National flags of South Korea, USA and Japan
6:00 JST, May 18, 2024
Japan’s coast guard plans to hold a joint exercise with the United States and South Korea coast guards in the Sea of Japan in early June, according to sources close to the government.
It will be the first trilateral coast guard exercise between the three countries. As China and Russia increase their confrontational stance towards the United States and Europe, the three countries strive to ensure maritime stability and security of the sea area under the rule of law.
The leaders of Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed at a trilateral summit at Camp David in August to establish a new trilateral maritime security cooperation framework. Following the agreement, the coast guards of these countries signed an initial memorandum of understanding earlier this month confirming that they will work to strengthen cooperation.
According to the sources, they are making arrangements to conduct the trilateral exercise off the coast of Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, on June 6. The planned trilateral exercise will see U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats and drones join the joint Japan-South Korea military. search and rescue exercises that the two countries have conducted since 2007. The Coast Guards strive to improve interoperability between their patrol boats, surveillance vessels and aircraft through search and rescue exercises, communications exercises and other exercises.
The three countries will not only hold the trilateral exercise regularly in the future, but also deepen cooperation in the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) initiative to help Southeast Asia and Pacific island states strengthen their maritime security capabilities and detect suspected track ships by collecting maritime data.
Behind these efforts to strengthen cooperation lies the continued threat of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and the moves by China, which continues to expand aggressive military activities in the East and South China Seas, to show off its close ties with Russia.
In a related example of multilateral cooperation, the coast guards of Japan, the United States and the Philippines held their first trilateral maritime exercise in June 2023 off the coast of Mariveles in the northern Philippines, on the South China Sea.
