Biden’s ‘Spirit of Camp David’ is a mere specter of alliance

“The spirit of Camp David” may be the most enduring dividend of the trilateral summit held last month in the low-lying mountains northwest of Washington. There was no doubt of the goodwill among the leaders of the U.S., South Korea and Japan as they formed what appeared to the Chinese as an alliance to contain China, from the Korean peninsula to the Taiwan Straits to the South China Sea, around the southern rim of Asia, across the Indian subcontinent to the Middle East.

A closer look at the documents that emerged from the one-day gathering, hosted by President Joe Biden, reveals that he, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida actually failed to reach hard-and-fast agreements on anything aside from their pledge to meet again.

Probably the most significant of the two documents they signed was “The Spirit of Camp David,” in which they vowed “to expand our cooperation bilaterally and raise our shared ambition to a new horizon, across domains and across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”

They would, they said, “strengthen our economies, provide resilience and prosperity, support the free and open international order based on the rule of law, and bolster regional and global peace and security, especially as current and incoming members of the United Nations Security Council.” More practically, they would “enhance strategic coordination between the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances and bring our trilateral security cooperation to new heights.”

The statement of “principles” to which they agreed was couched in similarly lofty language. The three declared they “strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion” and would “advance a free and open Indo-Pacific based on a respect for international law, shared norms, and common values.” And, yes, they would “promote and enhance peace and stability throughout the region.”

No doubt expressions of goodwill and cooperation are important. But the problem with all the fine verbiage is that it contains no firm guarantees and no commitments, other than a desire to meet regularly and review what’s happening and what to do about it, if anything.

A firm stand on the need for “complete denuclearization” of North Korea adds nothing to all that we’ve been hearing for years about CVID: complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. No, they did not use that familiar acronym. Instead, they “remained committed to dialogue with the DPRK with no preconditions” — a meaningless repetition of previous statements to which we may be sure Kim Jong Un won’t respond.

The three leaders put on an appearance of coming down to more meaningful understandings as outlined by the White House in a “fact sheet” accompanying the statements on spirit and principles, but here too the wording reveals the lack of a binding commitment.

They would, said the fact sheet, meet at least once a year to “build on the momentum” of the Camp David summit, but whether they would convene one-on-one or all three together wasn’t clear. They would, to be sure, engage in “trilateral exercises, which will constitute an unprecedented level of trilateral defense cooperation,” said the fact sheet, and “they would “exchange real-time missile warning data that would improve the detection and assessment of DPRK missile launches.” Also, they would “strengthen our data sharing.”

Again, the devil was in the details — or, rather, the lack of details. What was the exact nature of the agreement under which Biden, Yoon and Kishida had come to terms? Had they signed a specific deal for trilateral exercises? The wording suggested they were talking in terms of aspirations rather than firm promises. Depending on the level of threats from North Korea and China, they would meet again, at which time they would repeat whatever they had said at Camp David.

More substantively, the three did agree to set up a “trilateral working group on DPRK cyber activities,” hoping to “counter DPRK illicit revenue generation and malicious cyber activities.” They would “focus on sharing intelligence” and “coordinating responses to the DPRK’s cryptocurrency use, theft and laundering” — areas in which North Korean cyber experts have scored notable successes. North Korea’s Lazarus Group is believed responsible for hacking into Sony Pictures in 2014, demanding that Sony not release “The Interview,” a mordant satire on Kim Jong Un. Two years later, Lazarus broke into the Bangladesh Central Bank, getting away with millions of dollars.

The American, Korean and Japanese leaders did not, however, need to meet at Camp David to reach a deal for fighting cybercrime. Other countries should be equally interested. The point of the trilateral summit was to form what might be seen as a serious, viable alliance. They did not say a word about joining forces in the event of a war, the overwhelming reason being defense against North Korean threats supported by Chinese expansionism.

Incredibly, there was no agreement at Camp David on what may be the most pressing concern: the use of nuclear weapons to combat North Korean nuclear threats. None of the statements said a word about the need for nuclear weapons for defense against North Korea, China or Russia. Yes, the U.S. remains responsible for providing a “nuclear umbrella” covering both Korea and Japan, but would it not have been a good idea to have mentioned this crucial aspect of regional defense?  

Instead, Biden, Yoon and Kishida papered over this omission with a self-righteous reaffirmation “that achieving a world without nuclear weapons is a common goal for the international community, and we continue to make every effort to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.”

Those were empty words. They did not have to hold a summit to agree on the evils of nuclear weapons and the need to work on banning them. Neither South Korea nor Japan are about to go nuclear. They may have all the skills and resources to fabricate their own nukes, but they are not about to join the global nuclear club. Biden, Yoon and Kishida might have reaffirmed that much but preferred to ignore the topic totally.

The nuclear issue was too sensitive, too divisive and too controversial to raise in a trilateral conversation. The U.S., however, sought to reassure South Korea and Japan of the American commitment on nuclear defense by having a nuclear submarine, capable of firing warheads, dock at the port of Busan.

At Camp David, the leaders chose to stick to generalities. They may have shown their desire to cooperate on defense but avoided saying what they would do should war again engulf the region.

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He is currently a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea, and is the author of several books about Asian affairs.