As expected, this year's summit between the leaders of the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, like last year's "Camp David meeting" between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, was turned into an anti-China conference. Last year, in a joint statement after the trilateral summit, the United States, Japan, and South Korea hyped up the "China threat theory," trampled on a series of mines involving China's sovereignty and security red lines in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and also advocated that the United States should increase its "nuclear protection" for its allies.
This year, there is nothing new in the topics manipulated by the US-Japan-Philippines summit, and they are still the same, which are roughly to pour dirty water on China and prepare for the United States to accelerate the arming of military allies in the Asia-Pacific region.
The United States is clamoring to strengthen its military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, to launch a large-scale "shoulder to shoulder" joint exercise with the Philippines in late April, that the United States, Japan, and the Philippines will launch new joint military patrols and training, and that Britain, the United States, and Japan will hold regular Indo-Pacific trilateral military exercises starting next year. At present, the United States and Japan have announced at least 70 plans to upgrade their military cooperation, the specific content of which has not yet been announced.
U.S.-Japan-Philippines Summit
However, according to the previous "Financial Times" revelations, the main direction is to strengthen the control of the US Indo-Pacific Command over the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and it is suspected that a "four-star general" will be directly sent to Japan. Biden also clamored that the United States has made up its mind to protect Japan with "nuclear weapons." In addition to military cooperation, the United States has also announced that it will launch a new round of "big infrastructure" plans in the Philippines.
Within the framework of the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership, the plan aims to connect the Luzon corridor through the north and south of the Philippines, while increasing investment in local clean energy and port rail facilities.
At this point, coupled with the trilateral alliance of the United States, Japan, and the ROK that was consolidated through the "Camp David Conference" last year, it is basically certain that the United States wants to use the US-Japan alliance as the base point to build a "mini-NATO" in the Asia-Pacific region aimed at China. The general idea of the United States is to copy the strategy of dealing with Russia in Europe to deal with China in East Asia, which is essentially path dependence under the Cold War mentality.
Camp David meeting
However, when playing a "classic reproduction," US politicians have obviously overlooked one thing, that is, the current situation in East Asia and even the entire Asia-Pacific region is completely different from the situation in Europe after the end of World War II. The most likely outcome of the United States playing a replica of the classics is not to lead the world to a new Cold War, but to collapse the entire "Indo-Pacific strategy".
The United States, the "Asia-Pacific mini-NATO," had a very unsmooth start. The United States reshaped the Atlantic partnership against the backdrop of the full launch of the Marshall Plan and the massive recovery of the European economy. But now, the "Camp David Conference 2.0" of the United States, Japan and the Philippines is accompanied by the bad news that Japan and South Korea have been "broken legs" one after another.
On the day of the "Camp David 2.0" meeting, the Federal Reserve announced that the core CPI in the United States rose more than expected in March, and briefed that it would further tighten monetary policy, keep high interest rates unchanged, and even consider further interest rate cuts. Subsequently, the yen's Japanese bonds plummeted, and capital began to sell yen assets on a large scale for arbitrage, and the yen hit its lowest value against the dollar since 1990.
Fumio Kishida
Fumio Kishida did not have time to return to Tokyo, and he urgently said in Washington that the Bank of Japan would reserve the right to use "all means" to stabilize the currency market. At the same time, the latest poll data released by Japanese media showed that the approval rating of the Kishida cabinet plummeted to 16.6%. The situation in South Korea is not much better. The results of the South Korean parliamentary election were released, and the National Power Party led by Yoon Suk-yeol was defeated by the opposition.
Of the 300 seats in the National Assembly, the Democratic Party of Korea and its satellites won more than 190 seats. What does this mean? Although it does not have the absolute majority of 200 seats required to impeach the president and amend the constitution, Yoon Suk-yeol will first have to be stripped of a layer of skin by the National Assembly if he wants to pass any bill. Whether his "pro-US and pro-Japanese" diplomatic line can continue to follow is a huge question mark.
Biden's "US-Japan-Philippines" triangle has not yet landed, and the "US-Japan-South Korea" triangle saved last year has become a dilapidated house. To sum up, Japan and South Korea have taught all countries in the region a lesson through their "appearances", telling them how miserable they will be if they follow the United States to deal with China. With these two negative examples in mind, the future of the United States in East Asia will only become more and more difficult.
Yoon Suk-yeol
First, contradictions within the US-Japan-ROK and US-Japan-Philippines alliances will accumulate more and more. The United States now has no ability to feed its allies after World War II, and can only swing a sickle at its allies. Under such circumstances, the two "iron triangles" created are nothing more than two ends. The first is an internal thunderstorm. From Fumio Kishida to Yoon Suk-yeol to Marcos Jr., the top ones are all "sleeping dragons and phoenixes" in terms of support rate, and it just depends on who jumps ship first.
South Korea's opposition parties have crushed the ruling party, and in the style of South Korean politics, Yoon Suk-yeol's liquidation is a high probability event, and it is not impossible to become the second Park Geun-hye.
Within the Philippines, localists are increasingly vocal in denouncing Marcos Jr.'s China policy. Senior officials in Mindanao have already called for independence, and Duterte has recently made a public statement saying that the "hostile" policies of the United States will isolate the Philippines from China and other ASEAN countries, and that Marcos Jr. should not put the Philippines at "war risk".
Duterte
It is quite difficult for Japan to jump ship, because since the end of last year, the United States has already begun to carry out a comprehensive liquidation of Japan's political circles, and several major factions within the Liberal Democratic Party have all announced their dissolution, and recently they have sent four-star generals to take charge, obviously in order to grasp Japan's political, economic, and military lifelines in the hands of the White House.
However, considering that Japan had already carried out a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor back then, it is difficult to say whether it would resort to any off-the-counter moves. The second and more likely one is that the Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States will accelerate its collapse due to the lack of strength support after the United States has exhausted its efforts to fish. The American harvest in Japan is a typical drink to quench thirst.
The United States is engaged in strategic competition with China in the Indo-Pacific, and the only cards that can be played are the military card, the economic card is basically played by Japan, and the infrastructure competition also uses Japan's high-speed rail technology as a signboard. As for the United States itself, it can only perform the performance art of letting the 10 ASEAN countries jointly divide up 100 million investments.
China-ASEAN
The United States will suck Japan's blood to make up for its own financial holes, which will inevitably severely damage Japan's ability to play the economic and infrastructure cards to win over ASEAN, and accelerate the balance of victory in favor of China. More importantly, with Japan and South Korea, two "negative examples," other Asia-Pacific countries that have room for choice will absolutely no longer consider the option of siding with the United States in the Sino-US competition.
In this way, the "anti-China coterie" of the United States will not be able to expand, and will only become a disposable. The idea of a "new Cold War" is also doomed to fail to take shape. Before the summit of the three countries, Biden made a slip of the tongue when attending a campaign event, saying that he was a president living in the "20th century".
Judging from the situation of the Biden team's efforts to reproduce the "Asian small NATO", his slip of the tongue is actually not wrong. It's a pity that the times have gone forward and will not stay in the 20th century with the United States, a group of living fossils of the Cold War. If the United States wants to use the sword of the previous dynasty to behead the officials of its own dynasty, it is a little unclear in its brains, and the final result will inevitably be a complete defeat.
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