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I. Key Issues Discussed at the Meeting
Ⅱ. Assessment and Implications
On March 16, 2021, the U.S.–Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC) (U.S.-Japan 2+2”) was convened in Tokyo, Japan. The meeting, along with the ROK-U.S. Foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting (2+2”), could provide a glimpse into the future course of the Biden administration’s Asia policy. The four ministers - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and Japanese Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo – reaffirmed the two countries’unwavering commitment towards bolstering the U.S.-Japan alliance, and confirmed that the two sides’views align on a broad array of issues like countering China’s behavior, North Korean denuclearization and the importance of Korea-U.S-Japan trilateral cooperation.
I. Key Issues Discussed at the Meeting
The issues surrounding China have been the most pressing agenda items, and at the meeting, the Ministers labeled China as the biggest threat to the existing international order and affirmed their commitment to working alongside each other to keep China in check. The two sides acknowledged that China’s behavior, where inconsistent with the existing international order, presents political, economic, military, and technological challenges to the Alliance and to the international community. The Ministers committed to opposing coercion and destabilizing behavior toward others in the region, which undermines the rules-based international system. They reaffirmed their support for unimpeded lawful commerce and respect for international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea.
The Ministers also expressed serious concerns about recent disruptive developments in the region, such as the China Coast Guard law which allows the use of weapons aboard Chinese ships. Further, they discussed the United States’unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan under Article V of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which includes the Senkaku Islands. Both sides confirmed that the United States and Japan remain opposed to any unilateral action that seeks to change the status quo or to undermine Japan’s administration of these islands. The Ministers also underscored the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. They reiterated their objections to China’s unlawful maritime claims and activities in the South China Sea and recalled that the July 2016 award of the Philippines-China arbitral tribunal, constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, is final and legally binding on the parties. The Ministers shared serious concerns regarding the human rights situation in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Recognizing that North Korea’s arsenal poses a threat to international peace and stability, the Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea and urged Pyongyang to abide by its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions. The Ministers also confirmed the necessity of immediate resolution of the abduction issue, and agreed that trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea is critical for our shared security, peace, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
The two sides reaffirmed that the U.S.-Japan Alliance remains the cornerstone of peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. Japan expressed its will to enhance its capabilities to bolster national defense and further strengthen the Alliance, and the United States in response underscored its unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan through the full range of its capabilities, including nuclear. Amid growing geopolitical competition and challenges such as COVID-19, climate change, and efforts at revitalizing democracy, the United States and Japan renewed their commitment to promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific and a rules-based international order.
In awareness of the increasingly serious regional security environment, the Ministers recommitted to enhancing close coordination to align security policies, deepen defense cooperation across all domains, and bolster extended deterrence by consulting on Alliance roles, missions, and capabilities. They highlighted the importance of domains such as space and cyber, as well as further strengthening information security. In addition, they reiterated that bilateral and multilateral exercises and training are necessary to maintain the Alliance’s operational readiness and deterrent posture, as well as to meet future challenges. They reconfirmed that the plan to construct the Futenma Replacement Facility at the Camp Schwab-Henokosaki area and in adjacent waters is the only solution that avoids the continued use of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, and committed to completing the construction as soon as possible. Regarding Host Nation Support, having agreed to a one-year extension amendment to the current Special Measures Agreement, the Ministers instructed the negotiators to work toward a new mutually beneficial multi-year agreement.
The Ministers reaffirmed that the strength of the Alliance comes from the two sides’shared values and is amplified by their network of close partnerships with like-minded democracies. They pointed out that the March 12 Quad Summit demonstrated to the world their shared vision of a free, open, and inclusive region anchored by universal values and unconstrained by coercive power. The Ministers also pledged to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), affirming their strong support for the regional grouping’s centrality and unity, as well as for the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.
Ⅱ. Assessment and Implications
The US-Japan 2+2 meeting has the following implications for the foreign policy of the U.S., Japan and Korea and international relations of the region.
First of all, the outcomes of the 2+2 meeting indicate that efforts at checking China’s behavior will lie at the core of the Biden administration’s Asia policy. The U.S.-China strategic competition, which began in earnest in the second half of President Trump’s term in office will likely continue to be a defining feature of U.S.-China relations under the Biden administration. It appeared as if the Trump administration was ready to fight a new ‘Cold War’against China using all of its resources. The Biden administration, on the other hand, was widely expected to avoid an all-out war with China and choose a path toward ‘selective competition’that separates areas for cooperation from areas in which the two sides confront each other. In other words, the Biden administration was projected to seek cooperation with China on issues like climate change, COVID-19 response, nonproliferation, and the North Korea nuclear problem, while keeping China in check in areas like human rights, trade and security issues.
But Biden’s foreign policy and national security officials over the past two months have talked tough on China and seemed to be wary of Beijing’s behavior. The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, issued in March by the Biden administration, says “China is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”The 2+2 dialogue between the Japanese and U.S. ministers well reflected these perceptions held by the administration.
What we can extrapolate from the outcomes of the recent 2+2 talks between Washington and Tokyo is that the U.S. under Biden’s watch will mobilize solidarity with U.S. allies, human rights, and democratic values as a means of keeping China in check. President Trump had initiated a competition with China for global hegemony, but was criticized for his disregard for alliances. The opinion article Secretary Blinken and Austin wrote for the Washington Post prior to their visits to Korea and Japan said “A fundamental debate is underway about whether democracy or autocracy offers the best path forward.”The two secretaries wrote that U.S. alliances are “force multipliers,”and made it clear that the U.S. must with work its allies to push back against China’s aggression and threats. At the joint press conference, Secretary Blinken said such values as democracy and human rights are under threat in many places, whether it is in Burma or whether in different ways in China, citing how China uses coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in Hong Kong, undercut democracy in Taiwan and abuse human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet. Secretary Austin pointed out that China’s coercion is directed at U.S. allies, and the countries in the region must stand together with America against Chinese coercion.
Secondly, the outcomes of the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee (2+2”) meeting suggest that the Biden administration will place Japan at the core of its Asia policy, and it remains to be seen how Japan will respond. At the press conference held after the meeting, Secretary Blinken stressed that the two U.S. secretaries chose Japan for the first cabinet-level overseas travel of the Biden administration because the U.S.-Japan alliance has been the region’s cornerstone for peace security and prosperity. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is set to visit the U.S. in April, and his visit will make him the first foreign leader to hold a summit meeting with President Biden. Japan since the early 2010’s has become increasingly wary of China’s expansion in both the South and East China seas. Seeing China as the biggest threat to Japan’s national security, Tokyo has relied on arrangements like the U.S.-Japan alliance, trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Japan and Australia as well as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) to keep China in check. But at the same time, Japan has tried to avoid confrontation with China to advance its economic interests. Japan’s approach toward China, put simply, was kind of a risk-hedging strategy. With the Biden administration advancing its efforts to court Japan, the choices Japan at the “forefront of efforts at checking China”will make will draw significant attention.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet, anxious over President Obama’s more conciliatory stance toward China, changed the interpretation of the Japanese constitution to recognize the right to collective self-defense and signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to bolster the U.S.-Japan alliance. His cabinet strived to leverage the strengthened alliance as a key pillar of America’s engagement in Asia. In the Trump era, the Japanese government played a crucial role in America’s strategy for countering China by presenting the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision (FOIP) and joining the Quad. Japan at the same time tried to steer its relations with China in a stable manner, considering the high levels of economic interdependence between the two sides as well as the need to cooperate with Beijing on a number of agendas including the East China sea and North Korea issues. In 2017, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan is ready to cooperate with China’s “One Belt, One Road”development scheme under certain conditions. Prime Minister Abe paid a state visit to China in 2018 and President Xi Jinping visited Japan in the following year, and the two sides at those meetings agreed to expand the scope of bilateral relations. Abe’s approach toward China was inherited by the Suga Cabinet formed in September 2020. Around the time of the formation of his cabinet, Prime Minister Suga affirmed that the Quad is not an “Asian NATO”and the FOIP vision is “not aimed at targeting a specific country.”
At the 2+2 meeting, the Japanese government showed a welcoming attitude toward the Biden administration’s proposal to counter China. Foreign Minister Motegi mentioned that “the strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific has entered into a completely different dimension,”and added that “not only military strength but also economic development combined with high-tech advancements induced a change in the balance of power, and the free and open international order is now faced with major challenges.”Defense Minister Kishi said “we must not allow the Coast Guard Law to undermine the legitimate interests of relevant nations, including Japan, and it is absolutely unacceptable if the law were to elevate tension in the waters, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea.”The four ministers shared a strong sense of crisis about China’s behavior and issued a joint statement saying the two countries would cooperate to check China, which was a content rarely included in statements like this. As noted above, the joint statement demonstrates how Washington and Tokyo are on the same page on a broad array of issues involving China raised by Japan, such as the Coast Guard Law, South China sea issues, Chinese activities across the Taiwan Strait and human rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and that both sides will respond to the disruptive developments in the region with the same set of responses. From Japan’s point of view, it was especially a good sign that the Ministers discussed the United States’unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan under Article V of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which includes the Senkaku Islands.
On the flip side, some observers note that while the outcomes of the 2+2 meeting have decreased the risk of ‘abandonment,’which is a classical alliance dilemma, the specter of ‘entrapment’has been raised. In particular, now that Japan has committed itself to strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance, the U.S., according to some commentators, could call for the expansion of the role of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in the event of a military clash in the Taiwan straits, deployment of medium-range missiles in Japan, and an increase in the scale of U.S-Japan joint military operations in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Cooperation with China is essential for Japan to keep its economy afloat especially at a time when the international landscape is becoming increasingly volatile due to a number of variables including the pandemic and the U.S.-China rivalry. But if the Biden administration attempts to cut China out of global supply chains in key sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, electric vehicle batteries and rare-earth minerals, Japan’s attempts at hedging risks could face a tough road ahead.
Lastly, what the four ministers discussed at the meeting presents some challenges for South Korean diplomacy. The U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) report issued in February noted that Korea-Japan relations since 2018 marked their lowest levels in decades, and forecasted the Biden administration will work to help mend ties between the two U.S. allies before coordinating on North Korea issues. U.S. politicians recently have voiced concerns about the relationship between Seoul and Tokyo that soured in the Trump era. The Biden administration has criticized the Trump administration’s top-down approach toward North Korea, saying it will deal with the North Korean nuclear issue with a bottom-up approach involving working-level negotiations. The joint statement of the U.S.-Japan 2+2 meeting stipulates the need for trilateral cooperation among Korea, U.S. and Japan, which was also highlighted in the subsequent 2+2 meeting between held in Seoul. Blinken stressed the importance of trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and the ROK in dealing with North Korea, and added that the U.S. will give concrete shape to its North Korea strategy by working in coordination with Korea and Japan.
Grievances over wartime history have soured the relationship between South Korea and Japan over the past few years. On top of that, the two countries hold dissonant views on ways to deal with North Korea. The South Korean government has focused on engaging in dialogue with the North to create a pathway to sustainable peace on the Korean peninsula and reconciliation between the two Koreas. While South Korea has expressed its willingness to ease sanctions imposed on the North and provide economic assistance, Japan insists on North Korea’s complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (or “CVID”). After the formation of Prime Minister Suga’s cabinet, the Korean government offered Japan to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Tokyo Olympics, and proposed a summit meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas, Japan and the U.S., but failed to get the desired response from Japan. As returning to a conventional alliance management approach has become one of the Biden administration’s most pressing foreign policy priorities, it remains to be seen how the Korean government will chart its diplomatic path forward to forge a response.
* Attached the File
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