With ballistic missiles regularly flying close by, Japan and South Korea need little reminder of the threat that North Korea and its nuclear weapons pose to its neighbors. But a dramatic revival of a Cold War-era mutual defense pact during Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's visit to the North's capital Pyongyang this week has ratcheted up pressure on some of the hermit kingdom's closest neighbors.
Mr. Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed that if one country finds itself in a state of war, the other country will provide military and other assistance with all its resources without delay. The agreement was released Thursday by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Analysts were still sorting through the text of the agreement to understand how far it would extend, either to Mr. Putin's war in Ukraine or any future conflict on the Korean peninsula. But the pledge, along with hints that Russia could help bolster North Korea's ongoing push to build its nuclear capabilities, rattled officials in Tokyo and Seoul.
Mr. Kim has grown increasingly hostile toward South Korea, and this year he abandoned a long-held goal of reunification with South Korea, but that has not been possible. Now he describes the South as the only enemy that must be subdued, if necessary, by nuclear war. And it has frequently test-fired its ballistic missiles toward Japan, demonstrating North Korea's provocative stance against its former colonial power.
Mr. Kim's alliance with Mr. Putin, analysts say, will exacerbate tensions in Northeast Asia by deepening the divide between the Democratic Partnership between the United States, South Korea and Japan, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. North Korea and the independent camp. China on the other hand.
“This is bad news for international efforts to prevent North Korea from advancing its nuclear and missile technology,” said Koh Yu-hwan, former head of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Unification Studies.
Mr. Putin's long war in Ukraine has led him to deepen ties with Mr. Kim. U.S. and South Korean officials say it has ordered and received Soviet-grade munitions from Pyongyang – allegations denied by both Moscow and Pyongyang.
The war in Ukraine has spread widely across the region. “Today's Ukraine could be tomorrow's East Asia,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kushida has often said.
“We are deeply concerned about the fact that President Putin has not ruled out military-technical cooperation with North Korea,” Yoshimasa Hayashi, Mr. Kishida's chief cabinet secretary, told a news briefing in Tokyo.
South Korea strongly criticized the deal, saying it was “sophisticated and absurd” for North Korea and Russia – which have a history of starting wars on the Korean Peninsula and Ukraine respectively – to strike first. Pledge military cooperation under assumption. .
“We emphasize that any cooperation that directly or indirectly helps North Korea strengthen its military power is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” the South Korean government said in a statement. violates and should be subject to international monitoring and sanctions.” He also vowed to strengthen defense cooperation with the US and Japan to counter North Korea's nuclear and missile threat.
In addition, South Korea plans to review its policy of not providing Ukraine with lethal weapons for use in a war with Russia, said Chang Ho-jin, national security adviser to President Yoon Seok-yul.
In some respects, the meeting between the two authoritarian leaders, both desperate for outside support, provided little relief for the US and its Asian allies, who have been bracing for increased security in recent years. Provided an I-Told-You-So-So moment. It has faced challenges from North Korea as well as China, and at times domestic political heat to do so.
“I think it shows how dignified President Biden, President Kishda and President Yoon were in spending political capital,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said in an interview. “It was correct not only from a political point of view but also from a strategic point of view because now Russia and North Korea” are developing weapons together.
At this fraught global moment, the revival of the Cold War-era mutual defense pact between North Korea and Russia has alarmed other countries in the region.
“What I think is more alarming is that this relationship will be more long-term than we might have initially thought and that it will be more of a transaction,” said Bruce Klinger, a senior research fellow in Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation. Can be more strategic.” “We don't know the parameters of how far each country will go in supporting the other,” Washington said.
At the very least, it shows that Russia is willing to outright reject UN sanctions.
“It wasn't that long ago that Russia was supporting UN sanctions on North Korea,” said James DJ Brown, a political science professor at Temple University's Tokyo campus who specializes in relations between Russia and East Asia. Have skills. “So this confirms that Russia is not only implementing the sanctions itself, but is actively undermining them and will help North Korea evade sanctions.”
In Seoul, the meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim was likely to revive the debate over whether South Korea should consider arming itself with nuclear weapons, as well as begin to assess if What can happen if Donald Trump is re-elected as the President of the United States?
Cheong Seung-chang, director of the Center for the Korean Peninsula, said it was time for South Korea to fundamentally review its current security policy, which is almost entirely dependent on the US nuclear umbrella to counter North Korea's nuclear threat. . Strategy at Sejong Institute.
In a sense, the growing ties between Russia and North Korea could help strengthen trilateral cooperation with the United States, along with the recently revived ties between Tokyo and Seoul. Many analysts have expressed concern that a change of administration in the US or South Korea could jeopardize these relations. (Japan is considered relatively stable.)
“In some ways it justifies the continuation of tripartism when the Trump administration comes in or the progressives in Korea,” said Jeffrey Horning, a senior political analyst specializing in Japan at the RAND Corporation in Washington. ” “While it doesn't change what Seoul or Tokyo should do, it certainly adds a new element that they have to consider.”
But an editorial in Seoul's left-leaning daily Hankyure questioned the wisdom of closer cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea, saying it had put South Korea “in permanent conflict with China and Russia.” have put in, which are two countries. It is time to consider whether this shaky style of diplomacy between North Korea and Russia It did not influence the development of the relationship.
Despite the drama in Pyongyang this week, some analysts said the biggest worry for the region is China's growing military ambitions.
Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat and special adviser to the Cannon Institute, said, “A naval buildup in the East China Sea or the South China Sea or in space and cyber and a multi-domain war capability — all these justify our new policy. ” for Global Studies in Tokyo. Mr Putin's visit to North Korea, he said, was “just another example, and not the biggest example, of the dangers in Asia”.
Kyoko Notoya Contributed reporting from Tokyo.