Collective Security

FORUM Staff

A plan by South Korea-based Samsung to build a more than $220 million research and development facility near Yokohama, Japan, exemplifies an upswing in cooperation between the Indo-Pacific nations. The countries are major players in semiconductor and other technology industries, and their leaders envision a growing partnership on economic and security fronts.

The Samsung venture, expected to open in 2025, is “a highly symbolic initiative that is expected to spur collaboration between the chip industries of Japan and South Korea,” the Nikkei Asia magazine reported in May 2023. The facility’s Japanese and South Korean researchers will build a production line for a prototype chip device. Samsung is the world’s largest memory chipmaker, while Japan is a top producer of base materials for chip production, the magazine reported.

Japan and South Korea, separated by the sea and past conflicts, began cooperating more intensely on a range of issues in 2023, largely at the initiative of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who focused on the nations’ geopolitical similarities and insisted on looking forward. Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Seoul and Tokyo in early 2023, and in August they attended a summit with United States President Joe Biden at Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland, to discuss trilateral cooperation. 

“I’m optimistic the two countries will finally work together seriously,” Dr. Hoo Chiew-Ping, a senior lecturer at the National University of Malaysia and an expert in Korean and East Asian studies, told FORUM. “I think the time is now. Chaebols [family-owned conglomerates] and big corporations in Japan and [South] Korea are mostly driven by their private interests, but stronger government support helps create investment and cooperation.”

The potential for collaboration exists in other tech businesses, including electric vehicle batteries and mobile communication networks. Economic success might be the best way to convince skeptics of the partnership’s value, observers say.

It’s a logical starting point for cooperation, with chipmaking the nations’ main economic crossroads, Dr. Yoichiro Sato, a professor at Japan’s Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University with expertise in international relations, security and economics, told FORUM. “The momentum has really shifted since Yoon was elected [in 2022],” he said. “There’s a great opportunity.”

Security collaboration is more challenging, Sato said, with intelligence-sharing perhaps the most promising venture. The nations have pledged to expand measures such as monitoring North Korea’s missile launches and nuclear capabilities, and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) assertive maritime actions.

Threats posed by North Korea and the PRC created an urgency that preceded the rapport between Japan and South Korea, National Defense magazine reported in June 2023. Yoon now calls Japan “a partner that shares the same universal values,” while Kishida views South Korea as “an important neighboring country that we should work with,” The New York Times newspaper reported in May 2023.

Enhanced Cooperation

Allies and Partners throughout the Indo-Pacific increasingly are working together. Along with more collaboration between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) — South Korea’s formal name — partnerships include the Quad of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.; and the longstanding Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). There also are trilateral relationships: Japan, the Philippines and the U.S.; Australia, France and India; and Australia, India and Japan. The relationships are based on trust, mutual confidence and leadership.

The Camp David summit concluded with a joint statement evoking cooperation that extends beyond the Indo-Pacific. The three nations pledged to support ASEAN and the Nations of the Blue Pacific. They promised increased development assistance to promote carbon neutrality, supply chain resilience, and information and communications technology. “Ours is a partnership built not just for our people but for the entire Indo-Pacific,” the statement read.

The summit’s main objective was to institutionalize cooperation among Seoul, Tokyo and Washington to withstand challenges such as political changes, The Diplomat magazine reported.

Although not committing the three nations to a security pact, the statement called for shared data and intelligence, exercises, initiatives to counter disinformation, and regular meetings of leaders, foreign and defense ministers, and national security advisors. It reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, opposed any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in Indo-Pacific waters and demanded North Korea’s complete denuclearization.

The U.S. has long-standing bilateral relations and treaties with Japan and South Korea and asserts an ironclad commitment to both countries. The relationship between Japan and South Korea is less defined — a dotted line rather than a solid one, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“They share so many values and interests despite their differences,” Dr. Celeste Arrington, a George Washington University associate professor of political science and international affairs, told FORUM. “There are lots of reasons for them to cooperate. It makes sense to try.” She said people-to-people encounters would help institutionalize interaction between the countries: business connections, tourism, student exchanges, and political and economic reciprocity among empowered women.

The nascent Japan-South Korea partnership aims to demonstrate the power of collaboration to encourage economic vitality and bolster security as Allies and Partners build networks to promote a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Similarities, Differences

Japan and South Korea share values, interests and concerns, Frank Aum, the U.S. Institute of Peace’s senior expert on Northeast Asia, wrote in July 2022. Both are strong democracies and staunch U.S. allies. Japan and South Korea are global economic powerhouses, boasting Asia’s second- and fourth-largest gross domestic products, respectively, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Both nations also have aging populations and low birth rates, while global warming and accompanying sea-level rise threaten the littoral states. Tackling such common challenges could be mutually beneficial and engender a bilateral sense of accomplishment, observers say.

Japan and South Korea ultimately also must address lingering issues including Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45 and disputed ownership of islets, experts contend. “To improve relations, Seoul and Tokyo will likely need to adopt both approaches — pursuing security and economic cooperation where they can while also taking immediate steps to resolve the historical disputes,” Aum wrote.

Although South Korea is hesitant to pull away from the PRC economically, Beijing’s increasing authoritarianism, assertiveness and hegemonic ambitions are damaging its trade relationship with Seoul as well as Tokyo, The Diplomat reported in May 2023. Indeed, South Korea has joined the U.S. push to make global supply chains less reliant on Chinese industry, The Washington Post newspaper reported.

“We’re still very much dependent on China, but a surprising number of companies have moved out of China,” said Yun Dukmin, South Korea’s ambassador to Japan. “We can’t completely abandon the Chinese market, but overall, the Chinese market is not going to stay open continuously.” Small and medium South Korean companies, as well as major ones such as Samsung, are investing in Japan, Yun told Time magazine in September 2023.

Japan, meanwhile, has identified the PRC as the “greatest strategic challenge” to security and stability, Kyodo News reported in January 2023.

Geography Matters

“The importance of security cooperation with South Korea cannot be overstated,” Tokuchi Hideshi, president of the Japan-based Research Institute for Peace and Security and a former Japanese vice minister of defense for international affairs, wrote in a CSIS commentary in June 2023. “Japan-South Korea cooperation has become even more necessary due to the threat posed by North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.” 

Preserving a “free and open international order based on the rule of law” is a tenet of the statement issued by the leaders of Japan, South Korea and the U.S. “Formally joining parallel bilateral structures in a single alliance remains unrealistic for the foreseeable future, given lingering political sensitivities in South Korea and Japan, in addition to Japan’s constitutional constraints on collective defense,” Dr. Jeffrey Hornung, a defense analyst with the Rand Corp. think tank, wrote in September 2023. However, the countries agreed to “enhance strategic coordination between the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances and bring our trilateral security cooperation to new heights,” the statement read.

South Korea monitors North Korean missile launches, which violate United Nations Security Council resolutions, and Japanese satellites track the airborne weapons. The U.S. meshes that missile warning data in real time with its own intelligence, Reuters reported. 

Kishida’s announcement in December 2022 of a five-year, $315 billion defense buildup was accompanied by Tokyo’s new security and defense strategies allowing counterstrike measures. Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine — and whether it portends a PRC invasion of self-governed Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory — greatly concerns Japan. Tokyo likely would contest such an attack on Taiwan, Sato said, while South Korea would offer support and supplies but stay focused on North Korea.

Tensions remain between North and South Korea 70 years after they signed an armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War. The U.N. Command that prosecuted the war against North Korea may use seven U.S. bases and facilities in Japan that are “the greatest deterrent” to a resumption of hostilities by Pyongyang, Yoon said in August 2023, The Associated Press reported.

Allies and Partners have stepped up defense drills to improve interoperability. Japan, South Korea and the U.S. held a ballistic missile defense exercise in August 2023 after North Korea’s second attempt to launch a spy satellite failed. “Through the exercise, we improved our tactical capabilities and joint response capabilities for ballistic missile defense,” Capt. Tomohiro Tomimatsu, commander of the Japanese destroyer JS Haguro, said in a news release.

Such collaborative measures help restore ties, build trust and boost optimism for solid relations between Japan and South Korea. “Time will tell,” George Washington University’s Arrington said.