"South Korea, US, and Japan Defense Ministers Coordinating to Hold Meeting in Singapore Next Month"

Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-seop Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] South Korea, the United States, and Japan have begun coordinating to hold a defense ministers' meeting next month in Singapore, reported Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 19th.

According to the report, Lee Jong-seop, South Korea's Minister of National Defense, Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Kishi Nobuo, Japan's Minister of Defense, will attend the Asia Security Conference (Shangri-La Dialogue) held in Singapore from the 10th to the 12th of next month. Taking this opportunity, the defense ministers of South Korea, the U.S., and Japan are coordinating to hold a trilateral meeting.

The last face-to-face meeting of the South Korea-U.S.-Japan defense ministers was held in November 2019, so if this meeting takes place, it will be the first in about two and a half years. Earlier this year, efforts were made to hold the meeting, but it was canceled due to the spread of the Omicron variant and the war in Ukraine.

Nihon Keizai Shimbun cited the deterioration of South Korea-Japan relations as one of the reasons why the trilateral defense ministers' meeting had not been held for a considerable period. It reported that a meeting planned for August 2020 in Guam was downgraded to a U.S.-Japan defense ministers' meeting because South Korea showed reluctance.

However, President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office on the 10th, has shown an attitude aiming to improve South Korea-Japan relations, and there are movements on the Japanese side seeking cooperation. The U.S. is also urging improvement in South Korea-Japan relations due to concerns about the East Asian security environment, Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. The newspaper described this upcoming South Korea-U.S.-Japan defense ministers' meeting as aiming to "rebuild South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation on the occasion of the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration."