hankyoreh

The US and Japan released an interim report on Oct. 8 for their “Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation.” It comes after the decision at an Oct. 2013 Security Consultative Committee (“2+2”) meeting in Tokyo to amend the 1997 guidelines and allow for a response to a new security environment, including the increased threat from China. The new report includes plans for a stronger US-Japan alliance. Coming on the heels of the Japanese Cabinet’s decision in July to exercise collective self-defense authority, it heralds a new direction for Washington and Tokyo’s security cooperation for the foreseeable future.

What the latest guidelines do is basically to raise the alliance to the level of a “community of destiny.” The revisions this time hint at a fully integrated alliance to come, with expressions about “fully accord[ing] with both countries’ strategic goals and interests” and “seamless” responses. Another major change is in the scope of military cooperation, which goes from being restricted to Japan and its vicinity to extending worldwide. In other words, without any amendment to the law, the two countries can now cooperate militarily anywhere, as opposed to just the area around Japan. It could be that the pathway has just opened up for Japan to exercise its “collective self-defense” at any time by supporting its ally the US in wars in the Middle East or Ukraine.

A more immediate concern is the tensions these new guidelines will fan between the US-Japan alliance and China. Allowing for a concerted military response to the rise of China was one of the direct motives for amending the old terms. It’s a matter of two sets of interests coming together: an economically waning US struggling to contain China all by itself, and Japan hoping to hang on to its regional dominance with Washington’s help.

All this presents quite a dilemma for South Korea, which depends heavily on US security and the Chinese economy. The stronger defense cooperation between the US and Japan basically forces a choice on us: as allies of the US, do we intend to take part in a encircling China or not?

In the cases of the annual three-way naval exercises off the southern coast of Jeju over the past three years, or the increasingly frequent calls for South Korea-US missile defense cooperation in recent years, the rationale has been the threat of provocations from North Korea. But we doubt there is a single person out there who doesn’t know that the real target has been China.

It’s dizzying to think that our national interests depend on our managing to keep on good terms with both Washington and Beijing. Now more than ever, we need to stop letting ourselves get dragged along by the situation, and start working to forge a favorable security environment for ourselves.

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