Rare Japan-South Korea summit could help US push against China

The second meeting in two months between leaders of Japan and South Korea after years without a formal summit marks another win for the Biden administration, which has sought to unite the allies to cooperate against North Korea and undercut China’s growing power.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is scheduled to arrive in Seoul on May 7 for talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Bloomberg reports.

The two are seeking to bolster business and military cooperation with the US even while remaining mindful of the importance of keeping ties steady with their biggest trading partner, China.

It’s a delicate balance as Washington and Beijing squabble over everything from the supply of chips and cutting-edge technology, to an alleged Chinese spy balloon being shot down over American skies and China’s partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the forefront too is an increasingly belligerent North Korea, which fired an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the US just hours before Kishida and Yoon held a summit in Tokyo in March.

The Biden administration has been seeking help from its global partners such as Seoul and Tokyo to impose sweeping curbs on the sale of advanced chips equipment to China in a policy aimed at preventing the country’s progression in a range of cutting-edge technologies that could threaten America’s status as a preeminent power.

US efforts may have been behind the restoration of Seoul-Tokyo ties, said Kak Soo Shin, a former career diplomat who once served as South Korea’s ambassador to Japan. Drivers could have also included concerns both countries share over the volatile security environment, mainly the challenge of addressing the North Korean nuclear threat and a “coercive China”, he said.

“It has been quite abnormal for Korea and Japan to leave their relationship in such a miserable situation for such a long time,” Shin said.

“It was a lose-lose situation that the two countries have been trapped in a vicious cycle of a fraying relationship, even though they could be natural strategic partners amid the flux of their strategic settings.”

Kishida and Yoon are likely to discuss issues surrounding security and high-tech industries, as well as seek to restore shuttle diplomacy that was derailed more than a decade ago to political friction, the South Korea president’s office said.

A formal summit between the two leaders was held in March in Tokyo for the first time in 12 years, followed by a security dialog in April and a meeting of their finance ministers last week.

Yoon has been a supporter of Washington’s Asia strategy, including Biden’s initiative to restructure global supply chains to reduce dependence on China. Japan in March said it will expand restrictions on exports of 23 types of leading-edge chipmaking technology, even as its trade officials repeatedly said it was not targeted at China.

The last visit by a Japanese premier to South Korea came in 2018 when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the opening of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and held talks separately with then-President Moon Jae-in. The last formal summit in Seoul by a Japanese leader was in October 2011.