The Pacific NATO-like between the USA, South Korea and Japan is born.
The leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea will release a series of "findings" related to military, diplomatic, educational and technological engagements at the end of their trilateral summit on Friday, also agreeing to operate a "state-of-the-art" hotline and pledging to confer closely in a crisis, senior White House officials said Thursday.
The agreement presented by President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will fall short of a formal alliance or the kind of collective defense commitment envisioned by NATO's binding Article 5. But it reflects an understanding that "something that poses a threat to one of us fundamentally poses a threat to all of us," said a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, using NATO parlance. “Our goal will be to secure a trilateral commitment that will make it difficult to roll back on the commitments made by any of the three at Camp David,” another senior official added. “It is nothing short of historic what has been achieved.”
Friday's summit, which concludes years of diplomacy between the three nations, was viewed with distrust by Beijing, concerned that democracies are trying to encircle it, weaken the Communist Party's grip on power and slow down its national development.
As China has long benefited from historical tensions between Japan and South Korea, this week's show of trilateral unity – if it lasts – complicates Beijing's attempt to expand its regional military and political power.
US, Japanese and South Korean officials have repeatedly said the grouping is not targeting China and the release is expected to avoid mentioning the Asian giant too explicitly.
"China is a major trading partner, a major player on the global stage," said another senior official. “Each of these countries wants stable relations and is determined to work constructively to achieve this goal. It's not about taking steps [intended] in any way to isolate China."
However, geography, less and less taught in schools, has its own meaning and it is difficult to find a regional power of such dimensions as to require a joint commitment of these three countries. Even North Korea would be contained simply by its counterpart in the South. It also appears clear that the interest of the new alliance also moves in the area of Taiwan which cannot be part of it due to its controversial legal status, but there are already indirect guarantees for example, Japan and the USA can move to the new alliance. In addition, other countries in the area could join if they feel pressured by China.
This "NATO-like" alliance joins AUKUS, the alliance, also for now tripartite, between the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA, also centered on the Pacific. By now the USA is weaving a veritable network of alliances with the aim of containing China militarily, limiting its freedom of action and expansion. How does China respond? Approaching Pacific island nations. But that's another discussion.
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The article The NATO-like Pacific is born between the USA, South Korea and Japan. comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/nasce-la-simil-nato-del-pacifico-fra-usa-corea-del-sud-e-giappone/ on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 09:12:15 +0000.