Rapprochement in Northeast Asia can stabilise the region

North Korea's overtures to the international community towards peace and reconciliation have warmed otherwise frosty relations between the Northeast Asian powers, pulling their often conflicting foreign policy priorities together towards the common goal of peace in the North Pacific. The US-Japan-South Korea triangle has primarily focussed on security cooperation, underwritten by the US military presence in the region and its deeply institutionalised alliances with both Asian partners. The main themes of summit diplomacy will remain in low-political arenas, such as environmental cooperation, sociocultural and people-to-people exchanges, and trilateral negotiations on a comprehensive regional free trade agreement. In bringing Japan and South Korea to the same table under the mitigating umbrella of trilateral cooperation, the summit builds important channels of communication between the estranged natural allies at the heart of the United States' strategic position in Asia.