfort food. Getting to know each other’s wives. The images from the first official summit meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol were carefully orchestrated to look friendly and relatable to the publics of both Japan and South Korea. Above all, the image that both men were trying to project was one of warmth and trust.

It was also striking that the orchestration of the historic meeting was taking a leaf out of the U.S. approach to public relations, and yet the summit was put forward without any direct U.S. intervention.

That is not to say Washington has not made significant investments to enhance Japan-Korea ties. In fact, the United States worked hard to ensure that the two countries continued to engage at the highest level, including on the sidelines of international conferences, even as bilateral relations continued to falter since 2018.

From the South Korean Supreme Court ruling that Japanese companies needed to compensate forced laborers from the peninsula during World War II to Japan imposing export restrictions on materials critical for Korea’s semiconductor manufacturing industry, the downward spiral of ties between the two sides seemed almost unstoppable. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel stated that there were about 40 trilateral meetings between Japan, South Korea, and the United States over the past four years in an effort to continue engagement and ultimately to build trust.

Yet the latest breakthrough has come not from Washington’s instigation, but rather through an unexpected willingness on the part of Yoon to find a new way to address the wartime compensation issue, and Kishida’s reciprocal move to seize the momentum and press for an official face-to-face leaders’ meeting for the first time since late 2011. Despite continuous efforts by Washington to broker a deal between the two sides, it was actually the Japanese and South Korean governments themselves that have been able to break through a stalemate and, with any luck, reshape public sentiment on both sides.

Granted, Yoon faces an uphill task in garnering public support for the fund that has been established by the South Korean government to compensate forced laborers. How Japan might contribute to the fund, if at all, has yet to be determined. At the same time, it is clear that Yoon was prepared to make the first move to improve relations with Japan as the need to do so intensifies.

The need for greater cooperation with Tokyo from a security perspective has always been apparent, as North Korea ratchets up its missile launches – indeed, the North launched an ICBM just hours ahead of the Kishida-Yoon summit. But the need for cooperation and coordination on the economic front too has increased since the pandemic, as both South Korea and Japan face the challenges of restructuring their supply chains.

Such dilemmas are, of course, not unique to Japan and South Korea, but shared with the United States. However, the geography of the United States makes it an outlier in trilateral relations. The United States is farther away physically from North Korea and China, and thus less susceptible to disruptions that could be caused by conflict in the region. Given the size of the U.S. economy and the scale of the domestic market, the United States has the option to focus more on promoting internal demand and also has the ability to be energy independent as well.

But it is those strengths of the United States – and its ability to shield itself from the potential conflicts in Asia – that are also pushing Japan and Korea together. Seoul may not see eye to eye with Washington when it comes to assessing the China threat, while Tokyo looks to take a more realist approach to dealing with China. But Japan and South Korea also share concerns about growing protectionism in the United States and the political risk of the country being less engaged in the Indo-Pacific.

Looking ahead to the prospect of improved Japan-South Korea relations, the United States can play a significant role to ensure that commitments made do not regress. But so long as concerns about the political risks that stem from the United States itself persist, Washington’s role will be that of a cheerleader rather than a bridge-builder to keep the two countries together.