S. Korea scraps intelligence-sharing deal with Japan
South Korea said Thursday that it would abandon a military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, a move that dramatically escalates tensions between the two countries and underscores the United States’ diminishing leadership in the region.
The South Korean decision on renewing the security agreement — a pact the U.S. had pushed in part to ensure tight monitoring of North Korea’s missile activity — had been awaited as a barometer of relations between Seoul and Tokyo, America’s two closest Asian allies. U.S. officials said they were taken by surprise by the decision.
The ties between Tokyo and Seoul reached their lowest point in years after Japanese officials imposed trade restrictions this month targeting exports to South Korea. Japan took further action against Seoul by removing it from a list of trusted trade partners, and South Korea responded in kind.
The flare-up punctuated decades of waxing and waning enmity between the two countries, which is rooted in Japan’s colonization of South Korea before World War II.
Kim You-geun, first deputy chief of South Korea’s National Security Council, said his country had decided to terminate the intelligence-sharing deal because the trade restrictions had “caused an important change in securityrelated cooperation between the two countries.”
“Our government has concluded that it does not conform with our national interest to maintain the agreement struck for the purpose of sharing sensitive military intelligence” he said in a statement.
Taro Kono, Japan’s foreign minister, called South Korea’s decision “extremely regrettable.”
“The relationship between Japan and South Korea is in a very severe situation with the series of extremely negative and irrational moves by South Korea, including the decision this time,” Kono said in a statement. “The Japanese government will continue to urge South Korea to respond sensibly, based on our consistent stand over various issues.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States was “disappointed” by the decision.
“There is no doubt that the shared interests of Japan and South Korea are important, and they’re important to the United States of America,” he said. “And we hope each of those two countries can begin to put that relationship back in exactly the right place.”
The decision by Seoul was a surprise to many. In recent days, there had been signs that the two sides were seeking ways to ease the strains.
During a major speech last week, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea sent conciliatory signals to Japanese leaders, saying that “we will gladly join hands” if Tokyo chooses dialogue.
The Trump administration urged Moon’s government not to abandon the agreement. Stephen E. Biegun, an American envoy, and Allison Hooker, director of Korea policy on the White House National Security Council, met with South Korean officials Wednesday to discuss North Korea and urged them to preserve the deal. The Moon administration did not tell the U.S. officials that it was on the verge of scrapping it.
U.S. officials are closely watching Moon’s latest move in the context of domestic politics and attempts to shore up support for him and his party, a senior administration official said. It will be difficult to encourage reinstatement of the intelligence-sharing agreement with the current administrations in Seoul and Tokyo, the official added.
The collapse of the deal comes at a particularly sensitive moment in the region. North Korea has conducted six ballistic missile tests in about a month, and Japan and South Korea regularly share analysis about such tests with each other as well as with the United States.
“Our hope was that it would cut down the time that the United States had to play the middle man on intelligence sharing in a crisis,” said Kelly Magsamen, who encouraged the agreement when she was the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in the Obama administration. “It’s absolutely essential. In a military crisis, such as a potentially hostile ballistic missile launch, we aren’t going to have time to play referee between Tokyo and Seoul.”
Analysts said that in the immediate term, both Japan and South Korea would be able to obtain important intelligence information about North Korean missile launches through the United States. But they noted that the South Korean withdrawal effectively prevented closer cooperation in the future.
“My main worry is not necessarily the intelligence loss, but the symbolic difficulties of ever restarting serious security cooperation again,” said Jonathan B. Miller, senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs.
Washington has long wanted both Seoul and Tokyo to work more closely to confront North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats as well as China’s growing influence in the region. U.S. officials have made repeated appeals for South Korea and Japan to mend the growing rupture between them.