It is possible that the full bill of post-Iran War security will be unpopular with voters in South Korea and Japan. Instead of a costly arms race, which requires South Korea and Japan to steeply increase their defence budgets, segments of the public may favour seeking a separate peace with China or North Korea.
South Korea is more likely to consider this option than Japan. If Seoul seeks peace with Beijing, China will unambiguously dominate the region.
Japan’s population is unlikely to accept that. But South Korea might. The South Korean left is deeply suspicious of the US and Japan, whom it views through a post-colonial rather than alliance lens, and the left is now in power. It wants detente with North Korea and a commercial relationship with China, not confrontation.
As US power extends in the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East, less is left over for Asia. The Iran War makes this painfully clear.
East Asia’s democracies increasingly face a fork in the road which US power can no longer paper over: Either South Korea and Japan cooperate to forge a regional balance of power, or they accept and accommodate Chinese regional leadership. This will be the dominant question of their grand strategy debates over the next decade.
Robert Kelly is a professor of political science at Pusan National University. He writes a monthly column for CNA, published every second Monday.
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