Calming tempers in Northeast Asia

Deepening cooperation in the region, cooling down hot spots and enhancing mutual trust between China and the US will go a long way toward achieving this objective

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Northeast Asia is now the battleground for a great power rivalry and the reshaping of the international order, due to its enormous potential for economic growth and security strategies, as well as the complex geopolitical environment and relations among countries. Compounded by the United States' increasing strategic investment, historical issues in the region are difficult to resolve, real-world contradictions keep emerging while tensions and security risks are on the rise.

First, geopolitical divisions and suspicions among major powers have increased the risks of confrontation.

The US has encouraged and authorized its allies to support its regional strategies, exacerbating bloc confrontation in the region. While managing the risk of a US-China conflict, the Joe Biden administration uses multilateral means to mobilize its allies to compete with China. This not only escalates the confrontation between the US and China, but also has a significant impact on the strategic choices of countries in Northeast Asia.

With US mediation, the Camp David Principles pact was announced in August 2023 during the trilateral leaders' summit of the US, Japan and the Republic of Korea, aiming to expand trilateral security and economic cooperation and "institutionalize" cooperation in regional security and other areas, including conducting military exercises and trilateral summits every year.

Second, the regional arms race is escalating, with noticeable trends toward autonomous security and competitive security.

At the end of 2022, Japan issued three security documents including its new national security strategy, which abandons its exclusively defense-oriented principles and focuses on developing preemptive "counterattack capabilities", including acquiring various types of long-range missiles.

On the pretext of the Ukraine crisis, Japan has been trying to find a legal basis for strengthening its military systems and increasing military investment. Since 2013, Japan's military expenditure has surged by nearly two-thirds. According to the budget for the 2024 fiscal year approved by the parliament on March 28, Japan's defense budget exceeds 7.9 trillion yen ($52.1 billion), up more than 16 percent from 2023.

Third, security hot spots are heating up, posing greater challenges to crisis management.

With a fragmented and complex geopolitical structure, it is hard for Northeast Asia to transform and construct new systems. More than 30 years after the end of the Cold War, Northeast Asia still suffers from its consequences, grappling with even more friction and conflicts.

Among them, the Korean Peninsula remains a hot spot of traditional security issues. Under the pressure from the Biden administration, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been frequently test-firing missiles. Meanwhile, the US has intensified sanctions, and Japan and the ROK have conducted frequent military exercises around the peninsula, attempting to constrain the DPRK through trilateral security cooperation. Since Yoon Suk-yeol took office as the president of the ROK, inter-Korean relations have deteriorated and tensions have been rising on the peninsula.

Fourth, coordination mechanisms are failing amid a broken regional order.

Against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, the divide in the regional order has become more pronounced. The US and Japan are attempting to lead the reshaping of the regional order, touting a "free and open 'Indo-Pacific' order".

The US and Japan have different security interests and security concepts from China and Russia, which can be traced back to the disagreement between the two sides on the post-World War II international order, when the former pursued the San Francisco system, while the latter insisted on the positions presented in the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation.

Amid a shaken regional order and intensified ideological conflicts, security coordination in Northeast Asia is completely lost, and a stronger US-led alliance system has exacerbated group confrontation and regional division.

Fifth, political security factors have hindered regional economic cooperation.

Since the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations and the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic ties in the 1970s, economic and trade cooperation between China and the US as well as its allies has soared.

However, the US is worried that economic cooperation between China, Japan and the ROK will upset US-Japan and US-ROK military alliances. Geopolitical security incidents have "coincidentally" taken place whenever countries in the region achieved or were about to achieve major economic integration.

For example, Japan illegally detained Chinese fishermen and a trawler in the waters of the Diaoyu Islands in 2010; the US and the ROK deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense system in 2016. These took place at a time when China-Japan cooperation, China-ROK cooperation or China-Japan-ROK cooperation was about to make breakthroughs.

It is evident that the deepening security dilemma in Northeast Asia is dragging the opposing sides into a vicious cycle of muscle-flexing. It is crucial to address, or at least alleviate, the dilemma through the following approaches.

First, deepening cooperation among countries in the region and strengthening the bonds of practical interests. Japan and the ROK have close and profound economic ties with China. The three economies are mutually dependent and structurally complementary.

However, pressured by the US, Japan and the ROK have been following its lead attempting to build "small yards with high fences", excluding China from the international high-end industry and supply chains. This approach is neither viable nor beneficial to the interests of Japan and the ROK.

Given their geographical proximity and shared interests, cooperation among China, Japan and the ROK is naturally in line with economic rationality and the national interests of all parties.

Second, making every effort to cool down regional hot spots, rather than stoking the fires. In the past two years, the DPRK's missile tests and US-Japan-ROK joint military exercises have heightened tensions and posed great security risks in Northeast Asia.

On March 28, the United Nations Security Council vetoed a US-proposed resolution to renew the mandate of the Panel of Experts of the 1718 Committee, namely the DPRK Sanctions Committee, for another year, terminating the panel's oversight of sanctions against the DPRK. This is an important step to cool down tensions.

The past 30 years have shown that imposing sanctions and military confrontation do not help resolve issues on the Korean Peninsula. Instead, activating reversible clauses in sanction resolutions and alleviating the humanitarian difficulties in the DPRK can help ease tensions and promote the denuclearization of the peninsula.

Third, enhancing mutual trust between China and the US, as well as among countries in the region, and promoting the establishment of dialogue and consultation platforms.

Although Northeast Asia sees the most geopolitical and great power strategic interactions, there has been no effective, region-wide security coordination mechanism. Moreover, it is difficult to restart multilateral mechanisms, such as the Six-Party Talks, involving China, the DPRK, the US, the ROK, Russia and Japan, which once played active roles in regional security coordination. China has tried to explore constructive security partnership initiatives with both Japan and the ROK, but has encountered setbacks.

Despite all these extensive differences, it is the common aspiration of all to pursue peace, stability and prosperity. In this respect, perhaps the 2024 super-election year can bring some hope and opportunities for change to Northeast Asia.

The author is director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a researcher of the National Institute for Global Strategy at the CASS. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.