U.S. President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol gather for a trilateral meeting throughout the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima on May 21, 2023. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Japan and South Korea in a first-of-its-kind trilateral meeting on Friday at Camp David.
The president is hoping to smooth over a historically icy relationship between the 2 neighbors as a way to bolster military cooperation within the region amid rising tensions from China and North Korea.
The meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol marks the primary time Biden has used the Maryland retreat for a summit during his presidency.
“This summit comes at a moment when our region and the world are being tested by geopolitical competition, by the climate crisis, by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, by nuclear provocations,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a briefing on Tuesday.
“Our heightened engagement is a component of our broader efforts to revitalize, to strengthen, to knit together our alliances and partnerships,” he added.
Japan and South Korea are a few of the most strategic U.S. allies within the Pentagon’s heavily armed Indo-Pacific area of responsibility, the geographic combatant command that hosts greater than half of the globe’s 10 largest standing militaries.
The summit comes as tensions between Beijing and Washington have intensified over China’s territorial expansion within the South China Sea, aggression toward Taiwan, allegations of espionage and human rights abuses.
