President Joe Biden is set to meet Sunday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea to coordinate their response to North Korea’s threatening nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as to seek input on managing China’s assertive posture in the Pacific region on the eve of his planned face-to-face with President Xi Jinping.
President Joe Biden is set to meet Sunday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea to coordinate their response to North Korea’s threatening nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as to seek input on managing China’s assertive posture in the Pacific region on the eve of his planned face-to-face with President Xi Jinping.
Biden will hold separate meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. The three leaders will then sit down together on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Cambodia.
The meetings come as North Korea has fired dozens of missiles in recent weeks, including an intercontinental ballistic missile 10 days ago that triggered evacuation alerts in northern Japan, and as the allies warn of a looming risk of the isolated country conducting its seventh nuclear test in the coming weeks.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Saturday that Biden aims to use the meetings to strengthen the three countries’ joint response to the dangers posed by North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“What we would really like to see is enhanced trilateral security cooperation where the three countries are all coming together,” he said. “That’s acutely true with respect to the DPRK because of the common threat and challenge we all face, but it’s also true, more broadly, about our capacity to work together to enhance overall peace and stability in the region.”
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have skyrocketed in recent months as the North continues its weapons demonstrations and the U.S. and South Korea launched stepped-up joint defense exercises.
