President Joe Biden hailed Friday’s unprecedented trilateral summit with Japanese and South Korean leaders as a harbinger of a safer world on account of new security cooperation between the three democratic allies.
Speaking at Camp David at the start of a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeon, Mr Biden noted that the three-way confab was the “first ever standalone summit between the leaders of Japan and Republican Korea and the United States”.
The American president also said that strengthening ties between the three democratic nations had “long been a priority” for him.
“Our countries are stronger and the world would be safer as we stand together,” he said, before thanking Mr Kishida and Mr Yoon for their courage in making the decision to thaw what has been an often-icy relationship between Tokyo and Seoul, due to longstanding tensions between the two countries as a result of Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula during the Second World War.
The Japanese and Korean leaders each arrived at the historic presidential retreat earlier on Friday by helicopter, with Mr Biden greeting them individually as they alighted from their aircrafts.
Both leaders have met a number of times over the last several months in an effort to ease longstanding tensions between the two US allies, including old grievances dating back a century to the Japanese Empire’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
According to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on plans for the summit, the two Asian leaders have “taken further steps to reengage technologically, militarily and politically” at each of their previous meetings, receiving quiet encouragement from Mr Biden during respective bilateral engagements.
The official said Mr Kishida and Mr Yoon have both had to overcome “uncertainties” about the rapprochement, including “substantial” questions and opposition about their tentative steps towards deeper cooperation.
“There were some starts and stops along the way. But what we’ve seen over the course of the last several months is nothing short of courageous diplomacy on the part of President Yoon and matching efforts by Prime Minister Kishida,” the official said.
