Recently, global attention has been focused on the China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit.
After experiencing several years of economic difficulties and this year's currency devaluation, are Japan and South Korea beginning to realize the changes in the situation?
Are they ready to change direction?
Some describe Japan and South Korea as being bound by chains.
So a key question emerges: under what circumstances will the United States withdraw from Japan and South Korea?
In other words, with the changing situation, is the United States no longer as dominant, and do China, Japan, and South Korea have the opportunity to restart cooperation?
Over the past decade, East Asia has missed the largest development opportunities in history.
In 2009, China first proposed the idea of establishing an East Asian community at the East Asia Summit.
At that time, the East Asian concept included five countries in Northeast Asia and 15 countries in Southeast Asia, with a total population of 1.7 billion and a GDP of $19 trillion.
This is comparable in scale to another EU.
In 2009, the EU's population was only 441 million, with a GDP of only $14.76 trillion.
So, what caused the interruption of the process of East Asian economic integration?
Let's briefly review this history.
In 2010, China's economy surpassed Japan's for the first time, ranking second in the world, which aroused the alertness of the United States.
Major US think tanks and government departments began to view China as a potential competitor and even constantly propagated the China threat theory.
As a result, East Asia became a closely watched focus area for them, followed by a series of events.
In 2012, Japan provoked the Diaoyu Islands dispute, with Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro directing the drama of purchasing the Diaoyu Islands.
Japan hyped up the "nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands," intensifying tensions between the two countries.
In November 2013, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first proposed the "pivot to Asia" strategy, explicitly stating that the United States would pay more attention to the Asia-Pacific region, especially in terms of military investment, and that the future strategic focus of the United States would shift to Asia.
In 2016, the United States collaborated with South Korea to orchestrate the dispute over the deployment of the THAAD system, directly leading to a sharp downturn in China-South Korea relations.
In 2017, Trump took office. Faced with China's rapid rise, various means were difficult to contain its development.
Therefore, in August 2017, the United States launched a large-scale trade war.
The trade war was not Trump's invention, but the common will of the entire US capitalist class.
It was a strategy to suppress the world's second-largest economy, so no matter who serves as the US president, they will adopt a trade war.
In addition to the trade war, Trump also launched the "decoupling from China" strategy, attempting to transfer China's supply chain to friendly countries such as Vietnam and India.
In 2021, Biden took office and further escalated this strategy.
Biden, while retaining the foundation of the trade war during the Trump era, upgraded the "decoupling from China" to "decoupling plus nearshoring," focusing on investment in Canada and Mexico, these two neighboring countries.
Over the past few years, China has successively lost its largest trading partner status with the three North American countries.
In addition to escalating the trade war, Biden also launched a tech war and financial war.
Moreover, he upgraded the original Asia-Pacific strategy to the Indo-Pacific strategy framework, extending the "island chain concept" to the economic field, launching a comprehensive suppression and encirclement of China.
As the two most important allies of the United States in Asia, Japan and South Korea have been forced into the American chariot and played a crucial role in the "decoupling and chain-breaking," tech war, and financial war.
For example, the core of the tech war is chips, and Japan and South Korea's chip industries have always been deeply involved in America's wars.
Another typical example is the Asian currency war that began in April this year, in which Japan and South Korea also directly participated.
Some experts believe that the sharp depreciation of the yen was the fuse of this round of financial war.
Therefore, the deteriorating relations among China, Japan, and South Korea in recent years are due to the need for the United States to return to Asia and contain China's development, all of which are planned by the United States.
Behind this, Japan and South Korea are subservient to the United States and do not have complete sovereignty.
This stems from the fact that the United States has nearly 300,000 troops stationed in the Asia-Pacific region.
The United States has about 53,000 troops stationed in Japan, has the most important military bases in the Asia-Pacific region, and is also the home of the US Seventh Fleet.
The US has about 27,000 troops stationed in South Korea, and according to the US-South Korea Security Treaty, the northern border of South Korea is still protected by the US-led "UN forces."
As long as the US troops do not withdraw, it will be difficult for Japan and South Korea to get rid of US control.
So under what circumstances will the US withdraw troops from Japan and South Korea?
This question is not only of concern to us, but I believe it is also of concern to the Japanese and South Koreans.
Currently, the US troops stationed in Japan and South Korea are not only powerful, but also supported by relevant treaties, so it is impossible to withdraw them all at once.
Therefore, the only possibility is that the US military is forced to withdraw, such as the US decision to withdraw from Iraq a few months ago, because the United States believes that it is no longer profitable there and has suffered heavy losses and had to withdraw.
If the US military is to be forced to withdraw, either the national strength of the United States declines significantly, and it is unable to continue to maintain large-scale military presence in East Asia, or Japan and South Korea unite like the Middle East to force the US military to withdraw.
But both of these situations are unlikely to occur in the short term, at least within the next decade.
Therefore, although the China-Japan-South Korea summit may improve the economic environment in East Asia to some extent, the establishment of an East Asian community may be difficult to achieve in the next decade, which is a regret for Japan and South Korea.
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