Biden meets Pacific allies as Russia-North Korea ties deepen

U.S. President Joe Biden told the leaders of Japan and South Korea that their coordinated efforts were essential to “countering North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia” as they met Friday on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Lima, Peru.

“I truly believe cooperation of our countries will be a foundation to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific for many years to come,” Biden said.

The meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol follows shortly after North Korean troops started traveling to Russia to bolster Vladimir Putin’s forces as he wages war against Ukraine.

Russian forces and equipment have been strained by more than two years of fighting, and North Korea has already provided missiles to aid Russia’s incursion. U.S. officials downplayed the likelihood of a major announcement in response to the deployment during the meeting, indicating that instead the allies would look to coordinate multiple policy responses over time.

“I look forward to furthering our partnership in response against North Korea, and in many other areas,” Ishiba said.

Separately, North Korea has accelerated its ballistic missile testing, with White House aides saying in recent days that they are bracing for the possibility of a nuclear weapons test around the presidential transition.

In a joint statement released after the meeting, the leaders said they planned to share real-time data about ballistic missile launches and to strengthen defense capabilities. The three countries also plan to expand joint efforts to counter North Korea’s hacking programs.

Chinese president Xi Jinping also made a veiled reference to the development in the Korean Peninsula when he met with Yoon on Friday in Lima. Noting “a lot has changed” in the region in the past two years, Xi said Beijing and Seoul should continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation in a bid to make contributions to regional stability “no matter how the situation changes,” according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV.

Beijing has remained muted on North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia, although it is getting increasingly uneasy at the budding alliance between its two neighbors.

Ahead of the meeting, White House officials said they wanted to formalize the trilateral gathering as a tradition that lives on into President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. Biden invested heavily in improving diplomatic relations between the two U.S. allies during his tenure, including with a Japan-South Korea summit hosted at Camp David last year.

“I do have some measure of confidence that that kind of initiative, properly institutionalized, can endure and be sustained through the next administration and the one beyond that and the one beyond that,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday.

Biden acknowledged the looming transition, noting it would likely be his last time meeting with the leaders and saying they had reached a “moment of significant political change.”

Trump sought to cultivate warmer relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first stint in the White House over a series of historic summits. But those talks ultimately failed to yield a deal halting North Korea’s nuclear program.

Friday’s meeting took place a day ahead of Biden’s planned bilateral with Xi, where the pair are expected to discuss regional security issues and the transition.

(Jing Li and Michelle Jamrisko contributed to this report.)