US Official: South Korea, US, Japan to Soon Launch 'North Korea Missile Alert' Information Sharing

Mira Rap-Hooper NSC Senior Advisor
"Promise Progressing Smoothly... Operation Within Days"

A White House official stated on the 13th (local time) that South Korea, the United States, and Japan will soon share North Korean missile warning information as agreed at the trilateral summit at Camp David last August.

Mira Rapp-Hooper, Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council (NSC), said at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. on the same day, "We are smoothly fulfilling our commitment to share missile warning information in real time within this year," adding, "It will actually be operational within a few days."

Earlier, South Korea, the U.S., and Japan agreed to activate a real-time information-sharing system among the three countries within this year to effectively respond to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

She emphasized that one of the most important outcomes of the trilateral summit was the adoption of a pledge by South Korea, the U.S., and Japan to promptly consult in response to regional challenges and threats affecting the common interests and security of the three countries. Rapp-Hooper explained that this pledge acknowledges that a threat considered sensitive by one country is also important to the other two countries. For example, if a crisis or conflict occurs in Japan's first island chain (the operational range of the Chinese navy connecting Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Malacca Strait) or the Western Pacific, South Korea also regards it as a "tremendous problem." She clarified, "This is not a formal alliance and does not in any way infringe upon existing mutual security commitments between the U.S. and Japan or between South Korea and the U.S."

Rapp-Hooper also announced that South Korea, the U.S., and Japan will hold trilateral ministerial meetings for commerce and finance in the first half of next year.

Regarding the fact that all three countries will serve as members of the United Nations Security Council next year, she said, "A new mechanism has emerged to coordinate on issues such as North Korea and North Korea-Russia military cooperation," adding, "We have been waiting for this moment and look forward to making the most of it."

On the stance toward promoting the South Korea-China-Japan trilateral summit, she stated, "The U.S. is also conducting high-level diplomacy with China, so there is no concern," and added, "We do not see (South Korea-U.S.-Japan and South Korea-China-Japan) as being in any kind of competitive relationship."

At the forum held under the theme "Redefining South Korea-U.S.-Japan Relations in the Era of Economic Security," two former Korean chief trade negotiators participated as panelists. You Myung-hee, Visiting Professor at Seoul National University Graduate School of International Studies, emphasized that while there is broad consensus among South Korea, the U.S., and Japan on the need to protect core technologies, differences exist in trade relations with China and export control methods, necessitating close trilateral consultations. Ye Han-gu, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), said, "It seems China has recognized that the cost it would have to pay if it attempts economic coercion has increased."