Page 86 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

(Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States
partnership) as well as increasing cooperation between NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and both South Korea
17
and Japan. These efforts support a free and open IndoPacific
and success in strategic competition as well as providing
deterrence against attack. Most importantly, South Korea,
Japan, and the U.S should expand trilateral military exercises
to improve interoperability and enhance readiness.

Next, South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. should follow-
through with an integrated missile defense system that is
fully operational at all times. Cooperation has been growing
over the past two years and the three nations should continue
18
to finalize an integrated structure. The success of Israel’s
defense against Iran’s missile and drone attacks can be
attributed to its integrated and effectively layered air and
missile defense system with the U.S.

Third, China must be held accountable for its malign activities
on the Korean Peninsula. These include the complicity
in North Korean human rights abuses with the forced
repatriation of refugees, the use of North Korean laborers,
hosting North Korean cyber activities, providing support
to sanctions evasions, allowing North Korea to proliferate

17 Prashanth Parameswaran, “Minilateralism, ASEAN Centrality and Indo-Pacific Institutional Flux
Amid Strategic Competition,” The Wilson Center, April 4, 2024, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/
minilateralism-asean-centrality-and-indo-pacific-institutional-flux-amid-strategic
18 Department of Defense, “United States-Japan-Republic of Korea Trilateral Ministerial Joint Press Statement,”
December 19, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3621235/united-states-
japan-republic-of-korea-trilateral-ministerial-joint-press-statem/

Chapter Five : “Three No’s” Times Two: China’s North and South Korea Policy 85