Foreword
In June 2024, the United States Studies Centre hosted the inaugural Track 1.5 Trilateral Dialogue between representatives of Australia, Japan and South Korea (AJK). The dialogue was designed to advance the policy debate on trilateral approaches to shared strategic objectives while supporting Track 1 efforts in this space. This report summarises the outcomes of that dialogue, including major themes, debates and recommendations that emerged.
Executive summary
- Australia, Japan and South Korea share numerous strategic objectives, ranging from economic development to humanitarian and development assistance and regional deterrence.
- Trilateral engagement on these shared strategic objectives has the potential to generate synergies that allow AJK to achieve ends that might be difficult to achieve either bilaterally or in isolation, for example through building resilience, distributing risk and pooling influence.
- Given that AJK trilateralism is effectively ‘starting from scratch,’ initial trilateral efforts should be directed towards low-risk initiatives that will ‘work out the kinks’ of trilateral cooperation and establish habits of cooperation that will lay the groundwork for more ambitious initiatives. For example, trilateralism might initially favour informal, rather than institutionalised cooperation. Or it might focus on aligning national efforts — for example through coordination or deconfliction mechanisms — rather than jointly delivering projects.
- There are several enablers of AJK trilateralism that are likely to improve the cost-benefit calculus and prospects of success for AJK initiatives. These include shared national values around sustainable development and the rules-based international order; shared regional strategic interests around bolstering supply chain resilience and regional deterrence; growing political momentum in all 3 states for international cooperation in addressing regional security challenges; and numerous existing engagements between AJK — whether bilaterally or in larger multilateral fora — that would provide the institutional and cultural ‘backbone’ of a wider agenda of trilateralism.
- Barriers to AJK trilateralism also exist and would need to be managed. These include difficulties in achieving and sustaining trilateral consensus on managing relations with China; political constraints on trilateral engagement, including sometimes volatile Japanese-South Korean relations; and the multitude of competing political priorities of each state that will drain limited diplomatic resources.
Introduction
Indo-Pacific states are facing a deteriorating international security environment brought about by rapidly changing geopolitics and emerging non-traditional security threats including climate change, foreign interference and supply chain insecurity. States are looking to new forms of statecraft to meet these challenges, with ‘minilateralism’ enjoying something of a ‘golden age.’1 ‘Minilaterals’ — such as the Quad, AUKUS and the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue — are small coalitions of like-minded states collaborating on specific foreign and defence policy agendas, ranging from regional deterrence to the development of clean energy technologies to defence industry federation.
With minilateralism becoming a favoured tool in addressing regional challenges, trilateralism between Australia, Japan and South Korea (AJK) seems an intuitive enterprise. AJK share common values around freedom, democracy and the rules-based international order; they have numerous shared security interests; all are US treaty allies; and they all currently enjoy strong or improving bilateral relations. And yet, AJK trilateralism is underdeveloped: there are few experts or communities of practice specialising in AJK trilateralism; there has been little intellectual prosecution or policy positioning of the case for, parameters of, or use cases for AJK trilateralism; and those trilateral initiatives that are underway are infrequent, ad hoc and untied to a wider agenda of AJK trilateralism. These gaps in thinking, policy and practice are potentially holding back a torrent of productive, international collaboration between AJK in advancing shared regional interests.
With minilateralism becoming a favoured tool in addressing regional challenges, trilateralism between Australia, Japan and South Korea seems an intuitive enterprise.
To strengthen dialogue and advance the policy debate on AJK trilateralism and to support Track 1 efforts in this space, the United States Studies Centre hosted the inaugural Track 1.5 Trilateral Dialogue between representatives of AJK in June 2024. This dialogue built on the momentum generated by Australia’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with South Korea and Special Strategic Partnership with Japan; the 2022 Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation; Australia’s recent Foreign and Defence Ministers’ 2+2 meetings with South Korea and Japan; and recent improvements in Japan-South Korea relations to provide a new forum for 3 of America’s most important and capable allies to enhance coordination, strengthening ‘spoke-to-spoke’ ties and coordinating their resources in support of shared regional strategic objectives.
Importantly, the concept of AJK trilateralism that underpinned this dialogue was not about advancing novel foreign policy agendas or alternative international orders. Instead, trilateralism was viewed as a means to leverage growing Australia-Japan-South Korea relations in a multipolar Asia to advance shared strategic objectives around security, development and resilience in a way that complements and supports existing regional security architectures, in particular those formalised in the ANZUS Treaty, the US-Japan Treaty, and the US-ROK Treaty.
The dialogue was attended by approximately 50 representatives from Australian, Japanese and South Korean government, academia and industry, who undertook wide-ranging discussions on the state of and prospects for AJK trilateralism. This outcomes report summarises the main findings from this activity.
This outcomes report reflects the author’s account of the dialogue’s proceedings. It does not necessarily represent their personal views or the views of the United States Studies Centre. It seeks to capture the key themes, perspectives and debates from the discussions; it does not purport to offer a comprehensive record. Nothing in the following pages represents the official views of the Australia-Japan Foundation, the Australia-Korea Foundation, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, or any of the officials or organisations that took part in the dialogue.
The United States Studies Centre would like to thank the Australia-Japan Foundation and the Australia-Korea Foundation for their generous support of this activity.
The case for trilateralism
Throughout the proceedings the participants repeatedly interrogated the case for trilateral cooperation between AJK, for example asking what advantages trilateral AJK cooperation would have over other forms of statecraft, including through existing multilateral fora such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF); and why AJK should invest in this new modality given diplomatic resource constraints.
Trilateral cooperation was argued to have the potential to facilitate synergies, including establishing divisions of labour, risk sharing, building resilience, avoiding duplications of effort, pooling influence, and achieving economies of scale.
The case for AJK trilateralism widely mirrored the logic of minilateral cooperation elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific. Specifically, trilateral cooperation was argued to have the potential to facilitate synergies, including:
- Establishing divisions of labour. For example, AJK could collaborate on disaster relief in the Pacific Islands by leveraging Australia’s geographic proximity to the affected region to serve as a logistics hub while leveraging Japan’s and South Korea’s manufacturing capacity to rapidly produce necessary goods such as temporary shelters and portable power supplies.
- Risk sharing. For example, AJK could distribute the financial risk of investments in renewable energy infrastructure by jointly committing capital.
- Building resilience. For example, increased interoperability between the defence industrial bases of AJK — for example through co-production facilities or stockpile standardisation — could provide additional defence industrial capacity to each state in the event of a strategic shock.
- Avoiding duplications of effort. For example, AJK could coordinate their foreign aid efforts in Southeast Asia to minimise duplicate or redundant capacity building offerings, thereby optimising the use of limited aid budgets and the limited absorptive capacity of aid recipients.
- Pooling influence. For example, AJK could pool capital for infrastructure investment to achieve greater collective capacity to compete with Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) offerings and to shape regional FDI standards in favour of sustainable and ethical FDI practices.
- Achieving economies of scale. For example, AJK collaborating on renewable energy projects would allow for larger projects of higher capital investment that theoretically facilitate efficiencies in energy production.
These synergies would allow AJK to achieve ends that might be difficult to achieve either bilaterally or in isolation. At the same time, participants noted that restricting such cooperation to a few, likeminded states (i.e. AJK) would allow AJK to remain agile and achieve consensus in ways that may prove difficult with larger or more diverse memberships.
Principles of trilateralism
Having conceived a case for AJK trilateralism, the participants elaborated upon the principles that should guide trilateral cooperation in their discussions.
Start small
Participants repeatedly stressed the importance of approaching AJK trilateral cooperation incrementally, with initial efforts directed towards smaller, lower-risk initiatives. For example, trilateralism might initially favour informal, rather than institutionalised cooperation. It might focus on narrower and less politically charged issue sets. It might involve Track 2 participants or bureaucrats rather than senior political figures. Or it might focus on aligning national efforts — for example through coordination or deconfliction mechanisms — rather than jointly delivering projects. There were several advantages to this approach cited: smaller initiatives would allow AJK to “work out the kinks” of trilateral cooperation and gauge regional responses before investing in higher-risk initiatives; smaller initiatives would offer a proof of concept that can be used to sell higher-risk initiatives to stakeholders (domestic populations, other regional states, etc.); and smaller initiatives would build momentum and establish habits of cooperation that will lay the groundwork for more ambitious initiatives.
Participants also stressed that, where possible, trilateral initiatives should, at least initially, leverage existing mechanisms and institutions rather than attempt to “reinvent the wheel.” Participants noted that AJK are already doing lots of good work together, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, for example through the Minerals Security Partnership, Japanese-South Korean joint coastguard exercises, Australia-Japan cooperation on undersea cables, the Quad, the Australia-South Korea MOU on Development Cooperation, the G20, Japanese and South Korean participation in the recent Camp David Summit Meeting, the recently completed defence ministers’ meeting at Shangri-La, the Australia-Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement and increasingly frequent joint military exercises. These existing structures provide numerous opportunities to leverage existing mechanisms and institutions for trilateral ends.
Some participants argued that Australia, Japan and South Korea should not shy away from larger, higher-risk trilateral initiatives in the long term. The strategic interests of the three countries were seen as uniquely aligned and thus conducive to ambitious trilateral cooperation.
All that being said, some participants argued that AJK should not shy away from larger, higher-risk trilateral initiatives in the long term. The strategic interests of AJK were seen as uniquely aligned and thus conducive to ambitious trilateral cooperation. Some participants also made the point that more ambitious institutionalised multilateral mechanisms involving Japan and South Korea in particular are useful in that they “compel” Japan and South Korea “to sit down at the table together,” locking in recent gains in the Japan-South Korea bilateral relationship and making it resistant to future unfavourable changes in domestic politics.
Establish effective divisions of labour
AJK each enjoy comparative advantages in advancing shared regional interests, including geography, technology, relationships, resources, capital and experience. For example, in advancing humanitarian and economic development in the Pacific Islands, one participant noted that Australia enjoys a unique convening power in the region that could add value to developmental assistance efforts by Japan and South Korea. Accordingly, trilateral cooperation should establish divisions of labour that leverage the unique strengths of each state to achieve synergies and avoid duplications of effort. As outlined in the example above, a trilateral approach to disaster relief in the Pacific Islands may involve Australia coordinating logistics given its geographic proximity to the affected area while Japan and South Korea focus on mobilising their robust manufacturing bases to rapidly produce necessary goods such as temporary shelters and portable power supplies.
Importantly, participants noted that this division-of-labour principle applies beyond trilateral initiatives between AJK to AJK’s wider network of allies and partners. That is, AJK trilateral efforts should add value to or complement, rather than confound or compete with, initiatives of other allies and partners in the region, in particular the United States. For example, one participant stated that the United States was declining as a development partner of choice in Southeast Asia due to recent events in Gaza, leaving a gap that AJK might seek to fill.
Enablers of trilateralism
Participants identified several “enablers” of AJK trilateralism that are likely to improve the cost-benefit calculus and prospects of success for AJK initiatives.
Political momentum
Participants identified that AJK trilateralism is being made possible by the improving bilateral relationships between all 3 countries. For example, Japan and Australia recently finalised a Reciprocal Access Agreement. The Japanese National Defense Strategy also identifies its relationship with Australia as the “closest cooperative relationship” second only to the Japan-US relationship, while Australia’s National Defence Strategy “discusses Japan in the section talking about the United States … the first time [Australia has] absorbed another country into that section.” South Korea and Australia are increasingly cooperating on capability acquisitions, including recent Australian purchases of Howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles from South Korean defence manufacturers. And Japan and South Korea have made “huge advances” in their bilateral relationship, in particular through the outcomes of last year’s Camp David Summit.
Participants also observed that there is growing political momentum for multilateral solutions to regional challenges in Canberra, Seoul and Tokyo, creating the political space in which AJK trilateralism could flourish. Recent major strategic documents from all 3 states emphasise the importance of multilateral cooperation among likeminded states in addressing regional security challenges, including cooperation that extends beyond each state’s respective bilateral relationship with the United States. For example, the ‘multilayered network’ concept advanced in Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy.
Existing foundations of cooperation
As noted above, there are numerous existing multilateral meetings, agreements and initiatives involving Australia, Japan and/or South Korea: the Quad, the G20, etc. Participants identified 2 mechanisms through which this existing panoply of cooperation enables AJK trilateralism. First, it builds trust and habits of cooperation that reduce barriers to trilateral initiatives involving those states. And second, it offers proven multilateral structures that can be adapted for trilateral initiatives. For example, AJK could execute trilateral functions on the sidelines of existing multilateral fora in which they take part. Or AJK could expand existing bilateral initiatives to include the missing party.
Aligned values and interests
The national values of AJK are largely aligned, potentially increasing trust and making it easier to reach consensus on the means and ends of trilateralism. Shared values between AJK identified by participants included sovereignty, freedom from coercion and unilateral attempts to alter the status quo, strengthening and abiding by the rules-based international order, a free and open Indo-Pacific, regional peace and prosperity, collective security and sustainable social and economic development in the region.
Similarly, participants noted that the strategic interests of all 3 states are largely aligned, making it easier for AJK to set trilateral agendas that advance the interests of all 3 states. Shared strategic interests noted by the participants included bolstering deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, strengthening their respective alliances with the United States, promoting regional development, bolstering supply chain resilience, managing the effects of climate change, managing their respective energy transitions and developing their respective innovation and advanced technology industries.
Barriers to trilateralism
While generally optimistic about the prospects for AJK trilateralism, participants were conscious that challenges would likely arise in future AJK cooperative initiatives.
Pushback from China
Some participants raised concerns that AJK trilateralism, particularly in the defence domain, could provoke countermeasures by China, for example because it would “deepen China’s engrained suspicion that we’re here to encircle or contain them” or create an “Asian NATO.” In this context, some participants raised the exposure of their economies to Chinese coercive economic measures, in particular import restrictions.
The potential for pushback from China presents 3 barriers to trilateralism. First, it has the potential to complicate agenda setting as AJK will need to carefully craft trilateral initiatives that do not provoke unwanted responses from Beijing. Second, it has the potential to reduce the effectiveness of trilateral engagements with regional states, for example because those states may be unwilling to engage with the AJK trilateral if doing so would be “regarded as offensive by China.” And third, to the extent that AJK have different risk tolerances for confronting China, it will make it difficult to achieve and sustain trilateral consensus on the ways and means of trilateral initiatives that intersect with Chinese interests. Indeed, even within AJK there is not always a consensus on such issues, with one participant observing inconsistencies between the Australian Defence Strategic Review and National Defence Strategy on the extent to which Canberra is willing to “call out” China’s regional expansionism.
Domestic politics
Despite the seemingly widespread support for AJK trilateralism now, participants noted that domestic politics can quickly change the calculus of trilateralism in each state, potentially making it difficult to sustain trilateral projects and scuttling any progress that had been achieved to that point. Two vectors of the domestic political threat to AJK trilateralism were identified in the discussions.
Some participants raised concerns that Australia-Japan-South Korea trilateralism, particularly in the defence domain, could provoke countermeasures by China, for example because it would “deepen China’s engrained suspicion that we’re here to encircle or contain them” or create an “Asian NATO.”
The first is the volatility of Japanese-South Korean relations. Though participants repeatedly observed that Japanese-South Korean relations are improving, they also noted that they are vulnerable to sudden changes in domestic politics, for example due to historical and territorial issues.
And the second is the multitude of competing political priorities of each state, with those identified by participants including ageing populations, energy transitions, corruption, government debt, inflation and unaffordable housing. These competing priorities have the potential to stifle trilateralism by diverting limited government capacity from building the trilateral relationship.
Next steps in AJK trilateralism
The inaugural Track 1.5 dialogue was exploratory in nature, seeking to establish the basic contours of a trilateral AJK agenda. Leveraging the opportunity provided by this dialogue will require converting these insights into a clear, actionable agenda. Below are 3 steps required for doing so.
Investigate further the case for AJK trilateralism
There needs to be a clear case for AJK trilateralism before any such initiatives are pursued in earnest. This is both to justify the costs of developing trilateralism (diplomatic resourcing, geopolitical risk, etc.) to the respective elites and domestic populations of AJK while also demonstrating sufficient “urgency” to overcome inertia that favours existing multilateral concepts and ways of working.
The case for trilateralism advanced at the roundtable (detailed above) rested on the potential synergistic dividends of trilateral cooperation, for example in terms of risk sharing and achieving economies of scale. A fully developed case for AJK trilateralism will involve closer scrutiny of such expected synergies. Relevant lines of enquiry will include the following:
- What synergistic benefits will AJK trilateralism yield?
- Will these benefits outweigh the costs of developing AJK trilateralism?
- Is AJK trilateralism the most cost-effective way of achieving these benefits, or are there competing approaches (alternative multilateral fora, etc.) that are more suitable?
- In pursuing these benefits, can we reasonably expect to overcome the barriers to trilateralism (such as those identified above), or will they render trilateralism doomed to failure?
Investigate further the concept of AJK trilateralism
There needs to be a concept or model of AJK trilateralism established that is likely to find wide support and prove effective if deployed. In other words, we need to decide the form and function of AJK trilateralism that we are working towards. Questions of form will include: Who are the relevant actors? What levels of institutionalisation are most appropriate? On what timelines should these initiatives operate? And how should these initiatives be resourced? Questions of function will include: What foreign policy domains are most amenable to trilateralism? What is the appropriate depth and breadth of issue sets for trilateralism? And what are the deliverables of trilateralism?
This dialogue established the basic parameters of a concept of AJK trilateralism in terms of its principles, enablers and barriers. In terms of initial trilateral initiatives, major steers that emerged from discussions included the following: trilateral initiatives should be built around advancing shared strategic objectives; they should be modest in scope and leverage existing multilateral mechanisms; they should avoid politically charged foreign policy domains; they should avoid intersecting with Chinese interests; and they should complement (rather than compete with) regional initiatives pursued by other allies and partners, in particular the United States.
These parameters must be developed. Relevant lines of enquiry will include the following:
- How can AJK trilateralism best manifest the principles, leverage the enablers and manage the barriers identified?
- Are there any other principles, enablers or barriers worth considering?
After developing a concept of, and a case for AJK, attention can turn to mobilising the requisite political, financial and intellectual resources for its realisation. Steps in this vein will include identifying champions, cultivating communities of interest and identifying funding sources for trilateral initiatives.
Design, implement and evaluate pilot trilateral initiatives
With the previous steps completed, the AJK trilateral agenda can proceed to designing, implementing and evaluating pilot trilateral initiatives. Several use cases of AJK trilateralism were touched upon in discussions, with 5 receiving particular attention: regional deterrence, defence industry collaboration, trade agreements, alliance communications and humanitarian development assistance. These recommendations may prove instructive in designing pilot initiatives.
Regional deterrence
Participants observed that closer coordination between AJK in the defence domain could contribute to deterrence against regional provocations and efforts to alter the status quo, with joint military exercises being identified as a potential trilateral approach to regional deterrence. In considering any trilateral defence cooperation however, some participants were quick to point out that the respective bilateral security relationships of AJK with the United States remain the foundations of each state’s national security and will do so for the foreseeable future, though trilateral security cooperation between AJK could potentially add value to these bilateral relationships.
Overall, there was no consensus among participants on the viability of deterrence-oriented cooperation in a trilateral framework, for example through joint exercises. One reservation raised was that it is not possible to engage in substantive conversations or initiatives on regional security and deterrence without the United States at the table. Alternatively, other participants noted that regional states engaging in security cooperation without the United States may be useful in demonstrating regional opposition to China’s and North Korea’s provocations independent of Washington. This would counter narratives by Beijing and Pyongyang that opposition to their aggressive foreign policies is merely a contrivance of the United States.
Defence industry collaboration
Participants noted that defence industrial capacity is a concern for US-aligned states in the Indo-Pacific, especially given that future regional conflicts — for example in Taiwan or Korea — are likely to be protracted and held under the constraints of contested logistics. On this basis, participants recommended exploring trilateral cooperation in defence industry collaboration, for example stockpile standardisation, co-development and co-production of new weapons and ammunition and mapping complementarities in defence supply chains.
Trade agreements
Participants suggested that there was potential for trilateral trade agreements, particularly sectoral agreements around digital trade and critical minerals for example. One participant noted that there was a demand for new multilateral trade treaties due to “paralysis” in the World Trade Organization and supply chain insecurity. Another expressed optimism for negotiating trade agreements in a trilateral framework, observing that trade agreements often started with small groupings of likeminded states and could, as demonstrated by the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, succeed even without the participation of the United States.
Participants suggested that there was potential for trilateral trade agreements, particularly sectoral agreements around digital trade and critical minerals.
Lobbying the United States
Participants noted that trilateralism might be a useful vehicle for communicating shared preferences, where they exist, with the United States, as it would amplify the voices of all 3 states. While such coordination between Japan and Australia in particular is not new, for example through the Japan-Australia 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations, bringing South Korea into the fold could bring greater collective pressure to bear on US foreign policy. Participants identified several domains in which there was likely a sufficient convergence of preferences between AJK to at least explore joint representations to the United States, including in strengthening multilateral regional mechanisms such as the IPEF, strengthening US commitments to regional economic development and development assistance, and strengthening US extended deterrence.
Humanitarian and development assistance
Participants suggested several areas of humanitarian and development assistance that may benefit from a trilateral approach, including coordinating disaster response, coordinating foreign aid policies, deconflicting national foreign aid efforts, collaborative research and de-risking to encourage private sector financing in the Global South, and co-financing critical infrastructure.
There was widespread support among participants for trilateralism in humanitarian and development assistance, with participants noting several enablers to trilateral cooperation in this domain. First, trilateral cooperation in humanitarian and development assistance would be less politically charged than cooperation in other domains like defence or industrial strategy, reducing the risk of disruption due to Chinese backlash or unfavourable changes in Australian, Japanese or South Korean domestic politics. Second, there are already strong traditions of multilateral cooperation in humanitarian and development assistance involving AJK, for example through the Quad and the G20 development track, providing existing frameworks that can be leveraged for trilateral efforts. Third, there is increasing demand for more efficient and cost-effective humanitarian and development assistance, for example due to domestic political pressures to reduce foreign aid budgets and the significant investments required to meet regional development goals. Reaping economies of scale in humanitarian and development assistance through trilateral cooperation provides one theoretical pathway for achieving this. Fourth, there is increasing demand for more effective and impactful humanitarian and development assistance, for example due to concerns that foreign interreference, misinformation and proxy wars thrive in underdeveloped regions. Reaping the synergistic dividends of trilateral cooperation in humanitarian and development assistance by establishing divisions of labour and avoiding duplications of effort for example, provides a pathway for achieving this.