U.S. Military Chief Urges South Korea Not to Quit Pact With Japan

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff called on South Korea to stay in a military information-sharing pact with Japan, part of a high-level U.S. push to hold together the agreement between two of its closest allies days before it is due to expire.

Gen. Mark Milley, who is visiting Japan and South Korea on his first overseas trip as chairman, told reporters on a military jet before landing in Japan on Monday that strong three-way military coordination was needed to face threats in the region.

“It is clearly in China’s interest, and in North Korea’s interest, to separate South Korea from Japan and the United States, and it’s in our interest to keep all three of them very closely aligned,” he said.

The agreement, introduced in 2016, allows Seoul and Tokyo to directly share intelligence, such as information on North Korean missile tests, rather than going through the U.S. South Korea surprised the U.S. and Japan in August when it said it would allow the agreement to lapse on Nov. 23 rather than let it roll over as in previous years.

Seoul blamed a breakdown of trust with Tokyo following a decision by Japan to tighten export controls on products used by South Korea’s technology industry, potentially damaging a major engine of the Korean economy. Japan said it took the action because of concerns the products could be exported to third countries that are security risks. It provided no evidence, and South Korea said it had sufficiently strong controls to avoid such exports.

The intelligence-sharing pact, known as the General Security of Military Information Agreement, has been used to exchange details of missile tests by North Korea even after South Korea’s decision to let it expire. U.S. officials stress the value of the speed at which the countries can share information under the agreement.

On recent visits to Seoul, David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, called for the agreement to be renewed.

Gen. Milley will meet his South Korean counterpart along with Defense Secretary Mark Esper in Seoul later this week.

Seoul and Tokyo are also embroiled in other disputes that have led to a near breakdown in diplomatic relations. In recent days, South Korea has sought to improve ties, first with a letter from President Moon Jae-in to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and then a brief meeting between the two men on the sidelines of a forum in Thailand.

But without a compromise by either side, it is unclear how the impasse over GSOMIA can be resolved. On Sunday, a South Korean official called on Tokyo to reverse its trade measures.

“If South Korea-Japan relations are normalized, our government has the intention of considering the extension of GSOMIA again,” South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong told reporters. Mr. Chung said Seoul would welcome cooperation from the U.S.

Tokyo has said the trade dispute and security measures shouldn’t be linked.

Gen. Milley said he was hopeful the countries would renew the agreement. “All countries operate in their own interests, and Japan and South Korea are no different,” he said.

“I think they both recognize they have mutual common interests when it comes to national security; they have common national-security problems to solve and they will be stronger together rather than separate.”