Will historical tensions, politics upend South Korea, Japan, US deal to boost defence ties?

Defence ministers from South Korea, the United States and Japan have signed a landmark agreement to formalise their trilateral security cooperation, but analysts warn that politics and historical tensions between Seoul and Tokyo could undermine it.

Although the memorandum of cooperation is not legally binding, South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik underscored the significance of the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework (TSCF), describing it as “the first document in history” that would act as a foundational agreement to “institutionalise” the three-way security cooperation.

Shin dismissed claims that the signing was hurried to occur before the US presidential election in November.

“The acceleration of security cooperation is driven by the volatility of the security situation, not by the US political calendar,” he told reporters on Sunday.

Shin pointed to the increasing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea, its growing military cooperation with Russia, and the potential for attempts to alter the regional status quo by force as key factors necessitating the enhanced security framework.

Shin, his Japanese counterpart Minoru Kihara and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the TSCF in Tokyo on Sunday. The agreement “institutionalises trilateral security cooperation among defence authorities, including senior-level policy consultations, information sharing, trilateral exercises, and defence exchange cooperation, to contribute to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, in the Indo-Pacific region, and beyond”, the US Department of Defence said in a statement.

The three defence leaders commended the successful execution of the multi-domain trilateral exercise “Freedom Edge” in June, it said.

Through the drill,