The August 18 Camp David summit between the leaders of the US, Japan and South Korea rightly drew the three countries together. But Americans need more clarity as to why it’s right.
East Asia features three deeply rooted democracies, with impartial rule of law, governing open societies whose people participate actively in global culture. One is Taiwan, officially a part of China. South Korea and Japan are the others. Among other things, these countries are living proof that liberal democracy does not require a European culture, that freedom and personal rights are universal human values.
America conceived itself in abstract language of rights and government dedicated to their protection, while divorcing its denizens’ ethnic ties. Our experiment, whether a nation so founded can endure, gives us a profound interest in these countries’ democracy, open societies, and rule of law. We should be close to them, politically, socially, economically and culturally, much as we are with Canada, Germany, Australia, France, and the other twenty-odd deeply democratic nations.
This summit was driven by security interests. The three nations announced a new entente, with a “commitment to consult” with each other on security issues and increased and regularized military collaborations. North Korea is clearly one of those shared security issues, but there have been ongoing collaborations on that problem. The focus of this summit is China, summiteers’ protestations notwithstanding. Of course China poses a security concern. However, there are several diverse senses in which we feel a Chinese threat to our security, and not all are created equal.
Less equal than others is our concern that supply chains, particularly for sensitive products, are too dependent on China. First, full “safety,” or de-coupling of America’s and China’s economies, is highly unlikely. It would be economically inefficient, reducing global productivity and prosperity. Policy measures to move in that direction are already proving porous, and look like political signaling as much as protection. The inhibitions they do create look like security measures and/or economic moves to contain China as a result. This look corroborates China’s claim that our real goal is not really security but influence, or hegemony, in global affairs.
One stakethat is fundamental to us is the protection of Taiwan’s democratic polity. We need to be clear, too: while Taiwan’s semiconductor production is extremely important to our economy, it should never be put on anything like a par with their democratic governance and their citizens’ constitutionally assured rights. America was not founded in the name of economic interests, however great some signers’ economic stakes in independence. The reason for this new nation was to ensure that “all men” could live by their naturally endowed rights. We must value a society that values and exercises those rights so much as we do; if we do not support and help protect Taiwan, we contradict our own founding.
That creed forms our fundamental interest in relations with South Korea and Japan also. We must ensure that our instruments of collaboration do not treat any of these nations as means to other ends. Yes, they share our interests in deterring Chinese military threats but for us they derive from America’s core interest, to help protect freedom. We engage in security collaboration as a natural outgrowth of their practice of our common values: similar geopolitical values, familiarity in business, and social and cultural affinities are testament to that deep commonality.
In this line of thinking, we have a distinct advantage over China. Modern society focuses on what we all can share – as Ambassador Rahm Emanuel noted, the Japanese love K-Pop music and Koreans love Anime. Americans, of course, consume both. There is a natural bond born of modernity among us. On the other hand, China’s foreign minister lectured Japanese and South Koreans that “no matter how blond you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American.” We believe that real ties go deeper than skin, and it is crucial to show this, by basing relations on the already-real affinities we share.
The overall point should be driven home in a summit, as it voices a summit’s best purposes. Korea and Japan have an old discord that runs deeper than we find comfortable. Shoring up their relationship serves our best purpose – and should not look like a “locking in” of Japanese/ROK ties for ulterior motives. Any trilateral alignment will have to overcome mutual suspicions, born of centuries of conflict. If America’s nudging the two countries together appears to use them for our own geopolitical interests, their politics could well return them to mutual suspicion, and cast us in that light as well. If the new entente clearly aims to nurture further development in modern, growing freedom, we all share in a common enterprise that might transcend ancient grievances.
While the aim of Camp David to lock in certain political and institutional ties is reasonable it itself, it remains crucial to keep them clearly set within the broader and deeper context of our creedal ethos. If we clarify that security is not a some stand-alone end in itself but part of natural, deeper relationships among free nations, Japan’s and South Korea’s people will more likely keep their commitments in place. China will have their own clumsy appeal blunted, and above all America’s affirmative purpose can shine through the swirl of geopolitical and mercantile economic stakes.
Common Conviction 