Japan, U.S. & South Korea To Hold Summit On ASEAN Sidelines

Japan, the United States and South Korea are looking to hold trilateral talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit to be held in Cambodia next week, Yomiuri Shimbun reports.

• The meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Sung-yeol will be a show of solidarity amid North Korea's unprecedented barrage of missile launches, which included an ICBM test yesterday.
• The threat posed by North Korea has reshaped Japanese-South Korean relations, forcing them to put less emphasis on contentious historical antagonisms and deepen strategic defence cooperation, which included joint military exercises with the U.S.
• That being said, Yomiuri notes that while Japan and South Korea are considering holding an additional bilateral summit, but uncertain progress on disputes regarding wartime forced labour leaves the proposal hanging in the air.