South Korean middle school students march in a rally against Japan in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 28, 2019 (AP photo by Ahn Youg-joon).
Over the past half century, the United States and its two key allies in Northeast Asia, South Korea and Japan, have established a limited yet effective framework for trilateral defense cooperation. That system has largely remained intact despite a history of bad blood between Seoul and Tokyo, specifically over Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 until 1945. But regional observers are now increasingly worried that this edifice is beginning to crumble. The latest sign of trouble was South Korea’s decision last month to scrap a 2016 intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. The General Security of Military Information Agreement, [...]
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S President Donald Trump at a news conference at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 25, 2019 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).
Amid the gyrations of his trade war with China, President Donald Trump was eager to trumpet his administration’s progress in negotiating a trade agreement with Japan during the recent G-7 summit in France. Unfortunately for him, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump’s own chief negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, sounded a far more cautious note, with Abe even pushing back gently on some of Trump’s claims. While Trump predicted the agreement would be signed in September during the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, it is still not clear when, or even if, the outstanding [...]
Members of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force aim their rifles towards the sky during a rehearsal ahead of a memorial ceremony commemorating those who died during World War II, as they sail past the Sulu Sea, June 28, 2019 (AP photo by Emily Wang).
In the wake of World War II, the U.S. helped Japan draft a new constitution that forever renounced the use of military force as a means of settling international disputes. Japan has nonetheless maintained a well-equipped military for the purposes of self-defense, even while largely relying on the security umbrella provided by U.S. forces in the region. In a book that came out in April, Sheila Smith, the senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, makes a compelling case that Tokyo is now reevaluating that security posture in response to a militarily ascendant China, a nuclear [...]
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